I'm a fairly recent graduate from a college in the South. I went to a respectable school - think Tulane, Texas, Vandy, etc. I had a fairly untraditional path to get to where I am. I was interested in public policy initially, and did that for the first two years of my degree. However, I gradually moved towards the business side of things, and only minored in the public policy school. So I have a BBA in finance, with minors in supply chain management and public policy. Because of this, I was a little late to the party of IB recruiting. The only internship I did (outside of unpaid government/NPO ones) was at a small CRE developer. I graduated in December of 2017. My overall GPA was 3.6. I interviewed for Big 4 consulting and some boutique IB jobs, but I wasn't too dead-set on anything out of undergrad.
Due to a crazy turn of events, I was able to get into an oil and gas job, doing scheduling work. I am going to keep it as vague as possible, but it could be anything between a refined fuels marketer like Musket or Global, to a gas processor like Williams or ONEOK, or to anything in-between. I am not at a super major, nor am I in a graduate/trader development program. I was hired straight into an ops role. I mainly cover NGLs.
I am just over a year into my job now. I have definitely enjoyed my time here, and plan to stay for the foreseeable future. In some ways, I feel like my job is amazing experience, and in other ways, I have hesitations about doing a scheduling job for too much longer.
The positive side is that I am doing really impactful work. Despite my lack of experience, I am getting to schedule some very major assets and pipelines. I am playing a significant role in the PnL of our traders here. I am getting to meet and work with people from just about any integrated or midstream company you can think of. And I'm doing this all as somebody under the age of 25, and with no previous O&G experience. I am moving desks to work under a senior trader here, a bit of an industry legend and I believe she vouched for me. They have hinted that they have a vision of me doing commercial work later on.
On the other side, I feel like I might not want to stay on as a scheduler too much longer. Even though the in-office hours are great, the stress levels are very high. I am virtually on-call any time between 5 AM - 11 PM. Some of the other shops do rotations for off-hours coverage, but we each own our books. There is seemingly a huge fire to put out just about every day. And I am wondering about the experience itself. I have an important job, but I'm not sure if it's the right way to get to my goals of a commercial gig. I simply never get to look at pricing or market risk in my job. Also, there are people with a million random degrees (or none) who are schedulers. So I'm not sure at all how it would be looked upon if I am looking to exit the industry.
I still really like the industry thus far, I'm just looking to make the jump to a commercial role in the next 1 - 2 years. I hate wearing the hat of the ops guy, when I believe I could actually make good commercial decisions (and have the better lifestyle that goes with that). But I'm also getting pretty damn valuable experience.
I have been thinking about starting the CFA program, or learning how to do some basic VBA or Python programming. I am not sure exactly how useful either would be to my job or industry, but I think it's a good way to hedge against my career prospects tied to one pretty small sub-portion of the oil and gas industry.
Can anybody share some advice?
Just a student so take everything with a grain of salt, but it sounds like you are making the right moves, and you are in a good spot. If you truly have the amount of responsibility you described then you are likely trusted as well as learning a lot, all positive. One thing I have noticed talking to traders and schedulers is that traders take views on the market (duh) whereas schedulers do not. I bet this could be a differentiator when you ask for a more commercial oriented role, so I would try to talk to the traders not just about physical capacity to move product, but also what is driving price movements for your product. If you can speak about the markets as well as your scheduling role you would likely be viewed much more favorably for a trading role. As for careers outside of that, you could do fleet pricing for one of the bigger players such as Shell/BP. I think a lot of those people have logistics backgrounds, and is a more 9-5 role for similar money to scheduling.
Thanks a lot for the reply. However, there are a few things. 1) I really do try to follow the markets I operate in. You'd be stunned how many 10 year schedulers couldn't tell you a thing about the scoop stack, or frac spreads, or LNG export viability, etc. I do think having an interest is helping my career - a SR trader has mentioned he noticed that I see the 'dollars and cents. But in my experience scheduling, you have to be very careful in knowing your role. They have made it clear that I never, ever touch pricing in any real way in my job and can not discuss that with counterparts. 2) Life seems better overall at the super majors in terms of work life balance. More of their schedulers unplug on holidays and weekends. However, they seem more likely to pigeonhole someone in scheduling permanently...just my $.02, and depends on the each specific shop. Something to keep in mind if you look to go into a soft or hard commodities supply and trading job.
As a northeast scheduler, you had me feeling like a dumbass as I googled scoop stack lol.
Thank you. I am trying to learn some VBA and Python on the side. I really don't work that many hours (45 on average), so I can definitely pick it up on the weekends.
Yeah, I believe you on trading being even more stressful. What I don't like about scheduling stress is that I have limited authority, so I can't solve something commercially. I can really only work with the contracts I have. But, I mean, this can't compare to the stress of having to dump supply at a loss or cover an expensive short...so you're right there. Thank you.
Learning VBA and Python will give you a very useful skill set. As per my experience Not many in the O&G industry know these programming languages so if you gain intermediate level of knowledge you can build out handy tools. I'd advice against learning C++ unless you want to go more into development and quanty role.
Do not, I repeat do not take the CFA. Will be a waste of your time and mental capacity.
