Thread regarding ExxonMobil Corp. layoffs

To the young politically conservative new hire below. Something to understand is that GPA no longer matters a few years after graduation. What is important is how you contribute and make your department profitable.
There are also several circumstances why someone can get a low gpa or not have early experience, it can be personal or family circumstances but that does not make someone inferior to you or why you deserve a higher salary than someone less unfortunate.

Keep them in the office. They have no business in the field. Wasteful no real world common sense. Just waste our time and add more unnecessary aggravation.

20 years engineering experience with 1 year infield experience? Get real...

EM engineers definitely spend way too much time doing stewardship though. Contact engineers should be spending more time infield with operations and not spending hours on end putting together a presentation on how perfect our equipment is and what we are doing each month to get # OEs down.

I would recommend if staying in the industry to try to get a field job. You will be ahead of engineers with 20 years experience with 1 year of actual real work hands on experience. You would be much more respected in the industry also. I will say you will have to thickn your skin a bit but will be have much more character than other college worms. Just my 2 cents from an old timer God bless

To the person whose comment is just before mine:

I am a young (politically conservative) new hire, not that it should matter. I was top of my class at university and the first in my entire engineering class to get recruited after turning down several other jobs (had my XOM job offer all of senior year). Part of what attracted me to the company was the apparent care for their employees (as much as a corporation can, and of course that is understandably not the primary function of a business). If I had the opportunity, I would have stuck it out and I think I would have had a good career here.

I get it, change can be scary, especially driven by fickle public opinion. I think myself and the new hires let go for no real reason know that better than anyone. We were told we wouldn’t be ranked, then we were ranked against people with more time to contribute after positive feedback, and that hurts. It feels crushing to those of us that put our heart and soul into learning and working overtime to quickly become an asset to our company.
However, comments like yours make me feel better about getting out now. Your utter lack of compassion and blind faith that the workforce reduction we are faced with was due to poor performance is telling, and may ultimately leave you in quite a shock if the company deserts you also. I wish you the best, but urge you to consider compassion (or at least do some research) next time you hear someone else’s life-changing difficult news.

Seeing these upvoted comments and parents complaining are hilarious lol. Termination and office politics happen often in smaller companies. Now that oil is not profitable, people start complaining when companies can't sustain the high salaries.

Awesome to the person that said they see no difference. Give your new employer another reason to terminate you. Then you can get 2 terminations under your belt, one for poor performance and another for lying on your background check. Such a role model.

"What person below said. When your new employer is conducting your background check, there is no way for them to figure out that you involuntarily resigned due to PIP. When they call exxonmobil to verify previous employment, all they can say is you worked from this date to this date. You are setting yourself up for failure if you force the company to terminate you."

I fail to see any difference if they only confirm employment dates when called. Who is going to disclose that you were terminated? Just tell future employers that it was a layoff, no need to go into details.

Sorry to hear this. Please know that you have outstanding background because of which you got hired. Good companies provide mentoring, training and professional development, and constant feedback for a couple of years before expecting anything from you seriously. Instead of receiving these common services, you are now an NSI. So it a reflection of the company not you. You will rebound with truth, and ExxonMobil will have to repent for their arrogance and heavy handedness

Now we have the new hires parents coming onto this site to defend them? What is this, middle school?

Shame on you for not allowing your child to grow up and fight their own fights. Maybe that's part of the reason they were let go versus the other new hire peers that weren't PIP'd.

Shame on ExxonMobil. You hired the brightest young professionals from top ranking institutions, and then fired them within a year or two without any prior feedback of nonperformance. Would you train or nurture these bright professionals or destroy their confidence and future? Here is what Exxon can do to earn the trust:

1. Say sorry to these professionals and tell them it is not their fault that the business is not doing well. It is a lay off and not a reflection of their capabilities or performance. Atleast it is an honest thing to do, and young professionals will feel cheated.
2. Fire the managers who failed to train them; who did not provide timely feedback; who did not arrange for their professional development; who did not display any empathy.
3. A manager with conscience would resign first before asking these wonderful young talents to resign with the threat of firing if they dont resign.

@1zwv - it’s not geoscience failing, it’s management and their horse trading, lack of courage, and hubris. The story of Guyana is that we couldn’t divest fast enough. After dragging our feet for a decade, when Shell bailed, management couldn’t find a way out, so instead we gave the largest equity gift to Hess in history. Management thought they were being smart by making Hess carry us, they had no conviction in that they were giving away billions of dollars. Now everyone is a fan.
Just look what’s about to happen in Brazil, with the outrageous bets. It wasn’t technical pushing it, it was desperation at the exec VP level. You’ll know the results don’t look promising when people start singing his praises and he “elects to retire”.

