re: What should I do to try and get a no/limited exp oil job?

Now that I'm in Houston, probably until early February, I was looking to find an entry level job as a financial analyst in O&G, but I've had a tough time, since most firms look exclusively at accounting & finance majors for that, or people with O&G experience.

It sucks, because I have private equity and financial modeling experience, and know about 10x more about finance than anyone with just an undergrad finance degree, but it seems most people in the industry are just looking for cookie-cutter type candidates for positions, and I don't really have any connections in the region or industry.

I sent out cover letters & resumes to several private equity firms in the Houston area that specialize in O&G, but they seem to mostly be looking for guys who worked for 2-3 years at prestigious NYC investment banks focusing on energy financials, and my work experience is just not that impressive relative to those other candidates.

It sucks though, because I know good and well that if given a chance I could do some financial modeling with the best of them, learn whatever O&G financial accounting conventions happen to exist, and then work on leveraged buyout deals or whatever, but it seems hard to get my foot in the door.

Maybe I'll just stick to what I'm doing now though, and work on trying to get a job at a quant hedge fund in 2015, which was my original plan anyway. frick though, I sort of figured, "when in Houston, do as Houstonians do" though when it comes to O&G. I do sort of want to be like J.R. Ewing a little bit.