Schlumberger Aptitude Tests Preparation

This PrepPack™ contains SHL-style and BMCT-style tests, covering the numerical, verbal, deductive, mechanical and excel subjects, as well as drills, guides and tutorials.

Schlumberger is the world’s largest oilfield services company and employs over 120,000 people worldwide. Recruitment to work with Schlumberger is in four business areas which we detail below, and at two job levels: graduates and experienced hires. The company are looking out for the best candidates for their jobs, and as such have a full and competitive recruitment process designed to have you show you have what it takes. In this article, we go through each stage of the recruitment.

The Schlumberger graduate programme offers four career paths:

This is the technology department, which invents new technologies, and updates existing technologies for the future. They are responsible for all the machines and equipment used in the field by Schlumberger. Jobs in this career path include field engineers, field specialists, maintenance engineers, maintenance technicians, researchers, and EMS engineers. In order to join this career path, you must have an academic background in a technical or engineering discipline.

This department works with clients helping them identify and maximise their recoverable reserves and optimise production. The disciplines within this business area are geologists, geophysicists, petrophysicists, reservoir engineers and software engineers. In sum, this department contains the geoscientists. Geoscientists have degrees in geoscience, petrophysics, petroleum engineering, or reservoir engineering.

This section supplies the international management and support teams for Schlumberger. This section ensures that the business runs smoothly across the world. The divisions within this business area are supply chain, IT, HR, and business consulting.

Schlumberger has other main businesses complementing the oil industry. Carbon Services focuses on storing the CO2 released from industrial sources in order to mitigate climate change. Schlumberger Water Services specialises in managing water resources around the world. Both sections also look for engineers and geoscientists and in SWS there are job opportunities as hydrogeologists, geologists, geochemists, water resources engineers, environmental engineers, and GIS and database engineers.

Schlumberger offer internships across all career paths. Each internship has its’ own qualifications criteria and applies to a relevant stage of training for each discipline. The internships are also set for varying lengths of time.

The first stage of the recruitment process is to submit an application. You can only submit an application for one position at a time, but you can reapply at a later date if necessary. In order to apply, you are required to provide your basic details and your resume only. You are shortlisted on the basis of your resume, which means that it is important that you ensure that your resume is good enough to impress. Gain tips on how to create a CV that stands out from the crowd with our CV builder package.

The company have a set of skills that they look for in each candidate, regardless of the position they are applying to. Some positions will add more skills to the list, particularly technical areas of work. The general list of desired skills is:

• Team players who see their work as a contribution to a bigger goal.
• People who like to take initiative, be enterprising, take action and get things done. People who are responsive to customer’s needs.
• Creative and forward thinking to drive business process forward to the future.
• Reliable and trustworthy, able to build relationships with colleagues and customers.
• Able to listen and understand the bigger picture.
• Flexible and able to adapt to new situations.
• Have a range of backgrounds to bring a range of views, ways of thinking and problem solving to complex challenges.

Schlumberger are looking for people whose personality fits the culture of the firm, who are hands-on and work well as part of a team. They want to know how you behave under pressure, how you solve problems, or how you go about getting your work done even in the face of adversity. Questions will aim to tease out how you approach change, and whether you prefer to work indoors or outdoors. Every step in the recruitment process is designed to enable you to show these skills.

Once your application has been received, reviewed, and progressed further, you are invited to a first interview. At this stage, the interview could be either face to face or a phone interview. This interview is designed as a two-way conversation. Not only are Schlumberger aiming to find out about you, but this is an opportunity for you to ask questions and learn about whether or not Schlumberger is a place you want to work. This interview will discuss your academic background and aptitude for the position. You are expected to demonstrate your experience through your answers to questions. The interviewer is looking for you to show the core skills of approach to challenges such as:

• problem-solving
• teamwork
• self-motivation
• stress management
• approach to work

They are also looking for evidence of your creativity, preferred work environment and how you adapt to new situations.

• Prepare thoroughly for your interview. The interviewers are looking for you to prove yourself, so prepare to do so.
• Review the resume you submitted as part of your application, so that you can provide consistent information in the interview.
• Prepare examples that can be used to answer a variety of questions. Prepare a range of examples so that you do not use the same example more than once in the interview.
• Prepare your examples using the STAR method (Situation, Task, Action, Result) to ensure that you organise them properly.
• Read up on the company, the business area and the job you are applying to, so that you can use this knowledge in your answers.
• Prepare questions based on what you have read to ask in the interview, so that you can find out the information that you need to know. Be careful that the questions you ask are not easily answered by researching the company thoroughly.
• Gain more tips about how to approach interviews from our free guide to interviews.

