Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Bringing home the bacon

So, with the end of my contract coming up, I find myself in the awkward position of having to reapply to keep my job. Naturally, I have been applying to a number of other places as well, including industry jobs. On the off chance that I actually get a choice, what should I do?

Benefit of bailing transitioning into the mining&exploration sector:
Better pay
More opportunities for advancement
More field work
Steep learning curve
More versatile long-term employability
Less bureaucracy

Drawbacks:
Market volatility
Potentially long (multi-week) shifts away from home
Steep learning curve

Am I missing anything? I’ve been a bit busy with applications this week…
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3 comments:

  1. BrianR13 June, 2007 01:16

    having experience in the oil industry, I would add:

    benefits: awesome data, technical resources

    drawbacks: underlying corporate (non-science) objective

    Industry may have less bureaucracy in the academic institutional sense, but , in my experience, will have a lot more in the corporate sense....it's everywhere

    good luck w/ your decisions

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  2. C W Magee13 June, 2007 09:14

    Brian,
    Was that a large or small oil company that you worked for?

    My experience is that bureaucracy is related to a power law of the number of people in the organization, so a big company would be expected to be similar to a big university.

    I've been avoiding applying to the big boys like BHP and Rio for exactly that reason.

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  3. BrianR13 June, 2007 11:30

    i've worked for both small(70 employees) and large (50,000 employees)companies .... yes, I agree w/ your power law.

    There are pros and cons when I think about the two experiences. With the small company I had to "wear a lot of different hats" as they say. Ya gotta figure things out and make it happen w/out a lot of support. That's not necessarily a bad thing if you're into the challenge, but can be really annoying if you end up spending 80% of your time learning things you're not trained to do (and don't want to do).
    With a big company, they are more likely to get you into a position where they can take advantage of your specific expertise, where you are focused doing what you are good at and enjoy. But, that may get boring.

    That's my experience anyway...others may have different perspectives.

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