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Consultancy Trends Questionnaire Please take a few moments to contribute to this research for the PESGB New Business Practice (Tuesday 25th October) in London (more...)
News Room

Working Smart exhibiting at PETEX 2008 – Booth C8, 25th-27th November 2008
London – September 2008 - Demand for E&P professionals and graduates has never been so strong! With Working Smart’s unrivalled candidate database and the industry’s most advanced e-business solution for petroleum recruiting, they have plenty to offer to Employers and Job Seekers at PETEX 2008.(more...)

Working Smart forms new consortia linking academia and industry
Since 1996, Working Smart has been actively involved in several initiatives to improve collaboration between academia and the oil and gas industry with the objective of securing the future supply of geoscience and engineering graduates. A recent initiative was the launch of the specialised petroleum graduate recruitment site www.graduate-smart.com.(more...)

Working Smart launches specialist graduate recruitment web site
14th May 2008 – Working Smart ltd has launched the first specialist graduate recruitment web site for the upstream oil and gas industry. www.graduate-smart.com connects students and graduates to a world of geoscience and engineering employment opportunities and much more. Support for this new site has already been received from leading universities, international industry institutions and E&P societies.(more...)

First Break Recruitment Article
An article entitled “Graduate Recruitment: addressing the challenges” by Deirdre O’Donnell, Managing Director, is in the May 2008 edition of “First Break”, a publication of the European Association of Geoscientists & Engineers (EAGE).(more...)

Recruitment Scam Warning
Working Smart has recently received two bogus requests for registration as “Employers”, one posing as a representative of an oil company and the other as an engineering company. In both cases, Working Smart immediately contacted the companies involved, and both confirmed that the persons attempting to register were not employees.(more...)

Graduate Recruitment Survey Results
London, 18 September 2007. Many thanks to the Companies that contributed to our research into industry policies, preferences and processes for recruiting University graduates. The results were presented at Careers Workshops during the Geological Society Bicentenary Conference, 10-12 September 2007. These workshops introduced A-level students and undergraduates to the prospects on offer for a career in Earth Sciences and provided encouragement and practical advice on how best to secure a position in E&P related companies.

The results are available at Graduate Recruitment Research (109kb pdf).

Geological Society Careers Day
London, September 2007 - The Geological Society Bicentenary Conference took place 10-12 September 2007 in the QE11 Centre, London. On the third day of the meeting, an exhibition and events were organised to introduce A-level students and undergraduates to the prospects on offer for a career in the Earth Sciences.(more...)

New Recruitment Services
After 11 successful years specialising in delivering recruitment services to the oil and gas exploration industry, I am pleased to advise that Working Smart is extending its recruitment services to cover oil and gas design & production engineering activities. This is as a result of a substantial number of related candidates on our books actively seeking new job opportunities in this arena.(more...)

Geological Society Careers Day
London, 30 August 2007 - The Geological Society Bicentenary Conference will take place 10-12 September 2007 in the QE11 Centre, London. On the third day of the meeting, an exhibition and events have been organised to introduce A-level students and undergraduates to the prospects on offer for a career in the Earth Sciences.(more...)

First Break Recruitment Article
An article entitled “The Real Challenge: a viable business needs an effective workforce” by Deirdre O’Donnell, Managing Director, is in the May 2007 edition of “First Break”, a publication of the European Association of Geoscientists & Engineers (EAGE).(more...)

Working Smart at PETEX Booth C9
London, 10 November 2006 – Demand for E&P professionals has never been so strong! With our unrivalled candidate database and a wide range of exciting new career opportunities, Working Smart has plenty to offer to Employers and Job Seekers.(more...)

10th Anniversary
Working Smart celebrates 10th anniversary
London, 9 August 2006 – This day in 1996 saw the incorporation of Working Smart Limited as a registered company. Prior to becoming founder and Managing Director of Working Smart, Deirdre O’Donnell witnessed the difficulties of her E&P and oilfield service company clients in sourcing suitably skilled people to meet their technical and operational requirements. With a strong IT development background and over 15 years in the energy industry, Deirdre was convinced that she could manage the process in a much smarter way, hence the name of the new company, set up to streamline the entire recruiting process.(more...)

Staff mobility increasing
A hot month for the E&P recruitment market
London, 1 August 2006 – For Working Smart, July 2006 was a record month, with a greater number of new candidates registering on the company database than in any month of its 10-year history. The system now contains details of the skills, competencies and work preferences of over 17,000 E&P professionals from more than 158 countries actively seeking new employment opportunities. (more...)

