Interviewing with big oil companies

<p>I've got some interviews coming up with the major oil companies next week and I was wondering if anyone here has been through an interview with them and has any advice or pointers. Particularly with Chevron and Shell and hopefully BP and ExxonMobil in the future.</p>

<p>Be a polite and non-arrogant version of yourself. If you are polite and aren’t arrogant, just be yourself.</p>

<p>Does anyone know how long it takes after getting the “we are referring your resume to the hiring managers” email from Exxon before you get a phone call for a job placement for internship?</p>

<p>I’ve interviewed with Oxy petroleum, they ask very hard questions. They asked me a lot of Behavioral & personality questions.</p>

<p>They have a very standardized interview process. Be ready to answer the common hard questions.</p>

<p>such as
“when have you gone above beyond the call of duty to get a project done?”
“when was a time you and a co-worker did not get along, and what steps did you take to resolve the situation?”</p>

<p>I was surprised by those questions since it was an engineering position. Good luck and tell me if i was right!</p>

<p>Mttran - those type of questions are very common. If you have an engineering degree and are interviewing for an engineering position - the interviewer knows (or assumes) you have the necessary technical knowledge to do the job. So the questions are designed to give the interviewer an idea of how you will perform in the workplace - how you will deal with deadlines, coworkers, criticism, setbacks, etc.</p>

<p>My son is working on a research project right now. He calls us frequently, freaking out, how am I going to get all this work done, I can’t get the software, yada-yada-yada. I keep telling him, this is all to prepare you for the real world and the workplace.</p>

<p>As for Chevron, I just recently went to one of their offices in a nearby town to visit their credit union. I was quite impressed with the grounds. A beautiful park like setting, with a walking track surrounding the facility, a pond with ducks in it. I was like, wow! And there were many obviously non locals working there, using the track and walking to their very nice vehicles. There was a guard at the gate, who instructed me that I had to leave any weapons in my car before I entered the building. Luckily, I didn’t have my M-16 with me, as I was heading to the Northshore, rather than Downtown New Orleans. This was a bit different than the downtown Shell office complex, where you pretty much have to sign over your first born before you enter the building.</p>