Soft Skill Workshop by AOC, Career Strategies for young professionals

As students we are constantly increasing our knowledge about specific technical topics during the course of our studies. Nevertheless success is not only based on technical skills. The oil industry is a global industry and more than ever it is necessary to master soft skills as well. To cover this highly interesting and important topic, the Montanuniversitaet Leoben SPE Student Chapter organised a two days softskill-workshop which took place from the 2nd to the 3rd December 2016.

The workshop was held by Lori and Dwyann Dalrymple who are running their own company, which is specialised in teaching industry professionals and students how to utilise soft skills in the work life.

The workshop began by giving a presentation. The presentation had to be prepared at home, about a topic of our choice. The presentation was recorded for further evaluation. Several different topics were addressed. The topics ranged from people talking about their hometown, to an introduction how to use a specific software properly.

The afternoon was dedicated to the topic, “How to make you a dynamic presenter”. Lori gave a lot of useful insights how to improve the presentation style and the overall communication skills. What was obvious from the beginning, often only little changes can make a big difference. Furthermore it is very important to know who is going to be the audience. Especially for presentations in the oil industry where it is very likely to face a multicultural audience. These and more techniques how to improve the presentations were introduced during the afternoon session.

The second day started by a mock interview session. Dwyann who already has more than thirty years of experience in hiring and also firing people, faced us with some ideas how a real interview session could look like. We had to answer questions about ourselves but also some questions which were a little bit outside of the box. Have you ever asked yourself which animal you would like to be? Maybe you should ask yourself before the next interview.

Afterwards we continued by giving the same presentation than yesterday but this time with incorporating all the learned techniques. The presentations were recorded and feedback about that material is going to be sent to all the participants in a few weeks.

Workshop Participants together with teacher Lori Dalrymple on the left
Group Picture

Finally at the end of the second day Dwyann gave two interesting technical presentations. One about hydraulic and fracturing and the other about the production of water, possible causes for that and how to deal with it. This was a perfect opportunity for the participants to see how soft and technical skills can be combined to be an effective presenter.

In the end the Montanuniversitaet Leoben SPE Student Chapter would like to thank Lori and Dwyann very much for their time and effort to make this workshop possible. It was a great pleasure for us to learn from your experience, expertise and knowledge. We are looking forward to repeat that in the future.

If you want to have further information about Lori and Dwyanns expertise and their company please follow the link to their homepage:

http://arofcom.com/aocskills/

We are hiring!

Dear SPE Members and Petroleum Engineering Students

We are looking for creative minds to share our vision for the future of the SPE Student Chapter Leoben. Take a look at our job openings and apply if you find working at the SPE Student Chapter would be something for you.

We have 9 fields where we are looking for great students and people who want to start working with us, find below a short description of what we we are looking for in each Student Chapter Division (SCD). We are not only looking for a head of each division – also for members that are willing to work in a specific division (e.g.responsible sponsoring person, project managers and helpers for the Bookstore and many more).

If you are interested in one or even more fields (SCD) please do not hesitate and write a short email application to office.spe@leoben.org.


Student Chapter Division 1 – Personnel

The manpower or personnel officer supervises personnel and administration systems. This department functions as the essential administrative liaison between the regular students, the actives and the officers as well he board, handling personnel actions coming from the bottom up (such as a request for becoming a member) or from the top down (such as staffing other divisions with new members or reassigning members to other divisions). The SCD 1 also works with the postal mailing office and deals with awards and certificates as well.

Membership Coordination Officer (MCO)

  • Database management
  • New member gathering

Administration Coordination Officer (ACO)

  • Running the postal mailing office
  • Information of members and outside partners
  • Distributing internal & external news
  • Support of the Secretary
Student Chapter Division 2 – Information operations

The Information operations section is responsible for collecting and analyzing information about from the inside and outside of the student chapter to determine what is going on locally and globally, what can happen, and how to prevent misunderstandings and failures. This office may also control social media information systems and data. In this section the whole public relation division is found with its corresponding twelve sections.

