The oil price collapse caught us in the middle of the big crew change. Universities are worried because they ramped up their petroleum engineering enrollments in response to the increased hiring of the boom. Some people hope that industry demographics will continue to drive robust hiring despite the downturn. My view is that if demographics drove hiring, we would never have developed the skewed age distribution. The growing gap in age distribution was clearly recognized for many years, but hiring remained low because of economic considerations.

Some companies will continue hiring new graduates, but overall the job market has drastically changed. Only the best students with good interviewing skills will secure positions. Students with poor grades or those in need of a visa will have a difficult time. The breadth of the current downturn means that new graduates in almost every discipline will find it hard to get a job.

The economic collapse has left young employees worried and confused. For the last few years competition for new graduates was intense, so the graduates were in the driver’s seat. New recruits negotiated bonuses, training programs, and specific career paths. Their perspective was what the company could do for them, not what they could do for the company.

While industry veterans know what to expect in a downturn, young employees do not. Their experience is limited to good times with generous raises and bonuses and expensive privileges such as attendance at conferences and travel for training courses. Companies have focused on technology transfer to the new generation. With the drastic change in business climate, we also need to coach these newcomers on working through a downturn.

My survival tips are:

1. Learn how your job fits into your company’s big picture, supports company strategy, and contributes to the bottom line. If you understand the economics, you can predict the outcome, although you may get the timing wrong. In this job market, you want to have as much lead time as you can to look for another job either within your company if you think your project is doomed or with another company if your company is in financial distress.

2. Become invaluable to your boss. You are much more likely to survive a layoff if your boss survives and you are one of the key go-to people.

3. Don’t tolerate bullying. Bullies prey on their victim’s insecurities. A bully doesn’t need to know what you fear. The predator only needs to have you feel trapped. If you experience bullying, don’t expect it to get better with time. Get away from the bully as fast as you can. A bully destroys your self-confidence, which both degrades your work performance and makes it gets more difficult to get another position.

4. Become active in a professional society. Professional societies provide excellent training and networking opportunities. When budgets are tight, it is easier to obtain company support to attend meetings if you are active on committees or are a speaker.

Even more importantly, you meet and work with people in many companies. Your fellow volunteers become familiar with your capabilities. If you want or need to find another job, you have a major advantage if people outside your company have experience working with you in a volunteer capacity. In a tight job market most jobs are secured by networking.

5. Don’t feel that you are being discriminated against or should be embarrassed if you don’t get permission to travel or attend a meeting. It happens to everyone, and people understand and won’t hold it against you.

Those of us who have been in this industry for decades and still love it need to help the next generation understand that they can have a fun and rewarding career even if the path is not always smooth and secure. The world is not a rose garden, and even if it was, you’d have to watch out for the thorns.

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