Planning your career
So as I sit here in my office, I find myself thinking about what I want to be when I grow up....don't get me wrong..yes I am 24 years old but I find that I still don't know what I actually want to do with my life. Frankly I just have too many things that interest me. I find merchandising fascinating, I find oil and gas fascinating, business, science and the list could keep going on and on.
When I presented my mid-term presentation for the Petro-Canada executives back in March, one of them called me on this. He said "Dennis you have such great work experience all over the place and you are quite an accomplished young fellow. Where do you see yourself settling down and building a career?" Well he got me....and I at first started to dodge the question....but then apologized for that. I spoke to him after and told him that I would try to find an answer for him or at least a better one that what I gave him that day before my first term with Petro-Can was up.
This is the answer I'm going to give to him before I leave to head back to school.
"My personality is what drives me to succeed. If I am interested and motivated in something, I can acheive some great results. I am one of those people who can take any situation, good or bad and turn it into a positive learning experience....many people say that they have this ability, but I've proven time and time again that while the environment may not be ideal, I've always managed to come out on top as a better person.
With that said, as engineering as my background, analytics are my specialty, but not my passion. I view analysis as a means to an end to accomplish something tangible. I am a sociable person and like working in teams and synergistic work groups to drive results. For now, I like to be on the move, dealing with real issues and real problems. For the past 8 months at Petro-Canada, I've experienced all that oil refining has to offer, from crude purchasing to retail sales of petroleum products. While I don't pretend to be an expert in any of these areas, I have an appreciation for the complicated supply demand dynamics present in the oil business.
I am a people person, and therefore like to interact with others on a daily basis. Combined with my background in process improvement, retail merchandising, store operations and now oil and gas, I feel that the place where I would like to start building my career within Petro-Canada would be in the Retail Site Management or Convenience Retailing Divisions. I can harness my experiences there and challenge my interpersonal skills. Doing so will allow me to further develop my professional career. Looking further than that, only time can tell. Goals can always change, but for now that's where I would ideally like to be."
Now the only thing is for Petro-Canada to want me back =)
So as I sit here in my office, I find myself thinking about what I want to be when I grow up....don't get me wrong..yes I am 24 years old but I find that I still don't know what I actually want to do with my life. Frankly I just have too many things that interest me. I find merchandising fascinating, I find oil and gas fascinating, business, science and the list could keep going on and on.
When I presented my mid-term presentation for the Petro-Canada executives back in March, one of them called me on this. He said "Dennis you have such great work experience all over the place and you are quite an accomplished young fellow. Where do you see yourself settling down and building a career?" Well he got me....and I at first started to dodge the question....but then apologized for that. I spoke to him after and told him that I would try to find an answer for him or at least a better one that what I gave him that day before my first term with Petro-Can was up.
This is the answer I'm going to give to him before I leave to head back to school.
"My personality is what drives me to succeed. If I am interested and motivated in something, I can acheive some great results. I am one of those people who can take any situation, good or bad and turn it into a positive learning experience....many people say that they have this ability, but I've proven time and time again that while the environment may not be ideal, I've always managed to come out on top as a better person.
With that said, as engineering as my background, analytics are my specialty, but not my passion. I view analysis as a means to an end to accomplish something tangible. I am a sociable person and like working in teams and synergistic work groups to drive results. For now, I like to be on the move, dealing with real issues and real problems. For the past 8 months at Petro-Canada, I've experienced all that oil refining has to offer, from crude purchasing to retail sales of petroleum products. While I don't pretend to be an expert in any of these areas, I have an appreciation for the complicated supply demand dynamics present in the oil business.
I am a people person, and therefore like to interact with others on a daily basis. Combined with my background in process improvement, retail merchandising, store operations and now oil and gas, I feel that the place where I would like to start building my career within Petro-Canada would be in the Retail Site Management or Convenience Retailing Divisions. I can harness my experiences there and challenge my interpersonal skills. Doing so will allow me to further develop my professional career. Looking further than that, only time can tell. Goals can always change, but for now that's where I would ideally like to be."
Now the only thing is for Petro-Canada to want me back =)
