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Employer Tips

Welcoming the Trailblazer!  Hiring for a Newly Created Position 

With new employment in our industry remaining strong, and with increasingly specialized technology, employers have to create positions for individuals with skill sets new to the company’s talent pool.  This situation can create special challenges for both the new employee and the organization, because neither is quite sure how to include both the new employee and skills into an effective team.  Expectations to perform well are high for both.  We thought now would be a good time to talk about some insights and factors to consider.

Lacking infrastructure!  If the company ends up not quite ready on the first day, the new employee may find his or her desk to be in the copy room with no phone or computer.  This situation can be handled with a bit of good humor and positive attitude!  But, it may actually be necessary for the new specialist to select the hardware and software best suited to effective performance.  What adjustments to the usual infrastructure have to be made?  The new employee in a first-time role should expect to roll up his sleeves at first.  This can be disruptive to a new employment relationship if these needs have not been agreed in advance; that first week could feel very much like baptism by fire.

The job description is a “work in process”!  Especially if the new employee arrives as the first of a skill group, a clear job description may be lacking.  The employee will want to assist in preparing one, which can be challenging, especially if the job evolves into something different from how it was presented during the interview.  This can be overcome through constructive communication between the supervisor and the employee to arrive at clearly defined expectations.

Nobody to talk to!  The new employee needs to begin to understand the company’s culture.  The position is newly created, and the newcomer brings skills that may not be understood by the rest of the organization.  There may be hesitance by the staff to help the newcomer.  “What can I do?  I don’t know his business!” or “I am too busy myself…isn’t the new person here to help us?”  From the first day, the employee should be assigned a mentor to help introduce the company and the new hire to each other.

In-house invisibility!  A new employee must connect to the rest of the organization as quickly as possible.  Creating bonds will ensure that a new person will become embedded.  The responsibility for doing so lies with both the individual and the employer.  The organization can help by providing low stress opportunities to get to know people, such as luncheons and team building meetings.  This will create a good basis for the new member to find out what the colleagues expect of him or her, and it will establish an internal network to establish credibility.

Unrealistic expectations!  Expectations should have become clear during the interview process, but hiring managers may have been focusing on only the new skill sets.  Disappointments can be avoided by writing down projects and by having team discussions regarding everyone’s responsibilities.  Throughout the first months, it should be accepted that the new employee is on a “getting to know” curve.

Workload creep!  It is normal to consider a new person another resource for existing workloads.  The new specialist employee will be taking on responsibilities natural to his or her skill area.  Avoid the temptation to pass over a lot of work that has not been able to get completed by others.  A balance between passing on some undone work and accepting the new technologies might be just the right way communicate that old and new are both “pitching in”.  

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Talent Pool

The following biographies are just a small sampling of the kind of talent available in our talent pool of 14,000 experts.  Please call our placement managers if you are interested in learning more about these professionals, or check out our website for more candidates.

Senior Geologist with more than 25 years of experience in oil and gas exploration and development and environmental compliance in the oil and gas industry.  Capabilities include development geology, reservoir characterization, mapping, reservoir management, log analysis, risk management and uncertainty analysis, and formation evaluation.  Experienced in coal bed methane, tight gas sands, and fractured shale with waterflood and CO2 experience.  Computer literate with demonstrated proficiency in several scientific and engineering programs such as GeoFrame, and Halliburton Stratigraphy module, including database administration and management in Oracle, Access, and UNIX OS.  Ask for G207.

Corrosion Engineer with a bachelor’s degree in materials engineering and 28 years of experience in corrosion engineering. Areas of expertise include materials selection and design, metallurgy, inspection, mechanical integrity, nondestructive testing, and risk assessments. Additional experience and expertise in coatings, cathodic protection, and corrosion consulting.  Ask for F630.

Purchasing Professional with a bachelor’s degree in accounting and 18 years of experience in the purchasing field. Areas of expertise include procurement of heat exchangers, manual valves, instrument valves, flow instruments, pumps, rings, fittings, and other refining equipment. Additional experience in purchasing and estimating direct labor and material cost for fabrication and subassemblies. Computer skills include SAP R/3, Oracle, MANMAN, Ariba, SalesLogix, and Millennium.  Ask for PU66.

Certified HSE Professional with a master’s degree in industrial safety and 29 years of experience in the safety field. Areas of expertise include exploration, production, and transportation safety management. Additional experience in preparing safety management plans, orientation manuals, emergency preparedness and response plans, evacuation plans, security plans, health plans, and operations integrity management systems.  Ask for HS232.

Drilling and Completions Engineer with a bachelor’s degree in petroleum engineering and over 30 years of experience working as a consultant for independent oil and gas companies. Experienced in drilling, completion, and production operations onshore and offshore, including horizontal and multi-lateral wells, frac-pack and gravel-pack applications, and preparing AFEs. Geographic areas worked include the Gulf coast region and mid-continent. Has computer skills using all Windows applications including ME & XP Pro, Petroleum Information Power Tools, various petroleum reporting software, and various casing and drill string design software.  Ask for DP250.

Petroleum Engineer with a master’s degree in petroleum engineering and over 20 years of experience. Highly skilled at reservoir simulation/reservoir engineering (black oil, compositional, and fractured reservoirs and dual porosity and dual permeability models). Geographic areas worked include the United States, Europe, Russia, Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa. Computer skills include Eclipse (100 and 300 fractured and compositional), SAPHIRE, GAP, PROSPER, and MBAL.  Ask for R131.