  • Human Relations addressed to members but also their families, as well as former and potential members.
  • Media Relations addressed to representatives of journalistic mass media as potential disseminators of public information dissemination.
  • Public Affairs addressed to mandate and decision-makers in politics and public administration and is in practice contrary to the label rather a confidential matter.
  • Financial / Investor Relations addressed to the circles with capital interests as co-owners, creditors or financial analysts.
  • Community relations are aimed at residents and neighborhood environment (Corporate Citizenship and Corporate Social Responsibility).
  • Product Publicity / PR product aimed at users and potential users of products and services.
  • Eco-Relations align themselves at critical discourses on norms and values of environmental performance.
  • Issues management is thematic communications.
  • Crisis Management governs critical communication situations.
  • Corporate identity designed the communicative appearance.
  • Sales-PR supports sales activities.
  • International Public Relations will be held global or country-specific.

For this purpose, there are a number of communication tools available, among others, these are:

  • Press and media work: writing and distributing press releases, feature stories for various media, user reports, speeches, biographies, topic planning, through press conferences and roundtables, editorial visits with customers, responding to press inquiries, conducting journalist trips and interviews, press conferences, press conferences, press invitations, Internet Services, providing photographic material.
  • Media Monitoring: Media monitoring presence and evaluation and analysis of reporting, for example by creating press reviews and quantitative and qualitative media impact analysis.
  • Communication controlling: About the Media Monitoring beyond measurability and evaluation of PR activities. Measurement of the PR to the success and appreciation of a company’s contribution.
  • Media Design: creating business reports, brochures, flyers, ads, newsletters, consumer magazines, Internet pages, and advertorials.
  • Event management: planning (and implementation) of conferences, seminars, festivals, consumer events, trade fairs and other events such as Meet and Greet
  • Internal Communications: Development of employee magazines, newsletters, planning and execution of events for employees, employee training, Intranet Services, Wording
  • Online PR: Improve classic PR tools by additional services (online newsroom), develop custom tools and strategies (corporate websites, theme websites, corporate blogs, online magazines, online campaigning)
  • Training: media training, training, writing training
Student Chapter Division 3 – Operations

The operations office may include plans and training. The operations office plans and coordinates operations, and all things necessary to enable the student chapter to operate and accomplish its mission. In most student chapters, the operations office is the largest of the staff sections and considered the most important. All aspects of sustaining the unit’s operations, planning future operations, and additionally planning and executing all training, fall under the responsibility of operations. The operations office is also tasked with keeping track of training schedules.

Event Implementation Officer (EIO)

  • Coordination with event management (SCD 2)
  • Responsible of staff during events

Project Managers and Helpers

  • Bookstore
  • Merchandise
  • Technical Papers
Student Chapter Division 4 – Logistics

The logistics office is responsible for managing the wide scope of materiel, transport, facilities, services and medical/health support:

  • Design, development, acquisition, storage, distribution, maintenance and disposition of materiel.
  • Transport of personnel and materiel.
  • Acquisition or construction, maintenance, operation, and disposition of facilities.
  • Acquisition or furnishing of services.

The logistic staff is tasked with overseeing logistic aspects and principles, where the focus is that logistic support must be focused towards ensuring the success of the operation and prescriptions of elements such as responsibility and authority.

Student Chapter Division 5 – Plans and Strategy

The plans & strategy office is responsible for strategy planning and primary adviser to the board.

Student Chapter Division 6 – Communications and IT

The Communications and IT office directs all communications and is the point of contact for the issue of communications instructions and protocol during operations as well as for communications troubleshooting, issue, and preventative maintenance. Communications at this level is paired with digital as well as voice (radio, computer, etc.). SCD6 is also usually responsible for all electronic systems within a unit to include computers, faxes, copy machines, and phone systems.

Also responsible of the administration of all accounts within the student chapter and the website.

Student Chapter Division 7 – Training

The training branch will organize and coordinate training activity conducted by internal or external personnel and also supervise and support members.

Student Chapter Division 8 – Finance

The finance branch, not to be confused with Administration from which it has split, sets the finance policy for the operation. Operationally, the Administration and Finance may be interlinked, but have separate reporting chains. Billing and payment will be processed within this branch. The sponsoring division is also part of this division and responsible to acquire new sponsors and manage the existing ones.

Student Chapter Division 9 – SURPE

Co-operation or university affairs are the activities that establish, maintain, influence, or exploit relations between the student chapter, the government and university or non-government civilian organizations and authorities.