Once you have done as much preparation as you can on your own, the final stage is to practise what you have prepared in interview conditions. A mock interview can help you get your nerves out the way, and show you where more work may be needed. Our mock interviews can give you just the preparation you need, and our trained assessors are able to help you identify your strengths and weaknesses ahead of the real thing.

The second interview is held during an all-day assessment centre which also includes aptitude tests, group exercises, a presentation, and a technical test. This all takes place at the Schlumberger offices. Remember that you are also being assessed on the day as a whole, so use the time outside of the various assessments to talk to others, get involved, ask questions and find out more. You will receive the schedule of the day in advance, so read it carefully as you will be asked to prepare for the day.

If you are applying for a technical role with Schlumberger, the type of aptitude tests you can expect are technically based. For those applying to a commercial and business position, you face a numerical and abstract reasoning test.

Considered by many to be a maths test, this test measures your ability to utilise numerical information in order to extract information and prove points. Information is presented in the format of tables, graphs or charts, and multiple choice questions are asked on the information provided. You have to be able to use the basic mathematical functions as well as percentages, ratios, fractions or currencies in order to answer these questions. Find out more about numerical reasoning tests and how to prepare for them with our product.

Applicants for engineering positions are asked to put together a valve using a technical drawing and a bag of components. This task has a time limit of five minutes, and although it is not difficult, it is good to know about it in advance, as the time frame can create pressure on you.

This test is most likely to be set for the technical positions available at Schlumberger. The Commercial and Business career path are unlikely to face this test as they will not need to know this information in their day to day jobs. In this test, you are asked questions about mechanical and physics actions. Topics include forces and motions, energy, circuits, voltage, calculations of areas and more. Each question is multiple choice, and there is usually a tight time limit on the test. Find out more about mechanical reasoning tests on our website.

Abstract reasoning tests test you on your logical thinking without words. These tests are often called IQ tests, as they are considered to be the best way to measure a person’s IQ. In this test, you are given a sequence or grid of shapes, and you are asked to identify the missing shape in the sequence from a set of options. Preparing in advance can teach you how to identify the patterns and answer the questions. You can study here for abstract reasoning tests.

This assessment examines your language abilities: Reading comprehension, text analysis, grammar and vocabulary.

If you are applying for a job as a field engineer, you may take a slightly different type of test from those described above. This test is a combination of both numerical and mechanical reasoning, with questions on maths, physics, electrical circuits, mechanics and statistics. This is a 40-minute test with 20 questions, meaning time is of the element. Practise for this challenging assessment with the help of our technical test battery.

The next activity at the assessment centre is a presentation. You are asked to prepare the presentation ahead of the assessment day.

Experienced hires may be asked to give a 30-minute technical presentation. You are notified whether this is the case in advance, and you are also told whether you have been given an assigned topic or allowed to choose your own. Once you have given over your presentation, you will then be asked questions on what you have said by your interviewer.

Applicants to graduate and intern positions are asked to give a 5-minute presentation. Topics will be sent to you in advance, but can include talking about yourself, your career aspirations, and your previous experience as well as a more technical topic. This presentation is given to the entire group present at the assessment day.

Giving a presentation can be a scary prospect, especially to your peers. 

The next task is a group activity. In smaller teams, you are asked to work together to build a structure using paper and sellotape. This can be a shelter, a tower, or something capable of holding up a small item. The aim of this task is to assess how you work as part of a team in order to achieve a target. 

The interview is the final stage of the assessment day. It is a 30-minute competency based interview. The interviewer may ask you questions about yourself, the job description and your skills and experience matching the requirements of the job. They may also ask you about the divisions in the business area you have applied to, so do your research on the company ahead of your interview. Some questions will be technically based, and for these questions, they are interested in your thought processes and how you work things through, not just your answers.

Ahead of the assessment day, don’t forget to review your resume, and to review your examples for use in answers. Look at the job description and prepare examples for the key job requirements. Brush up on your interview skills with a mock interview.

Below is a list of interview questions that have been asked at Schlumberger interviews in the past. These questions are an illustration of what you can expect to experience in the interview.

• Give me an example of when you’ve been shouted at or told off by a customer or coworker who wasn’t happy with your work.
• How do you handle negative feedback?
• What is your biggest weakness?
• Why does the oil industry need you?
• Why Schlumberger? What is involved in the position you have applied for?
• What is your ideal job?
• If you were a manager and the vendor put the operation in danger, how would you deal with it?
• Tell me about a time where you were involved in a conflict at work. What did you do to rectify the situation?
• Where do you see yourself in Schlumberger in five years?