CHRISSY CHAI
Chrissy joined Petrofac seven years ago and is based in Auckland, New Zealand. She is Consultancy Manager for Well Engineering.

I began my career with Petrofac as a Senior Consultancy Coordinator before moving to a broader Consultancy Manager’s role with more business development responsibilities. Broadly speaking, I recruit drilling teams for our clients, mainly in Australia and New Zealand but also the greater Asia Pacific region. This can be anything from full drilling teams to ad-hoc positions where teams need additional support.

New Zealand is four or five hours ahead of the rest of our team in Asia Pacific, so I usually start my day by checking emails with a coffee. My role involves a lot of coordination – I’m the person in the middle who joins everything up and I’m on the phone a lot with clients and consultants. My main consideration when placing someone in a role is the type and amount of experience they have. The next consideration would be mobilisation. New Zealand is our base and mobilising someone from overseas is always very expensive. Local clients tend to look at New Zealand candidates first, then Australia, then the rest of the world.

There have been so many different immigration restrictions during the Covid-19 crisis. That’s the hardest part right now– trying to figure out the requirements for each region before placing someone in a role. For example, I’m currently placing someone in Myanmar and the country’s quarantine period is 21 days – seven days before you travel, seven days in a government facility and seven days in a hotel. It makes recruitment for rotational roles really tricky and some clients are having to put in extra crews.

I always feel accomplished if I find the right job for a consultant and the right person for a client. My proudest moment was when I got promoted into the Consultancy Management role. It was recognition of my length of service and the amount of work I’ve put in over the years. I’ve met a lot of really good people in the industry – I’ve been in recruitment for 15 years, but in the oil and gas industry you tend to work with the same network of people.

My time outside of work is focused on my four-year-old and six-year-old. If I’m not doing something kids-related, I’ll catch up with my friends – which is quite difficult at the moment as Auckland is in semi-lockdown. Hopefully, it won’t last for too much longer.

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