mecheng

Can anyone recommend a good recruitment agency/agencies specialising in engineering positions for the oil industry in Perth &/or Brisbane. It seems that every man and his dog has jumped on the resource bandwagon over the last few years so it’s difficult to distinguish the good from the downright awful who have no idea about engineering and the oil industry.

I’d be interested in hearing from anyone who has had personal experience, and in particular, your recommendation of an agency that may have a clue.

Thanks in advance.

Amazulu

I'm with Technical Resources and can recommend them. They have been in business for 20 years and I have used them since arriving in Australia. They have always got me good contracts and rates.

They have offices in Perth and Brisbane.

mecheng

Thanks for the feedback Amazulu. Agencies are never a first resort for a job but they're unavoildable sometimes.

Amazulu

Perth, like the UK, has only a few decent agencies and a whole bucketload of shite ones. The only ones I would recommend are:
Tech Resources
TAD Perth
Swan
Execom

Contracting through a decent agency is fine - had a nice, free party on Friday evening and got a great Maglite torch for a christmas present.

Loch Lomond

Or you could contract direct to the Oil and Gas companies as I do, and get the great rates without having the agencies get their cut.
Last job was a 4 year contract, currently been with an Australian Independant for coming up to 3 years. Let an agency charge $2000 / day and give you $1200 or get $1750 a day yourself.

Spondylus

Tecside are currently trying to find people for a long term materials handling contract in East Perth. Its Iron Ore but it might suit you short term..........

Thats the upside. The downside is I sent them a CV in January and this is the first time I even got a phone call from them!!!!! And I'm not doing materials yaaawn handling either - so they might be scraping the bottom of the barrel.....

mecheng

You said it Amazulu - trying to find the half decent from the crap is extremely difficult. I'm not necessarily looking at going contract...I'm fine with permanent but it all depends what's on offer, which from the internet only search I've done at the moment, there doesn't appear to be a whole lot. There's all this talk about skills shortage, which may be true, but not so much in mechanical engineering from what I can gather from my occasional searches.

.....I'm jealous of your maglite.

How did you end up going contract direct? I've seen some that have managed it but not sure how - what the secret?

Unfortunately, I'm not interested in mining. I've been in oil industry my entire career so not willing to jump ship (from experience in the UK I've seen people struggling to get into the oil industry so I'll stay put - I prefer it anyway).

Have you managed to find something Spondylus? Like I said above, from a pretty basic search I've done to date (no real effort put in just yet), there doesn't appear to be that much out there...I could be mistaken. Yeah I may be picky but with all this inflated talk about skills shortage you'd expect every agencies books to be full, and the websites of all the majors to be bursting with positions....not so.

Kelli28

Lot's of work in in Queensland for LNG.

http://www.bechtel.com/careers.html

http://www.santos.com/careers/

http://www.qgc.com.au/

Spondylus

Ah yeah no worries mate, I'm not in O&G but will be trying to get over there soon I think. From what I've seen out here in the last 2 years, they spoof A LOT about their abilities and experience. I must be the only mug running about WA with an honest CV!

Not getting into that gripe here..... but stick firm and don't be afraid to wait for what you want. just throwing Tecside in case you are tuck/interested/bothered....

Personally, I reckon this boom is being talked up for the minute. It might come, but it'll take a while...

good luck with it.

mecheng

Not to sound like a pompous git but I've got a good grip on the main players and it's a trickle of eng positions at present despite all the talk. In addition, most of the recruitment, which is true world wide for the oil industry, aims so high in expectations of experience that few meet it unless you're close to retirement. That's another kettle of fish.

brian.w

sorry to but in but what about jobs in the oil and gas for pipe fitters the agencies to best try and also companys too,and this is for perth

Loch Lomond

I'm in the Upstream side of O&G - Completions / production technical advisor. Smaller independants are most likely to take you direct, network and research key people in the company and contact them direct. Larger organisations generally have contracts in place with recruitment firms and / or service providers.

FYI - CSG in Queensland is massive - Origin Energy have commited to 5000+ wells in the next 3 years. Other's have large commitments also. People, drill rigs (albeit likely to be water well rigs as the depths are shallow) and dumb iron are limited in availability right now. I know 7 people from the network I have that are now in Brisbane for Origin.

mecheng

Thanks for the advice. I guess it all comes down to what stage in the project lifecylce as to the demand for certain roles/experience. Networking is always a challenge and my networls don't tend to extend beyond colleagues at previous companies...I'd be interested in any contacts you may be able to provide Loch.

IMS PIPER

Tech resources were one of the few that contacted me back and I had good communication with. Guy's name there is Hamish and is quite helpful.
Walker technical were good.
Bayside Group were good, but didn't really have much to match my criteria.Asseda were good.
SMA Appointments were good.

Not all of these agencies had positions available, but were helpful none the less. I contacted many more, but they didn't reply or didn't seem to bothered.

Are you looking for a position in Brisbane? If so let me know and I am sure I can help.
I work for an mining / oil and gas Engineering company, have been working in O&G for years but managed to get a position on a mining contract.
Bit of a learning curve, but there is more opportunities in mining in Brisbane, I think.
If anyone knows of engineering O&G opportunities in Brisbane I would like to hear from them .