First Break Staffing Article
An article entitled “Dealing with staff development, retention, and training in the oil and gas business” by Deirdre O’Donnell, Managing Director, is in the July 2006 edition of “First Break”, a publication of the European Association of Geoscientists & Engineers (EAGE).(more...)

Skillpool Conference Notes
16 March 2006 – Chair’s notes from the conference “Capability Development & Skillpool Management” are now available(more...)

Universities Partnership Proposals
15 March 2006 - A summary of the objectives and some conclusions of the workshop "Strengthening partnerships between the Oil & Gas Industry and Universities to develop skills and competencies" is now available.(more...)

University Partnership Research
London, 1 March 2006. Many thanks to the Universities that contributed to our research relating to how E&P and service companies might work with universities to improve the flow of new talent into the oil industry. These results were presented at a workshop held in Aberdeen on 20 February 2006, prior to the conference “Capability Development & Skillpool Management”.

The results of our research are available at University Research Results (328kb pdf).

Harts E&P Careers Article
1 Jan 2006 – An article entitled “Oil Careers for Life” by Deirdre O’Donnell, Managing Director, is the “last word” feature of the publication “Careers in Oil and Gas”, a supplement to the January edition of Harts E&P magazine and Oil & Gas Investor, a total readership of over 70,000.(more...)

Working Smart to Chair Skills Conference
9 Dec 2005 – Deirdre O’Donnell, Managing Director of Working Smart, will chair the conference “Capability Development & Skillpool Management” to be held in Aberdeen 21-22 February 2006. The conference will address recruitment, retention and training strategies to bridge skills gaps and sustain profitability for E&P and related service companies. An interesting agenda has been prepared, with presentations by representatives of leading industry organisations and companies including BP Exploration, BG Group, Schlumberger and Halliburton. Working Smart will also lead a pre-conference workshop on 20 February focusing on how to work more closely with universities to improve the flow of new talent into the oil industry.
For more information, visit www.oilandgasiq.com/2623a

Consultancy Research Results
London, 16 November 2005. Many thanks to the 52 Oil Companies and Service Companies that contributed to our research into “Competing in a Consultancy Environment”, presented at the PESGB New Business Practice Conference in London on Tuesday 25th October 2005. As promised, the results have been made available to contributors. Consultancy Research Results...(1Mb pdf document)

Proprietary skill competency system
London, April 11, 2005 – Working Smart Limited will provide its unique system for technical employee skills capture and human resource management to petroleum companies for their internal use. Working Smart developed the first specialist online solution for petroleum recruiting, and is still the only such company providing advanced “skill-based competency” services. For the last ten years, the system has enabled fast qualitative assessment and skill ranking of potential candidates for new job vacancies in oil and gas and related service companies. In response to several requests by companies for technology to capture and better manage the skills and competencies of their existing staff, Working Smart has decided to offer the system for third party use.(more...)

Skills list tops 4000
21 Mar 2005 – The Working Smart online recruiting system, launched in 1996, has now captured over 4000 different E&P skills. The candidate database currently has over 13,000 E&P professionals actively seeking new opportunities. Each of these candidates has provided detailed information of their specialist skills, competencies and experience in the oil and gas industry. Some skills, such as ProMAX, GeoFrame and ArcView, are shared by hundreds of candidates. Other specialist skills (e.g. Mathcad) and legacy systems (e.g. Gecoseis) are much more rare. In addition to specific software packages, the skills base encompasses a broad range of upstream commercial, technical, geographical and G&G disciplines. (more...)

Pirate Web Site Downed
21 Jan 2005 - Success - illegally pirated petroleum recruitment web site removed

Following our News Flash of Thursday 20th January regarding the practices of an illegally pirated petroleum recruitment web site (see below News Item), the great news is that the offending company, based in Jakarta, has now removed not only our jobs, but has also removed our copyrighted materials and functionality. (more...)

Confidentiality Assured
20 Jan 2005 - Working Smart has recently become aware of an illegally pirated petroleum recruitment web site that is also posting replicated Working Smart job vacancies which they are incapable of filling as they do not know the identity of the end client. We deplore this unethical copying of our proprietary technology and copyright materials.(more...)

Online recruiting enhanced
24 Nov 2004 - Working Smart Limited has enhanced their online petroleum recruiting system. Established in 1996, Working Smart Limited was the first specialist oil and gas recruiting company worldwide to introduce Web based recruitment. The new online system is just one of a range of services aimed at optimally matching E&P company business needs with the skills, experience and ambitions of industry professionals seeking new opportunities. (more...)