Professor Elam

Tuesday Sept 11 2012

I recently received an inquriy and exchange from a student which I am going to share with you. 

Note the last post focused on using my blog to expand your knowledge horizon. 

This student had passed through the telephone interview stage and was now set to appear in person for a job interview. The company was one of the large refiners in the area. He asked how he should prepare for the interview. Before you scroll down to see my answer, how would you have prepared?  Now remember you are no doubt in competition with students from other colleges in the area, Tx State, UTSA, Trinity, St. Mary's etc. 

Okay, write down your answer before you scroll down to see my answer. 

 

Here is the exact e mail I sent him.

As a matter of fact yes I do have some suggestions.

Overall I suggest  you spend the weekend boning up on the refinery industry.

The major players are TSO, VLO, HFC, CHK, access them on finance.yahoo.com

TSO website

http://www.tsocorp.com/

For example if I asked you which is larger, Valero or Tesoro what would you say?

finance.yahoo.com  offers great thumbnail sketches on all these companies

The answer is that Tesoro is much much larger, something I did not realize until I looked it up.

I would certainly want to have read the last few letters from the CEO to the shareholders, these are in the front of the annual report, those reports are filed under Investor Relations on the company website.

I would also take a look at the recent stock price charts for VLO, TSO, HFC

I would also google eagle ford shale and do some background reading. If Romney wins, the domestic exploration industry will boom. Which companies have recently moved to town, Weatherford, SLB, HAL.  What do those companies do?  Okay I only spent  a lot of my life around the oil business but you need  a crash course this weekend.

Also google refinery accounting, I just did and there are a slew of articles on it, since you will be talking to accountants at a refining company it would be a great idea to be up and current on recent accounting pronouncements about the industry.

How do refiners make money, does it depend on the price of oil or the direction of oil prices?

Trick question, the answer is neither, the refiner makes money on the difference or spread between the price they pay for crude and the price they sell the refined product for, this difference is referred to as the crack spread, due to the name of the refinery cracking process

I would also look up Nustar, they bought a very small refinery here actually around the corner from our Brooks operation.

Here is some background on the Petroleum industry

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum

And, do you know exactly the location of the interview, not a bad idea to drive over say Sunday Morning when there is little to no traffic and scout out the situation.

Pick out what you are going to wear and set that aside, pressed and shoes shined, if you get a haircut do ti tomorrow

In other words you want to arrive well informed about the industry and TSO specifically.

Remember to look around the room when you meet them for any clues about what your interviewer likes. As Dale Carnegie says, be sure to show a genuine interest in them, that will improve their opinion of you!

Well you got me going, I will not mention your name but I think I would like to post this as a guide for students if that is okay

Dennis Elam

PS, hope you did not have a lot planned other than this for the weekend!