Alberta Oil Careers

Category: Job Help

  • Having a Successful Interview – Tips to Help you Get the Job

    After you submit your resume to your potential employers the only thing standing between you and a new job is an interview. In this guide we will teach you how to have a successful interview and land your dream job.

    Having a successful interview is a key role in landing your dream job so you had better be prepared. Here are some tips and approaches for successful interviewing from preparing for the interview to following up with the interviewer.

    Before going into your interview you should always prepare first. You should research the company on the internet and learn about their background, their policies, and their plans for the future. If you do this you will be ready for the questions “What do you know about our company?” and “Why do you want to work with us?” Knowing as much as you can about the company beforehand can make your interview more interactive and may just give you the leg up on your competition.

    Practice your interviewing techniques before you go for the interview. Have a friend come over and ask you some common interview questions and if possible videotape it. Go over the videotape and find your weaknesses and work on them, if you can’t video tape the session have your friend make notes and go over his/her notes afterwards.

    It is very; very important to be on time for your interview, in fact you should be about 15 minutes early. If you are not familiar with the area the interview is being held in drive there the day before and learn how to get there. Don’t forget to bring an extra copy of your resume and a list of references to your interview.

    Stay calm during the interview. There is nothing wrong with taking a few moments to think about the answer to a question, don’t get nervous.

    When the interview is done restate your interest in the job, shake the interviewer’s hand and leave. Two to three days later you should send the interviewer a thank you note reiterating your interest in the job.

    Here are more job help articles that you can check out:

  • How to Successfully Conduct a Phone Interview

    If you are looking for a job in Alberta and you live in another province or country you may have to do interviews over the telephone. In this guide we will give you some helpful pointers on conducting interviews over the phone.

    If you are looking for a job in the Alberta oil field but don’t live anywhere close to Alberta at the time of your job search you may be asked to do a telephone interview or have a pre-interview over the phone. This guide will give you some helpful tips on conducting a successful interview over the phone.

    Prepare for an interview over the telephone just like a regular face to face interview; familiarize yourself with the job you are applying for as well as the company. Keep in mind moments of silence over the telephone are much more awkward then they are face to face.

    Set a date and time that works for you as well as the interviewer and don’t be late, if you miss the interviewer’s phone call they may not call back. Keep in mind that if you are forced to do a phone interview there will be a good chance you will be in a different time zone then the interviewer and scheduling another interview could be difficult if you miss the original phone call.

    When doing a phone interview make sure you let people know that you will be busy and not to disturb you. Turn off your call waiting if you can or have it forwarded to your voicemail. Tell your spouse/kids/parents not to disturb you or the phone lines until you are finished your interview. Being disrupted by another phone call or someone picking up the phone on another handset looks very unprofessional during an interview.

    Do not use a speakerphone to conduct your interview. Speakerphones generally do not sound very good and are quite annoying to the person conducting the interview, this could potentially be a major turnoff to your would be employer.

    While doing a phone interview it would be a good idea to keep notes of potential questions and answers in front of you. One very big pro to doing phone interviews is that you are able to have notes in front of you and are able to browse them freely without worrying about making eye contact with interviewer.

    It is very important that you are upfront and clear with the interviewer during the interview and able to ask any questions you may have. The interviewer should realize that you will be making great compromises for your new job, such as moving to a new city, province, or country, and will need to know as much about your future job as possible.

    Here are some articles about the job profiles in the oil industry:

  • 10 Resume Mistakes to Avoid at All Costs

    The most common resume mistakes people make and how to avoid them.

    A well written resume and a poorly written one are usually the difference between getting a chance at getting an interview or not. In this guide we are going to go over the most common mistakes employers complain people constantly make on their resumes and how to avoid them.

    1. Typos and other Grammatical Errors
    People make this mistake all too often. When an employer reads a resume that has typos and/or grammatical errors they think the person is careless and obviously doesn’t care about presentation or that they just don’t know how to write. Avoid these errors by getting several people to proof read your resume before you submit it, relying on spell check isn’t good enough.

    2. A Boring Resume
    A resume is your way of marketing yourself, don’t use phrases such as “responsibilities included” or “duties included.” Your resume should be about what you have accomplished at the company and not a list of your duties.

    3. A General Resume that doesn’t have any Focus
    Making one resume and submitting it too many different hopeful employers is not a very good idea. You should tailor each resume to a specific job within a company so your resume shows exactly how you will fill their position.

    4. A Poorly Organized Resume
    A resume that isn’t organized properly will likely end up in your employers recycling bin. Don’t include a list of your hobbies first; dates of employment are not as important as job titles, and if you don’t have very much work experience related to that specific job it is a wise idea to place your education before your work history.

