A new report released last Wednesday by the Institute of Directors has indicated that the shale gas development could create thousands of jobs, reduce imports, generate significant tax revenue and support British manufacturing.

The report Getting shale gas working, supports the view that shale gas will be both economic and environmentally beneficial.

Colin Taylor who is the Senior Economic Advisor at the IoD and author of the report said:

“Shale gas could be a new North Sea for Britain, creating tens of thousands of jobs, supporting our manufacturers and reducing gas imports. Further exploration will be needed to assess the size of technically and commercially recoverable resources. At the same time, partnerships need to be established between industry, government and communities to ensure that development of this vital national resource benefits local people.”

The IoD report claims that:

• Investment in shale gas could peak at £3.7 billion a year which would support 74,000 jobs.  This would allow jobs to be created in parts of the country, such as the North-West which has been badly hit by the recession.
• Shale gas will not only support geologist and drilling specialists but also construction workers, cement manufacturers and people working in local retail and service industries.  The report also claims that shale gas could support the chemical industry and wider manufacturing.
• Shale gas production could generate significant tax revenue.
• By 2030, shale gas production could reduce gas imports by up to 37%.

The IoD findings claim that global emissions will also be lower if the shale gas supports the production of chemicals and other goods in the UK.

Read the full report here.

Life expectancy in the UK is increasing however many of us are saving less into pensions.  Last October, the government introduced workplace pensions and most individuals will be automatically enrolled.  Am I automatically enrolled?

If you were enrolled you, you’re employer and the government will pay into it.  Having a workplace pension makes saving easier and will allow you to keep living the same standard of life when you retire. 

If you opted out of the workplace pension do you have a plan b? It’s never too early to start thinking about your retirement.

Here’s how the workplace pension works;

• Every payday a percentage of your pay is automatically put into the pension scheme for you.
• There are 2 main types of workplaces pensions;

1.       Defined contribution pension schemes

Your employer will chose which pension provider to invest your money into.  When you retire, the amount you receive will depend on:

• How much has been paid in
• How long you’ve been paying in
• How well the investment has done

Nearer the retirement age, the pension provider generally moves your money into lower-risk investments; if this is not done automatically you can ask your pension provider for more details. 

2.       Defined benefit pension schemes

These pensions are also known as ‘final salary’ or ‘salary-related’ pensions.  These pensions will give you a certain amount each year when you retire, the amount doesn’t depend on investments.

How much you get will depend on how long you have worked for your employer and your salary, the pension scheme administrator can give you more information.

• You pay a percentage of your earnings into the scheme, your employer will also contribute and the government will give you tax relief.  Saving couldn’t be easier!

So, if you have opted out of the workplace pension scheme you may want to think about re-joining.

Starting your pension early will give your money time to grow, ask your employer about your workplace pension scheme today.

OilCareers.com will be exhibiting at the Offshore Technology Conference from the 6-9 May 2013 at the Reliant Centre in Houston, Texas.

OilCareers.com is giving one lucky visitor the chance to win VIP deluxe weekend tickets to the NASCAR AAA Texas 500 – so it could be more than just your career gathering speed thanks to OilCareers.com!  Don’t miss your chance to win a NASCAR experience of a lifetime by visiting us on Booth #2241-H at OTC 2013.

The Offshore Technology Conference was founded in 1969, the event is held annually at the Reliant Centre in Houston.  OTC is one of the world’s biggest oil and gas conference’s held for the development of offshore resources in the fields of drilling, exploration, production, and environmental protection.

OTC attracts over 80,000 attendees from over 100 countries and has over 2,500 exhibiting companies every year.

We look forward to meeting you.

The UK Government has relaxed the immigration rules allowing businesses within the oil and gas industry to employ skilled foreign workers.  This news gives the oil and gas industry a boost to help fill specialised engineering jobs from out with the EU Zone.

The Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) has advised the immigration authorities to add the twenty new engineering job categories to the Shortage Occupation List (SOL).  The new additions added include mechanical, production and electrical engineering occupations.

Jill Turner, Immigration and employment law expert said; This is really good news for the oil and gas sector which is finding it difficult to recruit specialist engineers. The Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) has listened to the concerns of employers and has taken steps to make it easier for firms to recruit outside Europe.

“Clients tell me one of their biggest challenges is being able to fill key jobs when bidding for or landing a contract and this creates uncertainty and undermines long term planning and business growth. ”

“MAC have acknowledged that there is a shortage of specialist skills in Aberdeen which is vital to the oil and gas industry and that it’s not possible to train people for those posts in the short term.

