Looking for your first offshore platform job? If you’ve already gone through a few contracts, you’ll know what to do. But for newbies, or even second or third timers, here is a list of five mistakes that make recruiters push your cover letter/resume to the back of the queue:
1. No subject/ Wrong subject/ Inaccurate subject
Not many people write formal letters, so they also forget to add a subject or header to their cover letters (even those sent by email). Some will write anything old, for example, “Hello” (yes, I’m serious) or “Looking for a job”. Do you know what people call this type of mail? Spam! That’s right, those with businesses and those with jobs to do, can’t afford to waste time. If you can’t or won’t declare your business, then walk out the door. This is true for you in person and it is true for your cover letter.
So what is the correct subject header to use for offshore rig work? Simple! What the ad says to write. A code is usually provided, as well as a standard job title. Use them, exactly as they are written in the ad. Nothing more and nothing less. Of course, if you notice a misspelling in the job title being advertised, it becomes a judgment. The recruiter may not know how to spell your job title, in which case correcting it could give a bad impression.
2. Apply for more than one job
Sometimes you may feel that you are qualified to do two different jobs (which are posted in the same ad). For example, he may have experience both as a laborer and as a scaffold erector. For God’s sake, don’t apply for both jobs! Make up your mind before you submit your job application. Don’t confuse the recruiter. When you apply for two different jobs, you have a decision to make about how to present your cover letter/resume. Should I file it under rustabout? Or should I file it under scaffolding? Keep in mind that you are likely overworked and underpaid. If you ask too much of him, he may decide to make his life easier by throwing your application in the trash.
3. Spelling/grammar errors
Most offshore platform jobs do not require a college degree. However, this does not mean that you can afford to be sloppy when writing your cover letter. If you make obvious spelling mistakes or grammatical errors, this makes a bad impression. It makes a person wonder if he will be equally careless while working on the company’s multi-million dollar oil drilling rig (a deep water rig can cost up to $1,000,000 a DAY to operate).
It’s really easy to correct spelling mistakes these days. MS-Word has a feature to detect and correct spelling and grammatical errors (red wavy underline for the former, green for the latter). The free word processing program, Open Office, has similar functionality. Just run your cover letter and resume through one of these programs before you submit your job application so you don’t come across as a fool.
4. No contact information
Be sure to provide more than one way to contact you: home phone number, mobile phone number, home address, email address, etc. It’s not uncommon to see cover letters and/or resumes without contact information, especially those that are sent through the email system. Remember that the person who received your job application may not be the person who ultimately calls you for your interview. If they can’t find a convenient way to contact you, they probably will NOT make any extra effort to track down your original job application.
5. Not giving the oil drilling company a reason to hire you
This is especially common among first-time job seekers, but can also be seen in applications from more experienced oil workers. When you apply for a job on an offshore platform, do YOU know why the company should hire you? If you can’t answer this question, don’t bother applying for the job.
If you have a lot of experience in the offshore drilling industry, you have better ways to search for oilfield job openings than through job postings. Cover letters and resume are just paperwork. But when you lack industry contacts, formalities become much more important. Job applicants who make one or more of the above mistakes have committed the cardinal sin of giving the recruiter a convenient excuse to throw their job applications in the trash.