Hey, saw your post and feel like replying. but these are all based on my anecdotal experience. results may varies from one to another.

Graduated on the Jan 2013 with B.eng Petroleum Engineering from UTP. Not a Petronas scholar, so I am not bounded with the ten-year contract.

Applied to various service providers, interviewed by some and it all boils down to this " they prefer someone from the Mechanical/Electrical/Civil instead of Petroleum". So, being a Petroleum Engineering graduate you just minimised the scope of your prospect to the operator company only (mostly). I applied Aker Subsea but was put in the procurement department cause my Petroleum Engineering knowledge cant be put into use at the Subsea Business unit. Now, to counter this recurring problem, I put ' Mechanical Engineer- Specialized in Petroleum Engineering' in my resume. greater chance to be selected for the intvw.

It is when I am in the industry that I learned that most of service provider, as such as SLB, Halliburton and Baker involves in a lot of mechanical principles. Yes, you learned a lot in the Petroleum Engineering, but mostly are focused on where is the hydrocarbon, where to look, how to produce and it stops there.

In reality, the lifecycle of Oil and Gas business expand more than that. We have the fabrication of topsides ( which needs huge manpower), and they mostly need mechanical for the instrumentation/mechanical packages and they need civil for the structures/manifolds. And then we have the well intervention where the knowledge of mechanical is to be put in use. And these Service provider believed that Mechanical/Electrical Eng covers more aspect of their products and business, hence the Pet Eng is less sought after.

Not to say that a Pet Eng grad is less marketable, it is just that our choices are limited We can easily find a place in the Operator (SHELL,PETRONAS,EXXON) but to get there you have to fight against so many P. Eng graduates from local and overseas.