“In the last four years 100 job categories have been removed from SOL and it is relief that a so-called sunset clause has been ruled out because this would have made it easier to axe more posts and would be detrimental to recruitment in the energy sector.”

The SOL list is a record of jobs which are in demand and are not affected by the strict immigration rules which can often make it difficult for employers to hire skilled foreign workers.  This change will allow businesses within the oil and gas industry to feel secure that they will have the workers to meet the required demands of the jobs.

Jill Turner, expert on Employment and Immigration law.  Visit Jill Turner’s profile page.

Marketing is a rapidly changing field, highly technology reliant and regularly evolving into new concepts with a plethora of keywords. However, the principles and justifications for marketing generally stay the same. We as marketing professionals want to do one thing well, communicate. The common misconception is that sales, brand awareness and all the other marketing benefits are the only consideration. They are not, they are just the end result of communicating in a way which demonstrates understanding of the environment and the understanding of those who you want to hear and understand your messages. What that ‘something’ is can be pretty much whatever you want it to be; a new product or service, a brand message, a customer service campaign, a job advert. Or a job application?

When a hiring manager or recruitment professional decides on recruitment activity (the advertising and positioning of the advert, selling the company and package etc) they do so using a number of highly specific marketing principles, whether they know they do this or not is another question but I suspect some do not. They will have been briefed about what personality is required for any given role, what sort of skill set is required, what qualifications that person is likely to have and what level of prior experience is needed. The result of this is that they already have their perfect candidate in their head and the job spec and advert is written based on this image. Their job is to communicate the requirement in the best way possible to ensure the return on investment is as close to ‘the perfect candidate’ as possible.

So how does an applicant market themselves?

Your personal marketing plan is something which you might not have given much thought to but with every application, you as the candidate wittingly or unwittingly engage in the very same marketing principles. At least half of all failing applications do so based on the poor understanding of how to market yourself as a candidate to the specifics of the role and organisation as opposed to overall unsuitability.

When you decide to apply for a role, you and the recruiter enter a unique marketing relationship where you both need to communicate the correct messages in order to achieve what you both want, a successful hire. As the candidate your primary focus should begin with the job specification, you must research and identify the industries, companies, cultures and roles that you will be suitable for and will enjoy, these are your targets. Discipline here often pays off, if you can ensure you spend more time writing applications to organisations you are interested in and for roles that you will enjoy then your applications will be natural and honest and more transparent.

Marketers target their communication; they design content for specific demographics of their customer base that is designed to elicit a response. Ensuring you re-write your CV and cover letter to address the specific qualifications and experiences (make use of keywords) established in the job advert is important. However, highlighting individual achievements within specific tasks and experiences that will prove your performance levels were higher than the average is how you ensure the recruiter selects your CV to read in more detail. You do not need to list your all-time greatest achievements just emphasise the ones relevant to this role. Ensuring any online presence matches your written application is important for consistency; if you received marketing communications that presented a different message in one medium than they did in another, you would be disappointed.

Make the most of your network, using job boards is a great way to make a professional public profile however if you don’t regularly update the information and engage with people via these platforms, they stagnate and will have to be hastily fixed when the time comes to make applications. Making the most of your network can be a great inroad to a position that you would not normally have been able to identify. Furthermore you need to measure what is working and what is not. If you get the chance to ask for feedback then do so, but make sure you take it on board and address it for future efforts.

So finding a job is marketing then?

Communication is the key to you achieving success in your job search. You must present yourself as the best solution to the problem for that organisation (the problem being the open vacancy). If you are guilty of applications with a ‘one size fits all’ CV and cover letter clichés such as the ‘determined individual’ or surprise surprise; ‘I am a good communicator’, then you should reconsider your tactics.

My challenge to you is to change your job hunting habits, to prove yourself with communication and marketing principles that focus on quality not quantity. If you limit the number of applications you make but spend the same amount of time making the few as you would making the many, you will allow yourself to find the right opportunity. Read more into the role, research the company culture, identify the areas of responsibility you can excel at and credibly highlight and present a relevant application that is harder to ignore. Alternatively, you can run the risk of becoming the ‘spam marketing’ of applications, the unsolicited and unjustified attempt that only goes down as poorly targeted and poorly communicated. Ultimately, forgotten.

Matt Thomas is Marketing Associate for Quarsh, a leading RPO and Talent Warehousing organisation. He regularly contributes to the Quarsh Blog on matters such as social media and employer branding.

