All the jobs I’ve held as a petroleum engineer came from direct referrals. After I was laid off from my first job, I filled out a boatload of online applications to work at oil and gas companies.

I got zero results.

I landed my next petroleum engineering job through a university friend who was a CTO at the company.
He randomly called me one evening and after a few interviews that were mostly formalities, I was in.

I asked him why’d he decide to call me? He said I took a class with his girlfriend and I helped her out.
He and I were also in the same graduate program while working on our graduate degrees.

Be kind to others. You don’t know how that kindness will be returned.

The longer I’m in my career the more I realize who you know is more important than what you know.
In industries like oil and gas, it matters much more than others.

I spent days applying to jobs after my first layoff. Knowing someone bypassed all of that.

A mistake I see people make is to prioritize the ambitions of a company to the detriment of their relationships with co-workers.

A company is limited in scope to itself. One day you’ll quit or be let go. Have you heard of a company that helps their former employees find work in the same industry? I haven’t either. It doesn’t exist. A previous co-worker, on the other hand, might help you.

While you build connections with co-workers and they eventually leave to work for another company, your network grows wider.

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