Petroleum Engineer with a bachelor’s of science in petroleum engineering and over 25 years of technical and management experience. Skilled at SEC reserve reporting, acquisition/disposition evaluations, reserve determination and valuation, risked economics, stimulation design, and petrophysical, pressure transient, and PVT analyses. Geographic experience includes the Gulf of Mexico (deepwater and shelf), the Gulf coast, the Permian Basin, south Texas, Arkansas, California, and Mississippi. Computer skills include ARIES (Windows & DOS), OGRE, Prophet, Pansystem, Welltest, Automate, Eclipse, FloGrid, PI/Dwights, Lexco – Owl, Toolkit, QLA2 - Open Hole Log Analysis, and Microsoft Office.  Ask for R571.

Reservoir Engineer with a PhD in mechanical engineering and 30 years of experience working for major E&P and service companies. Skilled in reservoir simulation, reservoir modeling, reservoir characterization, and teaching and training of engineering professionals. Geographic experience includes onshore and deepwater Gulf of Mexico, California, Alaska, Mexico, Russia, Trinidad, Venezuela, Western Siberia, the Caspian Sea, and the North Sea. Computer skills include Eclipse, Landmark VIP, PEEP, WELTEST, and SAPHIR.  Ask for R534.

Managing Information in a Transitioning Industry

Knowledge management systems facilitate the exchange of information within a company and, in some instances, within the industry.  The more efficiently information and technology are shared, and the results used, the more effective an organization can be.  That efficiency translates directly into dollars.

Most people consider knowledge management in the context of sharing best practices and lessons learned.  Benefits have been gained via global communication of drilling results, completion technology, fluids research, and other specialized technology areas.  But, the volume of other information gathered even within a company is sometimes orders of magnitude greater than the time required to assimilate, understand, and analyze it.  Compare it to doing a search on the Internet on a technical topic such as Sarbanes-Oxley (Eight million hits).  How do we manage all of the information we collect and see that it is used and transferred?  

The large service companies have invested heavily in systems that enable companies to capture, share, and apply overall knowledge in real time, like having ten geologists looking at the same real-time log and sharing expertise on the results.  This is an example of a “Community of Practice.”  These communities can be intra-company or inter-company and may be the way of the future in knowledge management.  Advances in technologies that are not proprietary might be able to be shared among companies in such industry-wide communities.  

The Society of Petroleum Engineers supports a series of communities called Technical Information Groups (TIGs).  These blogs allow members to informally exchange information.   Because of the bimodal age distribution in the industry, there are often questions from the youngest age group and responses from the older age group.  This in itself is a combination of technology transfer and mentoring in the vein of knowledge management.  

In addition, and perhaps most important, is the application of knowledge management principles to the transition of people within the company and the industry, from position to position and from company to company.  Some would call this transition protection.  It is the preparation for transfer of knowledge, not in terms of technology, but in terms of specific information about oil and gas fields and wells.  How many times have we heard that the new geologist has to review and redo the field or that the reservoir engineer must recheck all of the data in a field?  How much of that “redo” is due to lack of trust or lack of documentation?  

Sarbanes-Oxley, among other events, has caused an expansion and policing of documentation, certainly on the reserves side of the business in public companies.  But, it is still smart business to manage the specific information about our assets in a way that makes our fewer employees more efficient.  A solid system for asset documentation and control is as important to geoscience and engineering information as documented facility plans are to operations.  It takes some investment, but in the long run, we can accomplish more with fewer.   And, careful documentation sets an example for newer technical people to follow…..a legacy mentor.

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About Us

Connecting the Industry's Experts...

Collarini Energy Staffing Inc. is a full-service agency specializing in the placement of energy and EPC personnel and including the disciplines listed below (other supporting personnel are managed upon request):

Accountants and finance personnel Administrative and clerical personnel Business analysts Civil and architectural engineers Drilling engineers Drilling operations supervisors Executives Geologists, geophysicists, and petrophysicists Health, safety, and environmental personnel Human resources personnel Instrument and electrical engineers IT professionals Land, legal, and supporting personnel Materials and corrosion engineers

Naval architects Operations supervisors Pipeline, riser, and subsea engineers Process engineers Procurement engineers Production engineers Project managers and support personnel Quality control and inspection personnel Reservoir engineers Sales and marketing professionals Technical writers Technicians, drafting and graphic Technicians, engineering and geoscience

Reservoir Solutions the Industry Trusts...

The Collarini Associates petroleum engineers and geoscientists specialize in evaluating oil and gas reservoirs. Specific projects include integrated field studies, acquisition evaluations, independent reserve appraisals, and exploration and exploitation prospect generation and assessment. Our full divestment services include creation and hosting of electronic and physical data rooms in addition to the technical evaluation. Our teams in Houston and New Orleans are very experienced and stand ready to help you on projects of any size. Try us!

Guiding Careers to the Next Level...

Collarini Career Management applies its deep understanding of the career paths of technical professionals in the E&P and EPC communities to help companies and professionals build successful organizations and careers. We leverage Collarini's unique combination of industry knowledge and technical expertise to guide companies and individuals during transition, training existing employees for high performance, and designing customized technical training plans for companies and individuals.

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Contact Us
11111 Richmond Avenue, Suite 126 Houston, Texas 77082 832.251.0553		4200 South I-10 Service Road, Suite 230 Metairie, Louisiana 70001 504.887.7127

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