How to get offshore with no experience

Getting job in offshore industry is all about having prior experience. In fact, prior experience, whether you're lucky to have had it or not, is the very first question that recruiters ask potential Roustabout. From the other hand, the greenhand offshore oil drilling job seekers keep wondering, and ask in their turn: How could I have prior experience, if having prior experience is the most important pre-requisite for being allowed to set my foot on the deck of their sea based oil drilling facility? How do I get offshore, if I don't have experience? To get offshore experience you should have worked on offshore rigs, but even to be considered as good candidate, a greenhand applicant needs to already have experience. There seems to be a vicious circle, and the task is to disrupt it and break through. To make long story short, here are the typical ways the people without training and education make their way to landing entry-level job of Offshore Roustabout that promises big salary and lots of free time, while off duty, since work schedule on offshore oil rigs is rotational: you work 28 days in a row that are alternated with 28 days of leave from job onshore. Offshore rig workers still keep getting their salary every month, which means you get paid generous salary for all 12 months, while in fact it is only half that time that you spend offshore. No other industry offers similar benefit.

Ways of getting offshore employment without experience

• Try get experience in Offshore Wind industry, get hired there first. The salaries for offshore wind jobs are not so great, but what you get in return is true offshore experience, and that's the real value.
• Pay special attention to consultancies and specialized offshore crewing agencies: it's the recruiters that offshore oil drilling contractors often delegate the task of manning their rigs and to test the unexperienced workforce
• Try get temporary job on shallow water oil production platforms, be it even for a couple of days. It happens that offshore oil rigs, especially those located close to the shore in shallow waters of the Gulf of Mexico, if you're American, need some dirty or assembling/disassembling job on oil rig to be done quickly. Then they hire big groups of manual laborers to work on platforms for 3 - 5 days, and then dismiss them. No prior experience is normally required for such temporary short-term jobs, and what you do is actually not Roustabout's duties, but such experience is regarded by many companies as offshore experience too.
• Getting hired for a seismic vessel is another good idea. The experience there is very much alike one on drillship. This is the case when employer will even train suitable candidates, and the advantage is they normally do not require any maritime experience, just good health, affordable criminal record and successful passing of drug/alcohol tests, plus evident desire to work and learn the things quickly as you go, mainly by the method of onsite training.
• Try getting hired as a Galleyhand or even as a Dishwasher/Kitchen Cleaner though catering company you know provides catering and janitorial services to offshore oil drilling contractors. It is exactly this way that some of Offshore Rig Managers and Toolpushers broke through to offshore oil rigs and then got transferred to oil drilling vacancy to then make their way up offshore oil drilling career ladder. There are some true stories of success.

All those tips, hints and ways can only be useful provided hard manual labor in the challenging climatic environment associated with offshore entry-level jobs like Roustabout, Rust Scraper, or Superstructure Painter is not one thing the greenhand candidate is afraid of. Auxiliary jobs, such as Galleyhand or Steward are both less stressful and physically demanding, nevertheless such offshore employment also requires much physical and mental endurance, ability to work without breaks for long hours (sometimes overtime), self-discipline, and being emotionally strong enough to work in limited space with the same relatively small amount of people you see every day, while staying far away offshore from your habitual environment and family with friends.

I have a friend, I know this guy in person. 10 years ago after several attempts to break through and get a job in offshore industry without having any prior experience, he finally was lucky to get hired as Roustabout, i. e. directly for oil drilling job. Now he works in Dubai as Directional Driller and earns, from what I can see, well over $US 200,000 per year. So, getting started on offshore oil rig is not someone can't do in principle, it's possible, for sure.

tags: offshore jobs for Indians entry level no experience, offshore employment UK and USA, UAE, Iraq, Oman, Qatar, Nigeria