Pros
(This entire review mostly applies to the internship) -Truly incredible people all around. There's no other way to put it -Tons of responsibility right away -Great training for people who don't know much about the oilfield -Intense pampering in the first couple of weeks -You are not treated as an intern, but as a full member of a crew I interned for SLB in the summer of 2010. It is definitely a great internship and even if you don't think that this is something you'll want to do in the future you should do the internship for the experience alone - I guarantee that it will change your priorities and plans for the future as it did for me. The internship is broken down into 2 parts: training in Houston (a week) and Tulsa (2.5 weeks) and actual work at your district anywhere in the US for 6 weeks. School in Kellyville (outside of Tulsa) is geared toward people who don't know much about the oilfield and is more on the technical/operational side rather than teaching basics about oil and the entire business. Out of the entire intern class (about 80 people) only 6-8 had any kind of petrotechnical background from school. The vast majority were chemical and mechanical with a few civil and aerospace. The instructors in were all Field Engineers and were able to explain what it is that they do in a very accessible manner. At the end of 2.5 weeks there, I had a good understanding of what exactly SLB does and how they do it. After that I went to Arkansas to well services. The experience there was incredible. It's a very busy district. Be ready to work... Basically when you're in the field, you will be treated according to how you act. You earn respect and when the guys see you working and doing everything you can, they will treat you like an equal. Developing good relationships in the crew is very important and once you do, you'll feel like you're part of a big family. If you're competent and want to do the work, the supervisor will trust you to run equipment and you will basically be on the same shift rotation schedule as all of the other operators. Finishing a 3 day job definitely feels very different if you did the work as opposed to just "observing". In terms of the people - you won't find better, more down to earth people than here. The intern class is nothing like your typical gathering of engineers. I've made great friends in the short time that we spent together, which is something I didn't really expect to take away from this internship. We all worked hard and any free time was party time - again not your typical engineering crowd. In the field, you won't survive if you're not personable and someone other people want to be around. Everyone is very outgoing, accepting, and surprisingly open minded (didn't expect that from southerners). You'll have the most ridiculous and interesting conversations about the most random and unexpected things in the world. You'll be exposed to things you never even imagined and truly bond with the people you work with. The people you meet and spend time with are what really makes this job great.
Cons
-Experience GREATLY varies based on location and segment that you are assigned to -Time off is basically non-existent -Full time offer decisions are very questionable... (and no, I'm not disgruntled) -The recruitment team changes every couple of years and as a result they seem to run into the same kind of organizational and logistics issues all the time. The one thing I really didn't like is that the business comes first, and employees are expendable. Half of the operators aren't full time Schlumberger employees, but are on contract from a staffing agency. Most are very professional, but the fact that they aren't SLB leads to a situation where there is less accountability and less loyalty to the company. In return, the upper management (FSMs and engineers in charge of scheduling jobs) treat them with less respect than they deserve. There have been several times when bureaucracy trumped human understanding and people were called in from home on their days off instead of giving the job to someone who was already there and willing to work. This leads to a big divide between management/engineers and the people in the field. I didn't get an offer for reasons unknown to me despite having good recommendations from my district. There were several other people who performed very well and wanted the job that got denied. At the same time, there were people that said that they didn't really like the job and didn't seem to have done much at their districts who got offers. I'm not bitter or disgruntled - just stating the facts. For the most part people who were supposed to get offers - did, but there were quite a few questionable calls by the recruiters who went completely off the map once the offers/rejections went out (unprofessional in my book). I wish i could tell you how to get an offer, but its not just "work hard and excel in the field." You might have your district backing you up, but apparently it's not up to them. A lot of the recruitment team is changing for 2011 so everything might change for next year. Despite this recruitment issue and not getting an offer, I have nothing but good things to say about the internship and the company.