OilCareers.com Launches New Job Search app

The new OilCareers.com app is now available to download for free from the iTunes app Store. The app is compatible with all iPads, iPhones and iPod touches. In less than twelve months OilCareers.com has seen its mobile traffic drastically grow from 7% to 17.3% of total traffic – that’s more than 1.6 million visits.

The OilCareers.com app delivers the fundamentals of job hunting. It enables job seekers to search jobs by keywords and location, browse jobs, read job descriptions, then save favourites and email them to their inbox.

Managing Director, Mark Guest, said: “As the world’s most popular oil and gas recruitment site, we’ve spent years understanding job seeker behaviour and the job hunting process. This new app is a powerful tool for any job seeker. It has an easy to use interface giving job seekers another way to access up to 20,000 live vacancies while on the go or offshore.”

According to the Mobile Marketing Association Asia, more people in the world own a mobile phone than a toothbrush! Get downloading now. Click here to download the new OilCareers.com app.

The OilCareers.com team are making their way back from exhibiting at Adipec, in Abu Dhabi, which is organised by dmg :: events. This year’s show has been the busiest and most successful ever. Our stand featured an innovative Traffic Lights Party design, which asked if you were Red – I love my job, Amber – Excite me and I’ll consider it, or Green – I could be just what you’re looking for. This was a real talking point. It was a pleasure to meet hundreds of new candidates, as well as candidates who have already used OilCareers.com successfully to find roles within oil and gas companies.

On the final day, a delighted lady came over to thank us. She had spoken to us on day one of the show, registered on OilCareers.com and within hours she had been contacted by a recruiter, invited for an interview during Adipec – and landed her first job. It’s so gratifying to meet candidates and share their experiences. Congratulations!

Our Managing Director, Mark Guest, sat on the panel at the Society of Petroleum Engineer Conference addressing The Importance of Human Capital. He joined distinguished speakers from BP, Schlumberger and Saudi Aramco.  He shared unique market insight into job seeker behaviour, recruitment trends and the future of mobile technology.  Did you know that more people in the world own a mobile phone than a tooth brush?

The Adipec Awards recognised the companies who go the extra mile in terms of innovation, strategy, technology and corporate social responsibility. People are at the core of their success. We experienced some amazing culture thanks to the dmg :: events team, who put on a fantastic display for a global audience.

We appeared on Dubai City 7 TV and Dubai Eye radio. To watch Dubai City 7′s special Adipec show featuring Mark Guest, click here. Thanks to everyone who helped make our time at Adipec a pleasure and a success.

The OilCareers.com team will be exhibiting on stand CN012A at the Abu Dhabi International Petroleum Exhibition and Conference (Adipec), which takes place between 11-14 November in the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Center (ADNEC), Abu Dhabi, UAE.

The President of the UAE, His Highness Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, is patron of Adipec, and Ali Rashid Al Jarwan, CEO of Adma-Opco is Chairman of Adipec 2012. Adipec is supported by Adnoc, the UAE Ministry of Energy, the Abu Dhabi Chamber of Commerce plus the Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority and sponsors include the world’s leading oil and gas companies.

The grandstand area of Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre will be split into three: a 4,000-sq.-metre marquee housing specialist products and services for the offshore and marine oil and gas sectors, an open-air section for heavy-duty machinery, equipment and vehicles, and a VIP area for industry decision makers and local dignitaries. Altogether the outdoor exhibition space at Adipec 2012 will exceed 10,500 sq. metres, more than ten times the outdoor space allocated to the 2010 show, according to organisers dmg::events.

The vast Offshore and Marine Hall, located within walking distance from Adnec’s main atrium, will host over 90 companies involved in exploration and production offshore, including Adnoc Group, Drydocks World LLC, National Marine Dredging Company, Rigmarine FZC and Thuraya Telecommunications Company.

The purpose-built tent will also contain the first ever UAE Oil and Gas Museum, complete with rare artefacts, historical documents and decommissioned equipment donated by companies involved in the country’s oil and gas sector over the last 70 years.

“Adipec has been growing and evolving since the first event in 1984,” said Kimon Alexandrou, Commercial Director of dmg:events. “The 15th Adipec will be the first to have a large-scale outdoor complex serving both the onshore and offshore sectors, developed in response to the considered feedback we’ve received from exhibitors and visitors.”

“The technical sophistication and specific character of offshore exploration and production and marine engineering demanded a unique space for the industry, while the open-air section allows visitors to inspect first-hand cutting-edge solutions much too large for typical exhibition venues,” Alexandrou said.

