Oil Rig Jobs

The benefits and salaries attract more and more people to sink their teeth into entry level rig jobs. Only a few of those people stay on the rigs and the vast majority falls out due to various reasons. If you think you’re tough enough to work in the hardest conditions, you will find these vacancies a great experience.

An oil rig is like a floating village. Everybody knows each other and in such conditions they learn how to take care of each other. It’s like the army, you’re have to cover each other’s backs, because the situation could go south any minute. The money is great and if you can work with only a handful of people around you for weeks on end, it will definitely be worthy of your efforts.

The basic job that most people, who are now sitting on various levels of the rig hierarchy, started out in is the roustabout position. Roustabout job vacancies are almost always open on off shore drilling installations due to the high level of staff attrition. It takes a special type of man to do this kind of job year in and year out. It’s not for everyone and those who think they can handle the pressure will find out their limits sooner than they’d expected.

Oil rig roustabout jobs require a person who can operate under direct supervision. If you take such a job, you’re going to be the muscle and your boss, most often the driller, will be the brains of the outfit. Roughnecks are often mistaken with roustabouts but their responsibilities are fairly different from that of a roustabout.

The roughnecks are like the non-coms in the army, they tell you to put two pipes together, you do it quickly, efficiently and safely. Like a private in the army, your job is to do what you are told. Your job will also include painting, maintenance, rust scrubbing, and cleaning; basically anything that needs to be done but doesn’t need any experience. Roughnecks, on the other hand, are more skilled workers. There is some overlap between the two jobs, but they do piping, maintenance and other skilled work than the guys one step below them on the hierarchy ladder.

These jobs are just to kick-start you in your career once you’ve found out which drilling rig is hiring. To be hired you need to prove that you don’t wait for others to do something for you and are willing to get anything for yourself. Pick up the phone, and call agencies, companies that work in the upstream sector. If you take things into your own hands you are almost guaranteed to be able to pick between oil rig vacancies.

‘How do I become an off shore driller?’ you might ask. There is nothing simpler than that; you accept employment on oil rigs as a grunt and work your way up from there. Once you’ve spent a year in oil rig roustabout jobs, you’ll ‘know the drill’ without any pun intended. Most people who operate the machinery and the bits are people who started out on the bottom of the food chain and worked their way up from there.

The money is great, you work for six months and you have six months off. While on the rig you may work two weeks on rig and have two weeks off on the shore. Other companies may differ from this, but as a general rule of thumb, you are not required to work for more than three weeks in a row. Very rare cases, like some exploratory drillships or survey ships, may require a six on/six off schedule. The days are long and the job is hard, but you work twelve hours a day for 14 days before you have a two week vacation. You work 168 hours a month. There are many white collar jobs with longer hours than that but with a lower salary (e.g. entry level IT jobs, doctors on their housemanship, law interns, etc.)

The pay is exceptional, for six months worth of work you’re looking at a paycheck of $35,000 to $45,000 and the retirement benefits on oil rigs are often better than on the shore. Full dental, health and vision care, life and health insurance is the norm. So is the dorm room on site and the food. With all these benefits the $40,000 paycheck immediately seems bigger. And don’t forget that some offshore work entitles you to additional tax breaks (both federal and state). Remember to consult your accountant or tax lawyer. They cost money, but if you work offshore you can make it back in spades.

Most entry level oil rig jobs need no experience off shore, but the companies listing them would like to see that you recognize a screwdriver. For more specialized jobs you may be required to show relevant certification or licensing. For some jobs, like oil rig welding, you may need to undergo a test. Other semi-skilled jobs, e.g. motorhands, may also need to prove that they’re experienced in their respective fields. While experience on an off-shore drilling installation is preferred, it is not always required.

When applying for an offshore oil rig job, writing a cover letter is necessary. However, many people find the task of writing cover letters and resume very stressful. This stress, in return, causes them to make many mistakes, causing them to look careless or incompetent to the recruiter. Seriously, now, if you were operating an oil rig that cost several billion dollars to build and a million dollars a day to run, would you hire someone who could not be bothered to write up a decent cover letter and resume with no spelling or grammar mistakes? To avoid making obvious (and stupid) mistakes, look for a good sample cover letter for an entry level position in the oil patch. Substitute your personal information and tailor your previous job experiences to fit the same format. The more experience you have in go-getter roles the better it is, but it’s not the CV that is going to get you the job. It’s your persistence and will to land the job that counts and you need to make the companies see that.

Apply to multiple places simultaneously, because some of the listings may be outdated, or some may require someone for a future job. Call contractor companies that work for the big oil companies and ask if they have anything going on at the moment. Even if you are a fairly skilled worker recently laid off, you may want to go for a roustabout position. If you can work in wind, rain and snow, you will be able to see paychecks that many white-collar people with high level formal education need to work decades for.

The life on the rig is demanding, but if you can get along with your colleagues, there is nothing that will stop you from earning a good living; better yet, you get to enjoy it for six months out of every year. In fact, that is exactly what many unmarried offshore oil rig workers do. During their extensive time off, they go on vacation, traveling to far off places.

Due to the high attrition in these fairly low-skilled positions the oil companies are always hiring but you need to know where to find the positions. Look around both online and offline, and write an appealing cover letter and CV that contains only the necessary information and nothing else. Keep it short and simple and make the most important points jump right at the reader, i.e. the recruiter and the hiring manager. Also don’t be shy to talk over the phone because the vast majority of the positions are filled in this way. Which brings up an important point: if you have a soft, breathy, girly-sounding voice, take the time to fix it. Regardless of what the judges and lawyers say, working on an offshore oil platform is a man’s job. If you want to get hired, make sure you sound like a man.

Basically, the employers like to see that you are serious about this field and you are not afraid to get what you want. That’s the type of worker they’re looking for.

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