What person below said. When your new employer is conducting your background check, there is no way for them to figure out that you involuntarily resigned due to PIP. When they call exxonmobil to verify previous employment, all they can say is you worked from this date to this date. You are setting yourself up for failure if you force the company to terminate you.

Being terminated absolutely does not look the same as resigning. Any person that says otherwise is fooling themselves. Exxonmobil employees know what is going on because they know the system and know people being let go.

The majority of the public/HR do not know what goes on here, do you want to try explaining to your next potential employer that you were fired not because of poor performance but because you didn't meet the popularity contest. Yeah, that's exactly the same as voluntarily resigning.

What happens if you don't resign and xom terminates you? What is the termination reason they would give? Any severance then? Or is there any difference at all?

Hiring folks will figure out if you resigned to avoid being terminated, you are not really changing anything. I say - stick it to the Man, make them fire you! What have you got to lose other than your chains???

There are nearly 1000 geoscientists. Fewer than 50 work on Guyana and fewer than 10 worked on the original discovery. There are plenty of low performing Geoscientists that are not finding oil.

I was in exploration geoscience. Such bs they are laying off geologists considering this company would be worthless if we hadn’t discovered Stabroek

I was in Global Projects. I’ve been with the company approx 11.5 months. Same terms: 1 week to decide resignation or termination. Best of luck to all of you in the same boat! We joined the company as high performers and Im sure we will land on our feet

Which company were you all in? UIS?

Yep, similar experience. Been with the company for just over 2 years. Was told that 2 year employees would not be ranked but that changed obviously. Was told during padp feedback session that I am "needs improvement" because of behavioral/personality. My technical capabilities are just fine. Really no warning before during any other sessions that my performance was in any way putting me in danger of being let go. Same 1 week to make a decision/turn in the forms and 1 week after that to wrap things up/turn in computer.
But looking at the leaked documents...(https://upload.vaa.red/rVmYr#c3c755e166a8e077d43e16d5a35eabc5 ) these changes to the performance system were done recently with the COVID crisis squeezing an already squeezed company.
I also personally know of others who are not new hires also being let go, although they get the fun option of a PIP (performance improvement plan). But the chances of improving enough under the subjective eyes of management who is looking to cut headcount is slim to none. So they're also on the way out.
The cuts are across the board at the technical level. Next year management is up on the chopping block...the work environment will only get more toxic. So it's probably a good thing we're getting out now. ExxonMobil is a sinking ship. I don't see how they're going to do well.

You’re not alone, received notice on Friday to resign within 7 days, and I received the same low performance excuse for practically no reason and after hearing only positive feedback at my pre-assessment meeting. The separation agreement says that they will not contest your unemployment claim (once you can file after your severance pay runs out, and you can file for unemployment in this case since it was basically a forced resignation. Google the TWC unemployment terms), and the no future employment clause is just a short term protection for the company, so don’t worry too much about that (there is another forum on here talking about that clause). Keep your head up, and understand this decision is completely independent of your self worth, and you know better than anyone that this is just a business decision for a company facing tough times. Considering we are still 1 yr with company, I think the terms are not too bad (although it sounds like the terms have varied slightly for different people). Will be applying on LinkedIn pretty soon and using those outplacement services that were mentioned, and be sure to leave on good terms. Hopefully you have accrued some references that can help vouch for you at your future employer. Good luck ~

same, 2 years in the company, given a BS reason for performance (when I submitted my PADP manager said I'd probably be in the ok category again - no indication my performance was so bad I'd get "fired")

was given forms to resign and 3 months pay after.

Last in first out isn't the only way they are handling this. Plenty of people with >15 yrs with the company have been let go also.

Whomever still thinks "last in, first out" isn't the way Exxon is doing it -despite all assurances that they aren't just like everybody else in the industry - is willfully ignorant or a peddler of Koolaid.
It's a shame they misled these young professionals but it's the long term that is most concerning: only a fool will want to come work here.
I recruit at a top university, and in all honesty, I can't recommend anybody to pursue a career in petroleum geoscience and even less so to join this clown car.

Too many new hires over the last few years. Not enough growth of the company to sustain. S—s, but sorry yall. Hopefully yall can bounce back quick.

Received news this morning that I’m in the NSI category - only been with the company 9 months. They asked for me to resign with a no-sue clause and I would receive one months pay following resignation. Really shocked as I thought there wouldn’t be layoffs per DW. I’m done with this industry