The outdoor zone in front of the Adnec grandstand will have more than 20 exhibitors displaying the heavy duty vehicles and hardware used in modern-day oil and gas E&P, both onshore and offshore, such as Caterpillar, HB Rentals, National Oil Well Varco, Top Oilfield Industries Limited, and Weatherford Bin Hamoodah.

Also outside, away from the visitors visiting the indoor halls, will be the Middle East Petroleum Club, a discreet venue for Adipec’s most distinguished guests, complete with uniformed attendants and five-star cuisine from Etihad Airways.

“Deals valued at more than US$4 billion were secured at Adipec 2010. With even more exhibition space in 2012, and more opportunities for quality networking, the 15th edition of the show has even greater business potential,” added Alexandrou.

Adipec is the largest oil and gas event in the Middle East and the third biggest worldwide, attracting more than 1,600 local and international companies, 45,500 visitors from 91 countries, and hosting 13 national pavilions.

A major Oil & Gas Careers Fair to assist people leaving the UK Armed Forces to find new jobs will be taking place tomorrow at the AECC in Aberdeen [30 October].

In excess of 1,000 people who are scheduled to leave the Royal Navy, Army and Royal Air Force in the near future had the opportunity to speak directly to representatives from circa 50 companies representing industry sectors such as energy and oil & gas. Many attendees have recently completed tours in Afghanistan and a large number travelled from various military locations to be at the fair at AECC and get more information on the job opportunities available in the offshore sector.

The event was organised by the Career Transition Partnership (CTP), which is a partnering agreement between the Ministry of Defence and Right Management. The CTP organisation provides resettlement services including career advice and guidance, training and links to employment for Armed Forces personnel about to leave the Services. They also offer a no cost recruitment solution to organisations seeking to employ leavers of the Armed Forces.

Some of the companies who exhibited at the Aberdeen event were Aker Advantage Ltd, Shell UK, Oceanrig, Petrofac, Maersk and SSE, plus many more. Vacancies on offer on the day included opportunities for; Engineers – covering a broad range of disciplines, Mechanics, Technicians, Logistics Specialists and Project Management amongst many others.

Romana Grant, Regional Employment & Training Manager for the CTP in Scotland said “The oil and gas industry is growing again in the range of opportunities offered and needs the right people with the right skills to make sure that it can continue to meet the demand for technical skills in the future. Military Service leavers can offer a wide range of these necessary skills to employers”.

She advised that the CTP regularly host a number of employment fairs and company presentation events throughout the UK and in Germany, in order to allow Service leavers to find out about job opportunities in particular geographic areas or specific industry sectors.

The event was delivered in partnership with Oilcareers.com who commented “It is well documented that the oil and gas sector faces immense skills shortages and we’re delighted to be supporting Career Transition Partnership. This event provides an invaluable opportunity to talk to ex-armed forces personnel about the range of opportunities to transfer their skills, and carve out a rewarding career in this vital industry. With up to 20,000 vacancies globally, OilCareers.com is the world’s most popular oil and gas recruitment site.”

The event was also supported by a number of Veteran charities such as Poppy Scotland SPVA and The Royal British Legion.

Military Service leavers offer a wide range of transferable skills and relevant experiences to prospective employers. Companies seeking to recruit from this skilled group of individuals can do so by registering and advertising their job vacancies free of charge on the CTP’s job finding website RightJob. This is accessed by a highly skilled and experienced talent pool of Service leavers. RightJob can be accessed by following the link on the CTP website at www.ctp.org.uk

OilCareers.com invest over £1m in a Global marketing strategy to insure we continually attract new Oil and Gas candidates and we are the “Giant in Oil & Gas Recruitment”

This week, we are launching a new radio advertising campaign which will air in Houston on KTRH – Click here to listen to our new US Radio Campaign!.  OilCareers.com head of marketing, Karen Scott, said: “As the world’s most popular Oil & Gas recruitment site, we are dedicated to connecting the right people with the right jobs.  Radio is a fantastic medium for connecting with a wide audience.  The theme of our new campaign is “Supersize Your Career “which will capture listener’s attention while they are driving in the car or listening at home.”

Have you had a bad day in the office? Are you looking for a change? Would you like to earn more cash? With over 20,000 vacancies from the world’s largest Oil & Gas employers, and recruiters, there’s never been a better time to register your resume on OilCareers.com and start searching for your next career move.  We have a diverse range of exciting opportunities including Drilling Engineers, Geoscientists, Mechinists, Analysts, Document Controllers, Administrators Assistants and much more.  For your chance to Win an iPad register now!

Click here to listen to our new US Radio Campaign!