Hundreds of geoscience students lined up at dozens of oil industry booths to pick up t-shirts, hand over their resumes and go through a two-minute screening to decide if they would get a full interview by the company.
The AAPG-SEG Student Expo took place in the Houston Convention Center tonight as the annual GSA meeting wrapped up. AAPG took advantage of having the GSA in town in a joint meeting with the Gulf Coast Association of Geological Societies GCAGS). Registration by yesterday was over 9,500.
More than 350 geoscience students are participating in the two-day event, according to AAPG President (and Texas State Geologist) Scott Tinker. Student technical posters are being scrutinized by company reps who mostly look only a couple years older than their potential recruits.
El Paso Natural Gas put out an extensive Tex-Mex buffet with open bar before the students lined up at 37 company booths to find out who was interested in talking further with them. Some students have been pre-selected and will have interviews in private booths set up in the convention center.
The recruiters were invariably casually dressed - polo shirts seemed di rigeur. The students on the other hand were much more dressed up. Lots of ties and coats for the men and skirts for the women.
Company displays extolled the wonderful working environments, with extensive training opportunities and chances to explore different career options within the companies. Mostly, it's oil and gas exploration companies but there were a smattering of software, logging, and seismic companies. Among the petroleum companies, I was surprised to see that many are not the classic major which has generally been the type that recruited straight out of school. Even the small and medium sized companies are offering the types of careers traditionally associated with the big guys.