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My opinion is to stay away from meteorology. Not entirely sure, but I believe it's a super competitive field and the odds are relatively stacked against you making good money there. Not impossible, but I relate it to becoming a pro in MX.
Sorry to hear about your job coming to an end. What part of Texas are you in?
A couple pieces of advice:
Focus on finding a job that you're WILLING to do for the next thirty years, not something that you WANT to do for the next thirty years. Do what you WANT outside of work. Find something that pays the bills and allows you to afford a nice quality of life. Working in an industry you're passionate about can potentially take the passion out of it (as you may have already discovered with wrenching on moto bikes...). I wish someone would have told me when I was younger "hey, do something that can pay your bills so you can go have fun on the weekends." Instead everyone tells you "follow your dreams, you can do whatever you want!" Now I make decent money doing what I love, but I have no time outside of work to ride my bike or hang out with friends or go camping or fishing or whatever...which ends up making me hate my job sometimes.
Start sending resume's in for jobs that are above your experience level and follow-up with them afterwards. They'll tell you why you didn't get the job, and then you'll know what you need to do to get it. Who knows, maybe they'll tell you that you got the job anyways. That's what I did and it blew me away when they said they wanted to hire me. Two years later I was the top selling salesman in the state after coming in with almost no experience.
Always be prepared to get what you ask for.
Employers are looking for people like you, go out and sell yourself, worry about the education later. The education is the easy part. A lot of employees will hire you with the intention of training and molding you into the employee they want you to be. Most times it's cheaper for an employee to hire you and pay for your schooling or certification than it is to hire some old guy with 25 years experience and a master's degrees that wants three times the salary they'd pay you.
Google "best resume designs" and make sure yours is incredible. Seriously. Get some high-quality resume paper and physically hand it to a person while shaking their hand. In the days of flooded email inboxes, it goes a long way with an employer to show up in person to ask them for a job. Especially in the marketing field.
The ole shotgun email blast is not a bad idea either though. Send out like 100 resumes to a bunch of different places and I'd be willing to bet that you'd have a job next week.
Good luck man, it's easier than you think!
-Dont own $50,000 pickups till you own a home.
-If school wasnt your thing I would suspect you are a little(lot?) ADD and I would suggest going into some field of work that keeps you active, not sitting at a desk all day. GETTING BORED IS YOUR ENEMY
-Careful with the financial entanglements with the girlfriend....why not marry her?
Good luck Kyle, you sound like a hard worker and a real go getter.
Many people start college right out of high school before they are fully mature or know what they want. It seems like you have got a little bit of life experience under your belt this could be the perfect time to start your education. I would make sure you could do it on your own in case things go south with your girlfriend. I would plan on working and going to school like others suggested. Eliminate necessary debt as much as possible. Credit cards, vehicles, ect add no value to finances. 50k for a truck is silly but I be leery about trading it in unless it puts you in a better place financially.
The Shop
My brother is a VP at Turner Broadcast. He is over the sales and marketing for every channel and tv show Time Warner and Turner Broadcast own.
The marketing field is shrinking, fast. Companies are downsizing, bringing the departments back inhouse and cutting out third party marketing. His department has seen cuts every 3 years for the last 15 years. It is all inhouse now with only the actual production of marketing tools farmed out. Wage growth in the field is stagnant as well.
Dont get me wrong, it is a great field to be in, if you have the "it" factor. But it is also very cut throat and cruel.
If you have that desire, try looking at public relations as well as marketing and expand your field of expertise.
Just dont go to law school... 6 figure debt in a highly saturated market... Loser field any way you look at it.
I agree with a post above, look in the industry at some of the bigger companies that reach across to other fields of racing and try to find a spot with one of them and be diverse. In this age, diversity is more valuable than a bachelors degree
I've been in Oil and Gas for almost 15 years. I've learned three things about this industry.
1. The industry goes in cycles. The highs are high and the lows are low. The only thing you can count on is that when oil is low one day it will go back up. And when it's up it will go low at some point. Save some money on the highs and weather the storm on the lows.
2. There is so much money in this industry. The salaries are pretty insane. The money funneled into exploration and production is massive.
3. U.S. oil and gas companies are not being overrun with foreigners. By that I mean it's very difficult to "outsource" certain aspects of this industry.
A lot of other industries are being decimated by "outsourcing" and it sucks to see Americans loose jobs to people overseas who will work for a bowl of rice a day.
Also, you could stay in oil and gas and learn an application that's important to the industry. Technical programs such as Petra, Wellview, Aries, or one of the industry production accounting/management applications pay very well.
We have techs where I work who pull 90k a year. They are not Geologists or Reservoir Engineers. They are purely techs who are experts using a particular program and support the geo's and engineers. The techs know how to use the programs, load data, manage data, build maps with the data, etc etc. These folks tend to also be experts with Microsoft Access and Excel since you tend to use those programs a lot with data cleanup and stuff like that.
You can also get certified on some of these programs from the vendors and those tend to look pretty good on a resume.
Just my two cents...
///Edit
Just want to also add that the pay is very good for young and or inexperienced folks. The reason is because Oil and Gas is not a "sexy" industry. There isnt a ton of college kids who dream of working in oil and gas so finding qualified people is a challenge. So companies are willing to pay top dollar for those with a shred of experience or interest in oil and gas.