I went from power plant generation risk to spec power trading. Just do some time and apply for jobs, you will get them. You are gaining invaluable experience no course or schooling will offer.
Alright, thanks a lot!
If I were you I would just drop some random applications. Won’t hurt, the iron is hot. You never know who needs what.
What age are the traders on your desk, have they been there long, who is the lowest guy on the totem pole, how long did he work before he got onto the desk. These are things to look into. If there is going to be no room for you, that is something you’ll want to keep in mind.
Also for ‘lack of knowledge’ point, there will be a learning curve no matter how long you do. It’s one thing to know the physical, which I’m sure you know somewhat after a year, it’s another to know how they trade, so that will be another part your learning curve, but again when people go into trading roles and they’re new traders they all have that learning curve.
The earlier you can make the jump the better IMO.
What do you mean by saying "the iron is hot." There really isn't postings for trading jobs, I think someone has to vouch for you to get that.
Again, I really don't know about "the earlier the better." At my shop/product, it's pretty accepted to schedule for 2 years before being able to jump. But I have friends at producers, etc than can seemingly get into a job right out of school. So again, I don't know. Thanks for the insights though, greatly appreciated
Example: companies receive CVs applications all the time, many through email loops that include very senior people (usually the head/mng of the section). From my experience, most physical trading shops have trouble hiring what they need at the right time cause market is tough (skillset usually very specific, long term view, hence either new graduate plus investment in time and education or expensive cross-hire) and on top of that there is a disconnect between the desk and the HR department (very different ways of thinking about biz, plus except for top HR people, they don't understand trading well). So many trading firms (smaller especially) might take a different more direct approach to hiring and bring in contacts or people they think. It's one of the reasons headhunters so popular and so few spots to get into the industry: the MD/desk head calls Selby Jennings or whatever and confidentially arranges for a cross hire within a week (but $$$).
Hence, as Tandem21 says, you never know who needs what. Next thing you know some guy forwards your CV to someone else (even to customers/associate firms) and you get an email back from a MD/TRD Manager offering to have a quick chat in the next 15 min. Be bold, market yourself humbly but firmly, with a genuine expression of interest and remember than many of these companies are very industrial / out of the radar and have some difficulty hiring top talent too.
Asdaef gave a great example of hiring so I won’t harp on that.
The reason I say the earlier the better is because actually trading is so different. Why not make the jump earlier? You haven’t developed bad habits yet, they can mold you into the trader they need etc..
Since I trade a different product I wouldn’t know a ton about your buddies getting trading jobs out of college but if you’re referring to like development programs, we had a junior guy leave for the trader development program at a Supermajor after seven months with us (can’t blame him, hard to pass up on) and after the rotation he was not made a trader but some other desk he rotated on. So those programs can be great but can suck at the same time, not sure if that’s what you were referring to but something to keep in mind.
Now he’s back to being a real time trader (shift work) while we have all come off the real time desk and are either cash (inra-month) or term (next month forward) traders.
Also running analysis on Pnl sucks you definitely don’t want that job. Maybe better hours but you’re not a decision maker and you’re essentially at the extreme behest of everyone. Been down that road and it’s not a fun one.
Are you able to maybe snag a mentor that is currently on the desk? I was fortunate enough to meet a director who loved teaching and he was willing to really take me under his wing and go from textbook to real world. I would try to build some relationships if you can.
Stay there if you want to move into trading and you think you're being tracked that way. I passed on several commercial roles in my career because there is a big difference between doing deals and truly trading. They will move you when you're ready and unless you just want to cover systemic shorts and sell systemic longs I highly, highly, highly doubt you're as ready as you believe yourself to be after a year of NGL pipeline ops.
Alright, thanks a lot.
What do you think of general commercial roles? Seemingly, there's pretty high pay, a great lifestyle, and you still get to cover interesting stuff. But you'll never make killer compensation, you don't get to move BBLs on your own, and trading is probably what all of us would prefer to do one day.
With you on not being ready. The longer I've been here (admittedly not long at all), the more I've realized that I still have a very long way to go. I'd say it's realistically 1-2 more years before I can even think about touching the commercial side of things, and then a further couple years till I could even think about running a book on my own. The commitment needed to go far in this business is very deep, but the fruits are seemingly there.
May I ask if you are in a trading desk now?
What are you referring to when you say "commercial role"? Sales, account mgmt, trading, deal structuring?
hmm. Business development, sales, trade analyst, etc.
Basically something where you get to analyze PnL, or at least work in that realm...not just ops
Sales / Business development are very different to an Analyst or Trader role - it's like a road junction and you choose which direction you want to move in.
I would recommend thinking where your strengths are and which type of day to day work you feel passionate about (this is super important) - you are in the environment so should be much easier than for an outsider as you get to see what other people do. The advice on how to progress forward from your current role will be completely different based on which route you choose. Take this from someone who worked two years to break in.
Its been a year... pump your brakes and learn as much MORE as you can.... When the time comes you will get a shot... guy i know was a schl for 13 years and now trading one of the largest product books in the US.... keep working hard and good things will come..
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