Any Quantity Surveyors out there? CV help.

[dan_almond]

Email sent Ozzy.

Any further QS's on here willing to take a look at my CV...?

OzzyR1 said:

dan_almond said:

Im due to apply for graduate QS roles this September, for 2011 intakes.

Question is, would anyone be so kind to take a look at my CV, and let me know what you think to it. Bad points/good points, and what i can do to improve on it. Id be most grateful if anyone could spare 2 minutes of this time, as getting it close to 100% is most important to me!

If you send me your email, ill send it though.

Many thanks
Dan

Hi Dan,

I'm a QS working in London for a small-medium sized PQS firm (probably have 40+ qualified staff). Came to the game fairly late - graduated at 27 cos I spent about 5 years travelling after A-levels but am in my early 30's now and am an associate of my firm with MRICS qualifications etc. Will be honest with you, I'm on a salary that starts with a 4 which is liveable but not that much when you live in the south-east.

If you want a chat or for me to look over your CV then email me through my profile, would like to help someone starting out as I remember how difficult it was & can't even imagine what it's like in the current climate.

Must admit I've been looking at O&G jobs from some of the posts in this thread

Cheers

Edited by OzzyR1 on Wednesday 25th August 23:12

[staott]

Is there anyone from this thread still around willing to offer some help/advice to a budding QS looking to work in oil/gas or mining?

[GT03ROB]

staott said:

Is there anyone from this thread still around willing to offer some help/advice to a budding QS looking to work in oil/gas or mining?

There's some good stuff in this thread, but fire away at what else you want to know.

[Onemcs]

If I were you I'd take the route I'm doing.

Find a local medium sized contractor / PQS that can offer you the training you need and get a good knowledge of the industry. Go to uni part time and get that degree!

The above will put you in good stead!

Job's are there, However medium sized construction companies rarely advertise, Send your CV to all and sundry and keep those fingers crossed!

[3sixty]

Onemcs said:

If I were you I'd take the route I'm doing.

Find a local medium sized contractor / PQS that can offer you the training you need and get a good knowledge of the industry. Go to uni part time and get that degree!

The above will put you in good stead!

Job's are there, However medium sized construction companies rarely advertise, Send your CV to all and sundry and keep those fingers crossed!

+1 to the above. I did the part time route too. It was a longer course compared to full time (5 years compared to 3) but the difference in knowledge and grades/marks between FT and PT students was night and day. If I had gone into industry straight from Uni I'd have been completely lost come "real work" time.

Plus you get a wage while studying and I got my Uni fees paid, its a no brainer imo

[staott]

Cheers for the replies guys, I did actually make another thread with some specifics but didn't get any bites, I've copied my post from that thread and included it below, might as well keep all the QS and Oil/Gas stuff together. It's a bit of an essay but any insight would be appreciated.

---

I was wondering whether there are any Quantity Surveyors out there that are working in Oil/Gas or Mining in a Quantity Surveying role or a role that a (RICS accredited) degree qualified QS graduate would be qualified for.

I have just finished the 2nd year of my QS degree and have started a placement with a large multi-national multi-sector PQS for a year. Before starting the placement I already had an idea that I would like to work either in oil/gas or mining post-graduation and with that in mind I accepted the placement I am currently at with a hope to spend at least some time within the oil/gas department of the company although I'm unsure that will happen at this stage, it all seems to have gone quiet on that front!

I am currently involved in fairly typical construction projects performing routine QS tasks and I think in doing so it has reaffirmed what I had previously thought; that oil/gas and mining would be a lot more appealing to me. There are aspects to the daily work and the projects I am currently involved in that are interesting but after experiencing several hour meetings discussing colours of carpets I have doubts whether typical construction is for me.

With there being doubts as to whether I will be spending any time in the oil/gas department at my current company I am thinking it would be a good idea to try to get experience elsewhere next summer after my current placement has finished. I realise it is a bit early but I didn't want to leave it too late and want to try to make contact with a suitable company as soon as possible.

Can anyone recommend some companies that work in oil/gas or mining that it would be worth contacting in hope of doing a month or two summer placement with? The placement can be paid/unpaid (within reason, I couldn't afford to support myself in the middle east for example!), I am really just trying to get my foot in the door and get any experience I can.

[3sixty]

Bechtel were always quite active at recruiting students when I was looking. Not entirely sure they are what you are looking for, but worth a try if you are struggling.

Someone in the industry will be on here soon to give you more names.

(Although if you are letting people get to the point of discussing colours, you have a lot to learn in being a QS )

[GT03ROB]

I did a degree in construction, that gave me full CIOB & RICS exemptions. I did no summer experience other than labouring on construction sites. My 1st job out of uni was with Bechtel. I did a lot of years with them working oil/gas, power, mining & tunnels. I've worked in the US, Everywhere in the mid-east, India, Equatorial Guinea, north Africa.

Bechtel are very quiet out of the Uk right now. KBR are busy, as are Fluor. Foster Wheeler are quiet. Petrofac are recruiting but are cowboys. If you can get anything with the 1st 4 I've mentioned, these are the Premier league. AMEC are another option but ps off too many clients. The Premier league tend not to give summer placements but will recruits grads & offer the best long term options. Bechtel & Fluor can offer mining & oil/gas.

You need to work the major EPC contractors if you want to get on in the business. You can move from contractor to client, but far harder to do about face.

Edited to add - bear in mind the companies I've mentioned don't recognise or understand what a QS is. I'll mail you my number, give me a call & I'll give you some more details.

Edited by GT03ROB on Tuesday 12th July 22:34

[Lefty]

Shell just posted this, probably based in Houston.


We have now posted externally for the JG4 Cost Estimating position. The focus for this position will be benchmarking working Quantity Based Metrics (QBM) for Downstream initially, likely expanding to Upstream down the line. Existing contract Estimators are welcome to post for the position. If you know anyone in the market looking, refer them to the below posting which can be found through the external shell.com site.

If you have any questions about the position, contact myself or Andy Curry.

Regards,
Jed

The position ID is U25010

Field Label Position Information
Requisition ID: R3690
Position title: Cost Estimator
Business: Projects & Technology
Line of Business: PTE - Projects & Engineering Services
Hiring Manger: Jed Hagood
HRiTB Approver: Alyssa Snider
Recruiter: Tami Donatto
Sourcer: Brady Goodgame
Anticipated start date: 24 Jul 2011
Requisition Status: Position posted

[Mattt]

Lefty, what background are they looking for?

[Lefty]

Anyone with a good understanding of norms/benchmarks etc.

I actually just hired a young business graduate with experience of productivity studies, benchmarks etc etc, he came from a manufacturing background! I was really looking for a qs but his cv appeared (without a wky personal statement ) and he interviewed better than any of the qs's I spoke to!

[anonymous-user]

Lefty said:

Anyone with a good understanding of norms/benchmarks etc.

I actually just hired a young business graduate with experience of productivity studies, benchmarks etc etc, he came from a manufacturing background! I was really looking for a qs but his cv appeared (without a wky personal statement ) and he interviewed better than any of the qs's I spoke to!

I may have a look! sounds interesting

[staott]

It's been quite a while since I posted in this thread, I hope the people that posted are still around!

I didn't thank GT03ROB in this thread for the time and advice he gave when we chatted around the date of my last post; it definitely gave me more of an insight in to the industry which I can hopefully put to good use in the future.

I've now been at my current placement for coming up to 8 months now and things are going relatively well, with the 'official' university required placement duration (48 weeks) soon coming to an end, I have been asked if I want to stay on part time while doing my final year which is a positive.

I would be inclined to stay with my current company as I've built a good reputation and it does have a pleasant working environment but unfortunately I don't think a move in to Oil & Gas with this company is likely to happen. With a shortage of staff on the team I'm working for, if I do stay with this company it will be likely be to support them. With this being the case I am probably going to seek another placement at a different company in the time between when my current placement ends and my final year of uni starts.

Before I start getting in touch with companies regarding possible placements, I'm hoping someone would be able to give some insight in to the roles in Oil & Gas which a QS could be suited to as I don't really have a great deal of information on the specifics.

Having spoken to GT03ROB and having had a browse around the popular O&G job sites it does seem that a traditional QS role is not that widespread, I have seen a couple but they were few and far between; the majority of applicable jobs seem to be Cost Control Engineers and Project Controls.

Aside from the candidate requirements and limited information for each of these roles usually found in the job adverts, does anyone have a more thorough understanding of these roles and what they entail? Which of these roles would typically be best in terms of career prospects and progression? I would assume project controls could lead to more senior project management but the career path for Cost Engineers isn't as obvious.

If anyone has any more general advice or insight that would be great.

[smokey145]

Quantity surveyor here, working for a major main contractor building magazine award winner for best contractor under £300m

Anyway, lefty, your career path sounds very interesting. What do you actually do as an economist for this company, and crude I know but what ball park figures are salaries you can earn? Always been interested by the money in oil.

Lefty 200 Drams said:

There are loads of qs's on here!

Send me your cv by all means and I'll see if I can help:

[e-mail]



I graduated qs hons (somehow with a geoff) in 2001 and worked in nuclear/pharma for a few years before moving to oil/gas in 04. I'm now an estimator and economist for major projects (usually $5-15bn).

Edited by Lefty 200 Drams on Friday 20th August 14:23

[smokey145]

What is benchmarking?

[Lefty]

smokey145 said:

Quantity surveyor here, working for a major main contractor building magazine award winner for best contractor under £300m

Anyway, lefty, your career path sounds very interesting. What do you actually do as an economist for this company, and crude I know but what ball park figures are salaries you can earn? Always been interested by the money in oil.

Personally, I'm not interested in staff positions - I don't plan on staying in the industry for the rest of my life to make a good package worth while. Contract rates are good at the moment, £70-£100/hr.

Salaries are a different matter, I don't really know. I know that a position as Project Services Manager with BP is about £100k basic.

I prepare cost scenarios for construction, operation and decommissioning of offshore facilities (and onshore sometimes). I build cost models to try and get maximum value from a reservoir based on oil production profiles over time, with different field layouts, different market scenarios and such like.

A very basic example would be: build a huge production platform with lots of little wellheads which give you a lot of oil quickly or you could build a smaller production platform and phase the installation of wellheads to give you less peak product but over a much longer period of time. There are a huge number of variables which have to be taken into account.

In the last few years I've got into decision modelling and risk analysis, very helpful with this kind of work and taxes the old grey matter a bit more than just cranking the handle on an estimating tool.

staott said:

It's been quite a while since I posted in this thread, I hope the people that posted are still around!

I didn't thank GT03ROB in this thread for the time and advice he gave when we chatted around the date of my last post; it definitely gave me more of an insight in to the industry which I can hopefully put to good use in the future.

I've now been at my current placement for coming up to 8 months now and things are going relatively well, with the 'official' university required placement duration (48 weeks) soon coming to an end, I have been asked if I want to stay on part time while doing my final year which is a positive.

I would be inclined to stay with my current company as I've built a good reputation and it does have a pleasant working environment but unfortunately I don't think a move in to Oil & Gas with this company is likely to happen. With a shortage of staff on the team I'm working for, if I do stay with this company it will be likely be to support them. With this being the case I am probably going to seek another placement at a different company in the time between when my current placement ends and my final year of uni starts.

Before I start getting in touch with companies regarding possible placements, I'm hoping someone would be able to give some insight in to the roles in Oil & Gas which a QS could be suited to as I don't really have a great deal of information on the specifics.

Having spoken to GT03ROB and having had a browse around the popular O&G job sites it does seem that a traditional QS role is not that widespread, I have seen a couple but they were few and far between; the majority of applicable jobs seem to be Cost Control Engineers and Project Controls.

Aside from the candidate requirements and limited information for each of these roles usually found in the job adverts, does anyone have a more thorough understanding of these roles and what they entail? Which of these roles would typically be best in terms of career prospects and progression? I would assume project controls could lead to more senior project management but the career path for Cost Engineers isn't as obvious.

If anyone has any more general advice or insight that would be great.

I've seens QS's working in contracts, cost control, estimating, planning, hydrocarbon accounting, economics, procurement etc

Cost control is, in my experience, the least interesting and the lowest paid of the QS-ish roles. Followed closely by Procurement and Contracts. But that's just my opinion.

An experience costie at the moment could get £50-70/hr with an operator. Planners earn more, maybe £60-£80. Those are rates for "working" people, rather than management types.

smokey145 said:

What is benchmarking?

Edited by Lefty on Tuesday 31st January 08:57

[GT03ROB]

staott said:

Having spoken to GT03ROB and having had a browse around the popular O&G job sites it does seem that a traditional QS role is not that widespread, I have seen a couple but they were few and far between; the majority of applicable jobs seem to be Cost Control Engineers and Project Controls.

Aside from the candidate requirements and limited information for each of these roles usually found in the job adverts, does anyone have a more thorough understanding of these roles and what they entail? Which of these roles would typically be best in terms of career prospects and progression? I would assume project controls could lead to more senior project management but the career path for Cost Engineers isn't as obvious.

If anyone has any more general advice or insight that would be great.

Ok, I'll pick up where I left off.

Project controls is the umbrella department/group that typically covers cost engineering, planning/scheduling & estimating. It's sometimes also called project services. Think of the cost engineering role as reporting costs against the estimates established by the estimators & then the subsequent forecasting of costs to completion for any given project. Done well cost engineering is invaluable, more often than not it slips into bean counting. The typical career path in cost engineering, would be through more senior cost engineering roles into a role as a project controls/services manager. In some organisations this could then lead to a business managers role (picking up responibility for project controls, contracts, accounting). The final step would then be into project management. Without a basic understanding of cost engineering you will never make it in project management.

However I will now reveal my bias. It is very very rare for anybody to transition from a cost engineering career path into project management. Cost engineers rarely get to understand how major projects are put together. I was a planning engineer, then went into controls management, construction management, then into project management. Any transition from controls into project management is difficult, the overwhelming preference amongst employers is to use engineers. If I were you I would go down the planning route, the money is better, prospects are better & it would be easier to get into project mangement.

[Mattt]

Lefty - Precision Tree & @Risk or use something else?

Started playing with it myself recently as it seems 'gut feeling' doesn't cut it anymore

[Lefty]

Mattt said:

Lefty - Precision Tree & @Risk or use something else?

Started playing with it myself recently as it seems 'gut feeling' doesn't cut it anymore

@risk yes but precision tree is st! Well, it's ok for tiny models. I bought a Hugin licence, it's the dogs.

Edited by Lefty on Tuesday 31st January 09:29

[smokey145]

I am familiar with benchmarking, it's just I have never used it in my role(day to day commercial management of a construction project) fascinating post lefty, alot to thnk about. £60 to £100 an hour!!!!