From Comment to Story

Based on a comment to my last post I decided to share a story about recruiting in the energy industry.

A friend of mine told me a story about interviewing an MBA2, from Chicago Booth, for a position as an energy trader. The candidate had an impressive resume and breezed through the interview questions. Apparently he had been a trader for JPMorgan and definitely knew what he was doing.

As a final interview question my friend asked him why he wanted to work for an energy company.

The candidate didn't get the job. My friend who does the recruiting described him as the best "trader" that was being interviewed but he had just "dropped in" to the interview. Nothing on his resume screamed I want to work for an energy company; it was I'm a finance guy that heard energy companies pay well so I thought I'd give it try.

The moral of the story is simple you have two years to position yourself for a new career. The reason the qualified candidate in the story didn't get the job was because he hadn't been involved with his energy club, didn't do an internship in the industry, and was essentially beat out by lesser candidates who had shown a desire to work for this particular company.

-I've told this story to a couple of people and surprisingly I get a similar response. So if I don't know why I want to work for company xyz should I fake interest? NO, this gives you a great chance to ask questions at receptions, reach out to alumni, and find out why you'd like to work for company xyz. Just showing the genuine interest is going to get you a long way in energy recruiting.

While no industry wants to be anyone’s back up, the energy industry is composed of recruiters with a different mindset. They are notorious for taking people with technical backgrounds, engineers, and other unlikely candidates and turning them into managers, traders, etc. It's an industry that believes to be successful you need to understand the core business regardless of your function. You'll find people who started in the field, trading oil, leading venture capital groups, and running IT organizations.