    5. From Little Fibs to Blatant Lying
    Lying on a resume is a very bad idea. Everyone wants to shine a positive light on all of their work history but lying is not a very good idea. Even if you can look past the moral implications there is a very good chance you will get caught.

    6. A Bad Objective
    Employers do read your objective but often don’t pay attention to cookie cutter sentences like “Seeking a demanding position that offers expansion opportunities.” In your objective you should focus on the employer’s needs as well as your own.

    7. Forgetting to Include Important Information
    Many people forget to include certain information on their resume that they think employers might not care about. Things like extra education, awards, volunteer work, or other recognitions are important to employers because it makes you look like a well rounded person that would make a good employee. These little extras will also make your resume stand out from other applicants without such accomplishments.

    8. Including Personal Information
    If you have personal pictures on your website or private information on your blog, or if your email address is something along the lines of “smoochiepoo87@hotmail.com” it might be a good idea to leave those things off of your resume.

    9. Too Flashy
    If your resume contains small page margins, 6 different styles of fonts, and 3 different colors you can be the smartest person in the world and I’m willing to bet money on you not getting the job. Stick to one font and a basic resume template and you should be fine. It is also wise to pass your resume around to some friends and family before submitting it to an employer and get their opinion on the layout.

    10. Forgetting Important Contact Information
    Don’t forget to include your phone number, cell phone number, email address, fax information, mailing address, and double check them to make sure there are no errors.

    Here are more articles about Alberta’s oil industry:

  • 8 Helpful Resume Writing TIps to Help you Get Hired

    A resume is supposed to be a brief summary of your abilities, education, experience, and skills. Its main job is to market yourself to an employer and get them to contact you and hopefully get an interview. In this guide we will give you some pointers on writing an effective resume.

    Before You Begin
    Before you begin writing your resume you should do a rough draft on paper, a sort of self assessment if you will. Outline your skills, abilities, education, and experience on this paper and go over it several times. This will make it easier for you do come up with a final draft on the computer.

    Resume Content

    1. Contact Information
    The first thing you should include on your resume is your contact information, your name, address, telephone number, email address, and fax number should all be included in this section. It is important to use current and permanent information here, if this information is wrong your hopeful employers will have no way of contacting you. If you don’t have a permanent address or phone number use your parents or a friend’s.

    2. Objective or Summary
    This section is typically located under your contact information and before everything else. This section tells your prospective employers what you plan on doing for their company and what you hope to get from them. It is very important to include what you plan on doing for their company as well; leaving this out of your objective is a very common mistake people make with their resumes. It is also very important to tailor each objective to the specific job you are applying for.

    3. Education
    The third thing that should be listed on your resume depends on your educational and work history. If you have just recently graduated then you probably don’t have very much related work experience. If this is the case then you would list your education in your resumes third section. If you have a lot of related work experience or very little education then you should list your work experience in the third portion of your resume. In this section you are basically telling your potential employers about your educational background. Include your degrees (B.A., B.S., ect.), major, intuition attended, and your minors and/or concentration. You should list your grade point average if it is above 3.0 and should also mention any academic honors. Don’t forget to list your academic information starting with your most recent.

    4. Work Experience
    In this section you should describe your previous work experience and what you have gained through your work experiences. It is very important to use action words (see chart below) to describe what you have done for that company through your duties. Include the title of your position, the name of the company, location, dates of employment, and specific skills used and learned from that particular work experience. Start with your current or last job and work backwards.

    5. Other Information
    Including this section is optional and is dependant on your previous experiences. Here you can list any accomplishments, skills, or abilities you have learned, courses you have taken (first aid, cpr, ect.), awards you have won, or any volunteer work you have done.

    6. References
    It is important to list several references for your potential employers to contact, anywhere’s from three to five references will be sufficient. If you can have at least three business references, and no more then two personal. Make sure you ask your references if it is fine with them and if they will give you a positive reference before listing them on your resume. If you do not have any references add “References furnished on request” to this section.

    7. Checking Your Resume
    Before you submit your resume to any potential employers there are several things you should do to make sure it doesn’t contain any mistakes. Run your resume through a spell check program to see if there are any grammatical errors. Give your resume to several friends and family members and ask for their opinion on it and see if they can find any grammatical oversights.

    8. Resume Design
    Many people have great resumes content wise but ruin it in the design process. A resume should look very professional and doesn’t need to be visually stimulating. You should stick to a plain white or an off white 8.5” X 11” paper, use a non-decorative font, only use one typeface, avoid italicizing or underlining words, and don’t include any images, shading, or vertical lines. Out of courtesy you should staple or fold your resume, if you have to mail it then use a large envelope.

    Here are more articles regarding oil field jobs: