Sparrows hydraulics course or ROV Course?

[Euan Wright]

Hi all,

Firstly, sorry for the age old repetitive question regarding courses to help get into the industry….

Currently I have an electronics degree and work as a Seismic Technician which has given me experience in Subsea electronics, mechanical maintenance and some experience in hydraulics with our heave compensated crane. I’ve been applying to a large portion of the big ROV players with no joy. As I only get 5 weeks vacation a year I was thinking the two week MTCS ROV course (don’t have the holidays or $$$ for the one at FW), however, reading the forum, I’d be lying if I haven’t been somewhat put off! Would anyone recommend it? I applied recently to a trainee position with Subsea 7 however they did stipulate that you should have completed a ‘IMCA’ course. 😕

The Sparrows Hydraulics foundation course was the course I was looking at. Has anyone found this course beneficial to getting in the industry? I guess the plus of this course is that this qualification is at least transferable should the ROV career not take off!

Cheers 🙂

[David]

"Would anyone recommend it?"

No!!

With your experience you should be able to work for rig companies – better money and a more regular rotation.

[Euan Wright]

Did you do the course? Was the content poor? My job is actually currently rig based but is ad hoc so any sort of rotation would be welcome. I’ve been fortunate enough to sit in on dives and shown basic maintenance whilst offshore which is why i’m really interested for this career move. Is this basically what the course covers?

Like you say at least the hydraulics course would allow for scope for other offshore jobs!

Cheers

[David]

Put it this way mate – at the end of the course I was as qualified and had the same amount of operating experience as the instructor!
The tech training was low level and low quality with frequent mistakes, I thought the whole thing was atrocious.

[Euan Wright]

Thanks for that mate….think I’ll save my pennies and scarce vacation! Did you get an ROV start or are you doing a rig based job?

Cheers

[David]

I’ve gone onto the rig maintenance side, good money and regular rotation. There was no response from ROV cmpanies, I admit i didn’t chase them because I was disillusioned with the whole thing. Most of the guys who did the course heard nothing.
The market is saturated with people who have done the course so that forces wages down.
As well as the rig/oil companies there are the third party companies like Baker Hughes, Halliburton, Weatherford, Schlumberger etc

[Euan Wright]

Thought I’d give a wee update on course choice. I ended up doing a combined HV, Basic Hydraulics and Fibre Optic course over a week at MTCS as they are at least transferable skills had the ROV career not materialized. It also made sense as their course was 1500GBP (inc VAT) which was the same as the sparrows 2 days hydraulic course. I’d recommend the course instead of spending the vast amounts money learning to fly the vehicle as I found it stood me good stead (along with my background experience/education) to getting a start with SS7 in February :-).

To those looking to get in the industry, really follow the useful link on how to lay out your CV as we were told they had over 800 applicants from which 125 CVs got picked out of for psychometric testing.

[Ray Shields]

Well done on getting the start. 800 wasn’t too bad, my lot had well over 1000 for the 8 trainee positions 🙂

I know it looks like the ROV Training Schools are always slated on here (ok they usually are!) but one problem with doing them is its "all eggs in one basket",if you do an ROV course, it can only be used for applying for ROV jobs.

If you do hydraulics, fibre optics or High Voltage courses, yes these can be used towards ROVs but also towards many other jobs if you get nowhere with applying for ROVs.

It’s all about standing out. If you have an ROV course you don’t stand out if thousands of others also have it!

[senior]

Good luck in your new venture, hopefully it all works out for you, if not you can always try the ROV training route, I’ve been there done that and have never been looking for a job.
There are a lot of negative postings on here, from the "older" guys, but take it all with a pinch of salt, as some of them have personal grudges with training establishments…………I have worked with many of the older chaps on here that slate the schools, so I know a few wee things about their personal grudges………….

[Author]

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