PUBLIC RELATIONS

Petroleum industry is a world of many opportuniti es. No matt er what your speciality is, joining this fascinati ng rich world is not out of questi on even if your fi eld of experience is not petroleum related. Petroleum importance exceeds the limits of being just an ordinary industry to go all the way up to being described; bett er, as a business. The success of any business depends highly on public image, formaliti es and protocols. A need that was addressed by virtue of establishing sophisti - cated strong departments that supervise such matt ers with skill and creati vity but most importantly, with elegance and panache, preserving and protecti ng companies’ best interests. Here to put things in the proper perspecti ve for us; PR specialist, Ms. Randa Arafa sharing her earned three years experience with us.

Randa Arafa Public Relati ons Specialist

Nowadays Public Relati ons Department is considered an important department in any company, whether it is local, foreign or even a multi nati onal company, some might even say, it is the mirror that refl ects the image of the company, or as commonly known; the fi rst impression. Most professionals worldwide, grade companies through public Relati ons departments. When I was told that I have been chosen to work in a public relati ons department, I thought that I would have an easy spoiled job, but aft er working for a short period in this department, I can assure that only people out of this loop make such a falsely naïve conclusion. The rapidly growing importance of PR Departments arise from the delicacy and sensiti vity of the role they control in a company’s relati ons strategy, a matt er can singly handle keeping circles on tracks, and for that reason, the External and Public Relati ons Manager must be a person of unique talents and profound skills, not only that, but he or she has to have abundance of intelligence to win people over, gaining their trust and respect in the process. And maybe here; as a PR specialist, I can highlight; within the shade of my personal experience, some of the traits that one needs to acquire and possess in order to qualify for a job of that caliber.

1. Personality (humorous, friendly, frank, drill-sergeant disciplinarian, motherly, non-judgmental). Do not assume that what appeals to you most, also appeals most to your target market.

2. Values (respect for traditi on and honesty above all). For example, you might be selling offi ce supplies but set yourself apart from the pack by letti ng it be known that you donate excess or disconti nued inventory to a local homeless shelter.

3. Relati onship (constant contact, distant but on-call). You can stand apart from competi tors by being the one who proacti vely checks in with clients and returns all phone calls within an hour. Or you can set yourself up as the expert who will never schmooze or go out to lunch with clients, but work hard to save their neck when trouble comes calling.

4. Method of working (speedy, methodical, creati ve). You have to know how to handle deadlines, manage to work under pressure, If you are a web designer, perhaps your specialty is impossible deadlines - or slower producti on but a guarantee of no bogginess or typos.

The four traits menti oned above tend to lean more towards the personal side. Now, let us take a drift into a more technical side with some of the most important technical skills you need as a PR specialist:

Writi ng: Communicati ng eff ecti vely in writi ng as appropriate for the needs of the audience. Criti cal Thinking: Using logic and reasoning to identi fy the strengths and weaknesses of alternati ve soluti ons, conclusions or approaches to problems. Acti ve Listening: Giving full att enti on to what other people are saying, taking ti me to understand the points being made, asking questi ons as appropriate, and not interrupti ng at inappropriate ti mes.

Judgment and Decision Making: Considering the relati ve costs and benefi ts of potenti al acti ons to choose the most appropriate one. Time Management: Managing one’s own ti me and the ti me of others. Persuasion: Persuading others to change their minds or behavior. Social Percepti veness: Being aware of others’ reacti ons and understanding why they react as they do. Coordinati on: Adjusti ng acti ons in relati on to others’ acti ons. Deducti ve Reasoning: The ability to apply general rules to specifi c problems to produce answers that make sense. Inducti ve Reasoning: the ability to combine pieces of informati on to form general rules or conclusions (includes fi nding a relati onship among seemingly unrelated events). Problem Sensiti vity: the ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing there is a problem.

As important as these skills are, yet alone, they cannot give you the advantage or the edge to always stay a pioneer in your fi eld, they have to be sawed together with the fi ne fabric of KNOWLEDGE. And here are some pointers on some of the subjects; a good PR should have an extensive knowledge about:

Communicati ons and Media: Knowledge of media producti on, communicati on, and disseminati on techniques and methods. This includes alternati ve ways to inform and entertain via writt en, oral, and visual media. English Language: Knowledge of the structure and content of the English language including the meaning and spelling of words, rules of compositi on, and grammar. Sales and Marketi ng: Knowledge of principles and methods for showing, promoting, and selling products or services. This includes marketi ng strategy and tacti cs, product demonstrati on, sales techniques, and sales control systems. Customer and Personal Service: Knowledge of principles and processes for providing customer and personal services. This includes customer needs assessment, meeti ng quality standards for services, and evaluati on of customer sati sfacti on. Clerical: Knowledge of administrati ve and clerical procedures and systems such as word processing, managing fi les and records, stenography and transcripti on, designing forms, and other offi ce procedures and terminology.

