Hi everyone,

Interesting posts here....(although I didn't read all the pages so forgive me if this has been asked).....

Does the oil and gas industry hire PhD holders? I've been offered a scholarship to do my PhD in Finland (on renewable energy)...and should I accept the offer, I will be 32 by the time I graduate (if I do graduate). Not so young, I know. I just wanted to know if it is a realistic goal to want to work for Shell Malaysia after my PhD. I've been to the Shell website and it seems they do hire PhD holders...but I thought it'd good to hear from people in the industry in terms of how common it is.

In terms of experience, I admittedly don't have much....about 2 years working as a Process Engineer for SBM Malaysia. Then I left to do my Masters in Japan. I just got back.

My initial plan was to accept the scholarship offer and try to see the job market in Finland but since coming back to Malaysia, my father is experiencing some health problems...so I'm rearranging priorities. I'm thinking I either forgo the scholarship and apply straightaway to oil and gas companies or since I already have the scholarship, take it, hopefully get my PhD and then come back and apply to oil and gas companies.

Would really appreciate any feedback or comments from the people here. Thank you!

To mhyug, thanks a lot for the vote of confidence but I also have the feeling that ICDeadPeople is right. These days younger and younger people are getting PhDs and having the experience to boot. Life's tough eh? The only hope I have is that the scholarship program does have an internship/job placement component to it (although it I think it will focus more on research) so I'm hoping that will contribute to my miniscule experience. Also apparently, in Europe, they consider PhD students as workers but if I'm coming back to Malaysia (which isn't quite in the Eurozone) it probably won;t matter.

At any rate, thanks for the feedback, everyone! To positive energy, thank you for the suggestion. I'm interested in renewable energy so will be asking Google sensei to help me.

Also to ICDeadPeople, would it be okay to delve in more detail which companies hire PhD holders as researchers? I know from websites that places like Shell and Exxon do hire PhD people, but I don't know how far this is true in Malaysia, especially for experience-poor people like me. Or do you mean consultant companies like the one you work for? Back when I was working in SBM, there weren;t really any PhD holders but different types of companies work differently I guess.

Once again, thanks a lot for all the comments! Please do keep it coming! I appreciate it!