Drilling Rig Jobs - How Do You Know If the Job Offer is Real?

By Calvin Loh

Wherever and whenever money comes into the picture, you should expect to find misinformation and scams. Recruitment for drilling rig jobs as well as other jobs in the oil and gas industry is no exception. How do you know if the job advertised on an employment website is real? How do you even know if the website itself is real (besides the biggies like Monster or the corporate websites of the oil giants like Shell, BP, etc.)? And by the way, do you know that some conmen use job offers to con job seekers out of their money?

I can already hear some people saying: "We'll be fine if we stick to Monster and the large corporate websites of well-known oil companies." That's fine. I'm sure all your competitors will be very happy to have you out of the picture. The problem with sticking only to Shell's corporate website (or their rivals like BP, Exxon Mobil, etc.) is that most of their job postings are for upper level executive positions. This is where they advertise vacancies like those for Regional Sales Manager. They do not advertise entry level jobs. In fact, they almost never hire workers for their oil rigs, preferring to outsource the operation and hiring to service companies like Schlumberger, Transocean and Halliburton.

Some of you are probably already saying: "Then we'll just go to these (Schlumberger, et. al.) websites." That's... nice. Unfortunately, they only or mainly advertise positions requiring a college education. They rarely if ever advertise vacancies for jobs like roustabouts, painters or scaffolders. If you do not have at least a relevant diploma or associate degree, you do not stand a chance.

If you want to get employed, you need to look at smaller subcontractors who do the real work for the oil service companies. You need to also look at employment websites besides Monster. But once again, we are back to the same old questions:

• Is the website real?
• Is the vacancy real?
• Is the offer real?

Let us start with the first question: Is the website real? The website of a real company should contain its contact information. This should include a physical address and a phone number. If you look at Halliburton's corporate website, you can see an example of this on their contact page. CareerBuilder, too, has full contact information on their website. On the other hand, some companies like Monster and HotJobs seem to be too arrogant and cannot be bothered to provide their physical address.

You may be wondering: Why is the physical address and phone number important? Because most scam websites never publish an address. Even if they do, the addresses are fake in most cases. In other words, you can use this information to track down a real company by cross-checking its published address against what you find in the phone book. You should also call the published phone number against the number listed in the phone book. Before you ever give up any of your personal information, you should verify whether or not the oil contractor or employment board is a real company.

Moving on, the second and third questions can be handled together. Unfortunately, there is no fool-proof way to tell if a advertisement or even job offer is genuine. All we can do is play the odds by educating ourselves about the likely salaries in the oil industry. That way, we can make an informed guess about the offered job. Here are some salary data gathered around 2003 to 2005:

• $150,000 or more: Head office management
• $100,000: Toolpusher
• $70,000 to $90,000: Mud engineers, Medics, Driller, Assistant Driller
• $50,000 to $60,000: Roustabouts, Painters, Scaffolders, Radio operators, Derrickman, Cooks, Stewards

Despite the recent recession, oil salaries remain relatively high, especially for offshore oil rigs. If someone offers you an entry level drilling rig job with a salary around $50,000 to $60,000, it is still believable. But a roustabout job for $100,000 is unlikely, not unless the price of oil jumps much higher, let's say above $200 per barrel.

Besides an overly high salary, a surer indicator of a job scam is when they ask you for money. It does not matter what they call it, whether it is a processing fee, admin fee, training fee, fee to expedite special documentation, fee for the compulsory medical checkup, equipment fee, etc. A real employer does not ask you for money before you even start work, especially in the lucrative oil industry.

Of course, once it reaches the stage of an actual job offer, you should verify the existence of your prospective employer. Ask for the name of the oil service company, the physical address and the contact phone number. Verify everything against the phone book and make sure you sign the contract at the listed address.

If you are looking for offshore drilling companies, learn more by visiting http://oilrigjobs.calvinmarketing.com/blog/ Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Calvin_Loh