Now, for all who thought PR is just a fun ride, here is a list of tasks, PR tasks, which shall convince you otherwise, and open your eyes to the fact that PR is a very consuming job:

1. Respond to requests for informati on from the media or designate another appropriate spokesperson or informati on source.

2. Study the objecti ves, promoti onal policies and needs of organizati ons to develop public relati ons strategies that will infl uence public opinion or promote ideas, products and services.

3. Plan and direct development and communicati on of informati onal programs to maintain favorable public and stockholder percepti ons of an organizati on’s accomplishments and agenda.

4. Establish and maintain cooperati ve relati onships with representati ves of community, consumer, employee, and public interest groups.

5. Prepare or edit organizati onal publicati ons for internal and external audiences, including employee newslett ers and stockholders’ reports.

6. Coach client representati ves in eff ecti ve communicati on with the public and with employees.

ther from the internet or via email then we start to prepare our papers to mail the conference or seminar organizer, we have to take care of every detail, guests, fl ight ti ckets booking, hotel reservati on, car rental, att endee speech, every detail have to be well organized

10. Consult with adverti sing agencies or staff to arrange promoti onal campaigns in all types of media for products, organizati ons, or individuals.

11. We also support employees to celebrate their occasions like Christmas, New Year, Mid Year and summer, Ramadan Iftar, we even held farewell parti es for employees, prepare internal trips in winter and an External Trip in Summer period which makes a good atmosphere for employees that breaks the ice among them and make all feel one family.

12. Every External and Public relati ons department in the world must have a well organized storage that contains every material they use like magazines, fl ags, signs, posters, banners, company sti ckers which we use in various occasions like meeti ngs, fairs and events, memento with the company logo and fi nally gift s.

13. We also have routi ne work as every now and then we update the list of VIP contacts we deal with to follow situati ons and changes everywhere, to prepare labels for invitati ons or gift s lists, company lett ers, conferences and seminars subscripti on….etc.

7. Confer with producti on and support personnel to produce or coordinate producti on of adverti sements and promoti ons.

8. Confer with other managers to identi fy trends and key group interests and concerns or to provide advice on business decisions.

9. Arrange public appearances, lectures, contests, conferences or exhibits for clients to increase product and service awareness and to promote goodwill, as one of our most important tasks is subscripti on to Conferences & Seminars and here the public relati ons becomes a very hyper team trying to fi nish everything with a chic quick style as once we receive a request from any of the departments we start immediately by checking the conference place, reason, expenses, benefi t to employees and companies and then proceed the method of payment ei

Randa Arafa acquired her Bachelor degree of Law from Ain shams Uni. in 2006. She took her fi rst step into the petroleum industry working in Public relati ons, throughout the past few years she gained abundant experience in fi elds of PR training coordinator, assistant training and developing Management, Team assistant and public and External Relati ons Offi cer.

Mr. Ahmed Wafa Recruitment Manager (FODP) - Eastern Hemisphere, HR Manager Halliburton

Mr. Ahmed graduated from the American University in Cairo in 1998, he majored in electronics, and then he com¬menced his career as a sales engineer at Giza Systems Com¬pany. Shortly afterwards, he joined SLB’s operations unit for two years. After a six years journey at IBEROTEL working initially as an assistant engineer, he had a sudden change of heart, as he was promoted to be HSE manager of IBEROTEL, only to leave it later on to finally join Halliburton as an HSE coordinator. For his last shift of careers; he settled currently on filling Halliburton’s-HR manager and Recruit manager for the Eastern Hemisphere-positions for the time being.

First of all, we would like to show our outmost gratitude and appreciation for the huge efforts you made to spare us a portion of your valuable time and fit us in your busy schedule on such a short notice. Mr. Ahmed, there is no doubt that your company’s name is only proceeded by its reputation; even on a global scale, but for the sake of clarification to the few minority that are not aware of what Halliburton does exactly, may you enlighten us on Halliburton’s historical background?

Halliburton is a multinational Americanbased company, specialized in oil field services. We are dealing with vast number of petroleum companies like; BP, BG, Petrobel, Khalda and GUPCO. Our tasks begins with ones as simple as surveying, to more complex and complicated ones such as drilling, cementing, casing, production. In other words, you can say the entire cycle of oil production. Our influence is not limited to Egypt as we operate in more than 70 countries with over 50,000 employees of 121 different nationalities and two main subdivisions; Western and Eastern hemispheres, the former runs our operations in Northern and Southern Americas and Canada, while the later sees over our operations in; African, European, Asian, Far Eastern, Middle Eastern and Australian territories. Egypt comes in the Middle Eastern African sector.

Halliburton presence in the Egyptian market has been noticed since the late sixties; particularly starting from 1969, with an incredible long list of fine achievements, in your opinion, which do you see the most outstanding?

We have the lion share in the Egyptian market if compared to our rivals; add to this, the fact that we regularly feed our branches all over the world with Egyptian manpower, and that is, in my opinion, our finest achievement throughout our history.

