How to Make Yourself Stand Out from the Drilling Job Seeker Crowd

Like Liam Neeson in “Taken,” you have a very specific set of skills. But your skills are a little different than the movie. Your skills in oil drilling make you part of a unique industry with highly specific demands.

Unfortunately, you’re not alone. There are others out there who share those skills, which means you’re in direct competition with people like you for the best drilling jobs.

How do you make yourself stand out?

Treat It Like a Business—A Business With Competition

Landing the right job in the oil industry means your life improves. It could mean hundreds of thousands of dollars in a lifetime income boost—maybe more. You may not know it yet, but you’re the CEO of a business. And that business is landing you an oil drilling job.

Treating your career like a business means that you should:

• Take the time to update your resume. Hire a professional resume polisher if need be; if $100 lands you a 10% raise, it will be the best investment you ever made.
• Do plenty of research. Doing your homework, applying for new jobs—these aren’t anyone’s idea of fun. But if you do just a little bit daily and treat your job seeking like a job in and of itself, you’ll get more consistent results.

Learn What Recruiters and Companies Are Trying to Do with Their Hires

In the book “Recruit or Die,” a book of advice for companies competing for talent, a central point is made: companies are really selling themselves to you. No, it probably doesn’t feel that way. But if you can use this insight to understand what kind of drilling employees these companies are looking to sell themselves to, you’ll stand a better chance at standing out from the crowd.

Consider it market research: by finding the companies that are looking for you, you’re matching your own product (in this case, yourself) to the target demographic (oil companies).

How do you do that? Here are a couple of tips:

• Learn the landscape. Who are the companies that are hiring in your field and your area? Drilling jobs can come at a premium, so if you better understand which companies are looking for people of your skill, you can better target your resume to suit the position on offer.
• Write down some numbers. Salary, benefits, etc. This doesn’t just mean your desired salary—because your own estimations can be far off from the reality of the market. Look at what people are actually earning so you set realistic expectations.

No matter if you’re looking for physical, on-site jobs, engineering jobs, or want to work as a driller, your approach to standing out from the crowd should be the same: treat your job-hunting like its own business and understand that companies are your “customers.” The more you market to them, understand their needs, and reach out to them, the better your options will be.