By Anna Petitt

After graduating with a first-class honours degree in French and German and gaining experience working for operators during my studies, I was keen to further develop my skills in the oil industry. The Tendeka Graduate Programme* appealed to me by being able to use my language skills with customers and gaining technical experience working for a leading service company.

When I joined Tendeka in August 2013, the programme had just been launched.  There was no set programme, therefore it gave flexibility and allowed me to adapt as opportunities presented.  For my first two years I worked as a Graduate Technical Support Co-ordinator which gave me a good technical grounding in completions and our product portfolio. The day-to-day job involved speaking to customers (especially the francophone ones), creating simulations and liaising with the product line to find an appropriate solution, putting together quotes and subsequent follow up at PO stage. Later in the programme, I became Account Manager for our UK clients with a specifically assigned project on how to increase business with a UK operator after which I presented my findings to senior management. This was an effective way of putting my strategic thinking skills to the test and to take ownership of a project.

Being the first graduate on the programme, a lot of my training was on the job but it meant it gave me the opportunity to feedback and improve the programme, for example, introducing the OPITO course in Oilwell Technology to give a more in-depth insight into drilling and completions which to date nine people have now been enrolled on. In addition, specific in-house modules were also introduced to fill in any knowledge gaps, such as finance or legal.

Since the completion of the programme in 2016, I now work as Tendeka’s Market Development Manager. This is an exciting, challenging role where I am responsible for managing our business partners worldwide. This involves assessing, appointing and training our agents throughout the world and evaluating new markets through data analysis. I enjoy the interaction with people from different cultures – I’ve taken up Russian and Chinese since I’ve started working at Tendeka – and the opportunity to travel is a perk of the role for me.

It is good to see the graduate programme continuing, and new blood coming through!  Being part of a small company means that that you are not seen as a number, and allows the programme to be tailored to suit an individual’s strengths and interests.

*Since 2013, Tendeka’s programme has seen 4 members of staff successfully ‘graduate’, with another 2 recently joining the team.