Facing problems and obstacles is a must in any line of work, the bigger the firm; the more complicated are the problems it faces. We are curious to know the challenges that a company of your high caliber faces and the procedures taken to prevent them?

clients who expect us to always rise to the occasion, as well as governmental agencies, leaving no chance for any setbacks or even delays. The only issue that could count as a problem is recruiting.

Statistics show that Halliburton’s staff here in Egypt is 96% Egyptian, can this be taken as an indication that Halliburton can easily find the fresh graduates who success to meet its hiring criteria?

As I already mentioned; recruiting comes as a problem to us. In fact, it is not an easy task at all, although Egypt enjoys a rich pool of possible candidates. However; they lack certain required qualifications and need to be more developed in specific areas.

What are the major differences between Halliburton and the other competing oil servicing companies?

A vast majority of the oil servicing companies offers the same services as Halliburton provides, but what makes Halliburton unique in its field is without a doubt its high standard quality work. Halliburton is known by its quality service, as we work in accordance to a very complex matrix that measures different working parameters including; how a specific job is done, its minimum standard quality requirements and above all, the customer’s satisfaction and recommendations regarding the service provided. In addition to that, Halliburton is more concerned with the safety regulations followed in the working environment; as we insist in making sure that the working personnel are in a safe working environment during working hours at all times.

Halliburton is well known for its tough recruitment system and its shockingly high standards, we are sure that our readers both; under- and post- graduates, would be extremely interested in knowing the criteria you refer to in hiring and accepting applicants?

The certain criteria we are searching for is a passionate, highly innovated and an enthusiastic person who does not mind working in irregular working hours and under tough circumstances. As for the engineers; they will have to cope with the field’s harsh working environment, putting into consideration that what they will face in the oil field is not as simple as the different curriculums they studied in college. As for the office employees the criteria is different, the employees must have the “can do” action, accompanied by the capability of solving any problem faced without referring to its importance. Here in Halliburton we do not have standard requirements, personality is the most important aspect we are looking for. We do not set years of experience and we hire fresh graduates as well as experienced people, in other words; we hire the ones we think are capable of coping with our working environment.

Through your experience, what is the most common aspect you noticed that fresh graduates lack, and who is the one that Ahmed Wafa will not hesitate to hire him?

As I mentioned before, the one who wants to work in such a field must love his job as it is a very harsh working envi¬ronment and only few people can with¬stand these working conditions, so; if you do not love that field, be sure you will not last in it for long. Besides that, you have to accept the idea that you will be work¬ing from dawn to sunset, sometimes you will have to work while others are in va¬cation, bottom of line, I will only hire the one who takes his work as a way of life. As for the certain aspect the fresh grad-uates tend to lack, I would have to say; patience. They want to be promoted to managers so fast without even searching for the experience. They have to learn how to be patient as the packages and the salaries they dream of earning will only come from experience that they will earn sooner or later , so they have to build a good foundation for their career.

You have mentioned that fresh graduates want to be managers so fast. We want to know the key quality which aids you to be a successful one?

Learn how to think outside the box, never place a limit to your mind thinking, give your job a 100% or even 110% of your priorities, always think about how is the company operating as a whole and you have to keep your mind open to any changes that may occur through your career. There is always a possibility that you can start all over again from the beginning, I did it before, and I have worked in three completely different fields. You always have to keep in mind that if you have a target that turns out to be contradicting with your ambitions or simply; you cannot achieve it for the time being, then you have to give it up for a new one, on the hope of making your way back to it when the right moment comes. During looking up in your professional ca¬reer, it rose to our attention the fact that you have worked as an HSE, SR and HR coordinator, what a diversity challenge! How did each spe¬cialty influence Ahmed Wafa to participate in making him what he is today?

Before joining Halliburton, I was working SLB’s operation unit, where I met the safety staff and basically liked the idea of being concerned over the working en¬vironment and the safety of employees. I enjoyed that line of work; following safety regulations, awareness of the dif¬ferent HSE fundamentals, taking care of employees to return them home safe, and for that sake I decided to switch my career to an HSE coordinator. After joining Halliburton I began giving training cours¬es in HSE, then managers promoted me and I started working with the training section in the Human Resources departments giving training courses about HR, from that per¬spective I started observing the HR work and I was fascinated by the idea that they are taking care of the human being; as I am more of a socialized person, in HSE we were only taking care of employees’ safety while in HR we are taking care of everything else that deals with the employees themselves. I love working and dealing with people; that is why I left the engineering path and started working in HSE and HR as it became clear to me that those are the targets I could build a successful career on.

Time has run out and so have our questions, sadly we have to put an end to such an interesting interview, but before we do what do you advise our readers, particularly students?

The major problem for a college graduate is that life in college is completely differ¬ent from that of work; I want students to always accept what is coming next, take life one bit at a time, do not rush things, be flexible and to always think outside the box, but of course that does not mean you can bend the rules against the code of business and most importantly, do not ever sacrifice your ethics.

Quick Take Experience: Years, it is a life time ongoing project, every action you do in life increases it. Challenge: Spices of life; without it, life has no meaning. Professionalism: Is an attitude. Failure: Is a must to appreciate life.