As someone alluded to, young people don't want these jobs, because it doesn't involve sitting at a desk with Internet access. And they have a hard time finding people that can pass the drug screening.
Check out the railroads- they need people. You don't necessarily have to travel all the time. They have also lost a lot of volume due to the drop in crude prices, but the nice thing about railroads is they can just shift to another commodity. The freight industry is projected to grow for the next several decades.
And you are correct on the outsourcing especially for the 3rd party software applications. I use a program similar to Wellview (Wellscrew as I like to call it) and the techs they send out are just young guys around Kyles age working a 14-14 schedule and knocking down $100k a year.
Best of luck to you though, and for God's sake get the hell out of MIdland....I was out there last weekend just south for my 25th reunion and Holy hell now I remember why I left that area.
Thanks for the reply!
I most certainly have come to the realization that working in an industry you're passionate about isn't ideal. I was so burnt out on moto when I was wrenching, I just recently found the desire to start riding again.
I've kept a decent resume going, but we are going to make up a nice one and print out a stack on some nice paper for me to take around. I plan on applying for jobs above my experience level and seeing what they say, and also jobs I'm confident I can nail down and see what happens.
That's a good point as well that employers are looking to mold a younger person for a fraction of the cost of an old timer with the experience that is set in their ways. I will try to use that to my advantage.
Thanks again for the reply, and if you have anything else to add I'm all ears!
I'm certainly a little ADD, but i believe the main reason I struggled in school was thinking life was too short to be stuck learning about stuff I wouldn't use in the real world. Little did I realize it would help me develop good habits for the future. I'm still paying for that flawed thinking I had, I could have gone to college with family support had I learned that lesson earlier.
My girlfriend and I have been together for 4 years, living together and paying the bills together pretty much since day 1. We have built a pretty good life for ourselves together through hard work and sacrifice, she's busted her ass with work and school and definitely holds her own weight. She is almost done with school and has 5 years of work experience in the field she's studying, so she is right on track to reach her goals. I wanted to be set in a career and buy a house before we got married, but I'm learning that things don't always line up how you see them lining up, and I think I'm going to pop the question in the next few months.
Thanks for the kind words and taking the time to reply.
I feel that had I gone to college earlier, I would have struggled for multiple reasons. Now I'm confident I can make it happen and see the bigger picture as far as schooling is concerned.
As far as finances go, our only debt is our vehicles. I owe $13.8k on my truck and it books for $40k, so that's a fair amount of equity. I am looking to take $6-8k and buy an express van and use that as my daily and keep the rest of the money in the bank. I can work on the van myself if it has problems, and lower insurance and no $300 monthly truck payment would sure be nice. She owes $7k on a car that's worth $20k, and her payment is $250. We would keep her car, that would be our only debt. I just paid off my student loans from MMI, have no credit card debt, bike payment or anything like that.
Thanks for taking the time to reply!
I appreciate the reply, this definitely answers some questions and is some good advice. Thank you.
I appreciate the reply.
Clearly the pay is great, but the problem I'm facing is I don't find the money is worth the time away from home. I spend 3/4 of my life away from home, that's not a life no matter how much money is in my bank account. Not to mention, the process of extracting dead dinosaurs from the ground really doesn't spark my interest at all.
I know that a corporate job would get me closer to a city and most likely in my own bed more often than not, but even then my girlfriend would have to sacrifice her career in Phoenix for my career, which doesn't seem fair after her having to spend 3/4 of her life on her own while I'm out in the field working my way to that office job.
I have noticed it is relatively easy to move up the ranks out here in the field. Most of the guys out here aren't neccesary the brightest bulbs in the box, most have some serious baggage (DUIs, child support on many kids, ex wives, felonies etc) and a lot have terrible people skills.
I am confident I could get to a solid spot in this industry, I'm just not sure I want to. Am I crazy for that? I would appreciate your opinion on that.
What do you do in the industry?
Thank you very much for taking the time to reply, you have got me thinking for sure!
Pit Row
Thanks for the reply!
First, let me applaud your command of the English language. While you may not have a formal education, you certainly cannot tell from your posts. If you speak as well as you write, use it to your advantage, as it's can separate you from the crowd.
Secondly, the resume: please ensure it focuses on results and how your efforts benefited your employer. The vast majority of resumes simply detail what the job encompasses, and fail to highlight what that person did to move the business forward. Resumes must pinpoint why you would be a better asset than the next guy or gal.
Someone also mentioned the cyclical nature of the oil & gas industry, something that cannot be overlooked. Yes, oil has dropped significantly, stagnating market growth. However, it's a temporary situation, and with your connections, it could pay dividends to find other roles in the industry. Even during dramatic declines, the pumps keep running.
Finally, if you're still close with the family that brought you into the industry, don't hesitate to ask for their advice (if you haven't already). Successful people welcome the opportunity to mentor others, sharing their "lessons learned" and opening doors. The old adage "It's not what you know, it's who you know" still holds true today.
And if all else fails: relocate to DFW. There are more jobs than people in this town.
Good luck!
Good stuff, thanks for the reply and solid suggestion!
Post a reply to: What to do with my life? (Long winded)