Clastics wrote:
You didn't really ask a direct question, but I'll give you some general advice about Energy and in particular the O&G industry.
1) There are a lots of different industries or sectors embedded within "Energy." They operate very differently and have their own cycles, job functions, compensation structures, and other characteristics. It's on you to understand the industry enough to discern between these different sub groups. At a high level: Oil & Gas exploration/production, EPC (projects design), midstream/transport, generation, alternative energy (research/manufacturing) in solar or wind.
2) Many aspects of "Energy" especially O&G exploration/production are especially volatile. This isn't the first major downturn and it won't be the last. You can either stomach the volatility or you cannot.
3) There are definite risks to O&G E&P like there are to many other disciplines in many other industries. Your skills may become antiquated or your industry no longer relevant. Nobody on a message board can tell you whether this will or will not be an issue. Read the IEA, BP, Exxon, Shell, etc energy forecasts.
4) There is no reward without definite risk. Mark Zukerburg took incredible risks in starting facebook and he entered an area where others thought he would fail. If you want a "safe" career do not enter O&G or alternative energy, enter generation or some other industry besides "energy." If you want to take your chances, some of the Energy industries may work out well for you.
5) Industry, especially those tied to energy, have a lot of respect for those that are willing to go out into the field and "get their boots dirty." By this I mean "management minded engineer" means jack **** at this point. Go out there and make a contribution to the projects, understand what is going on and become an expert in something... before you go for a position telling others what to do. The heads of most of the major energy companies spent their first 5 or 10 years out in the field working as engineers ... or operations supers ... or chemists ... or some other function. Build that competency and build that network first. There are a million MBAs in the world... and we don't treat many of them all that well in O&G (engineers get paid more, lead the actual projects, get the foreign assigments, and often populate the leadership ranks). That's not to say that an MBA may not be useful, but it is most useful when paired with an operating or technical knowledge base (we work on very expensive technical problems which require this knowledge).
Thank you very much for your reply! I really appreciate it.
Well, as you understood I could seem a bit confused and in fact I am!
1) I am more interested in Oil companies like Shell, ExxonMobil, Aramco and also Service like SLB and EPC (I'm currently doing an intern in a big American epc)
The thing is that I realised too late what I would like to do. I started engineering because I wanted to work in the automotive, then I realised I was not very interested in that field and Oil & Gas was more interesting for me. This was around 2014-2015, I was an undergrad student in a good university in Italy but almost unknown in the rest of the world so I improved my gpa, got the toefl and got an admission at one of the best technical universities of Europe and the best of the Netherlands. Here there are several HQ's of different O&G and Chemical (which I am also carefully looking at) companies (SLB, Shell, CB&I, Aramco etc) so this was the best choice.
In the meantime I did other extra-curricular experiences and I worked in student associations with people from bschools and I discovered management consulting & investment banking and my ideal career path is to start as engineer on site (because I have basically no chances to start in the investment banking/big 4 right now) get some experience and step by step get more responsibilities, apply for an MBA and turn into consulting or IB
but always something related to investments in the energy sector or continue the career in a company.
Before finishing my Master I will apply at HEC Paris for their summer school in Energy and Finance not because it could help me for a job (probably they won't even care) but only for education and networking.
I am open to risk, I don't care if I will stay miles and miles away from home, but I also have to start somehow and asap! that is why I am also considering Chemicals in case they will offer better opportunities and less volatility.
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