Jobs in the New Energy World: Interview with Jason Assir, EnergyGigs

What is your name, affiliation, and current role?

Jason Assir, Co-founder & CEO of EnergyGigs.com

What is your background?

I am a technology and business consultant with over 15 years of experience in the upstream oil & gas, downstream turnaround, transmission & distribution utilities sectors of the energy industry. I have worked with clients as varied as the Marine Well Containment Company, Total Safety, CPS Energy, Dominion Energy, and Dril-Quip. Prior to consulting in Energy, I studied at Rice University's Jones Graduate School of Business and served in Turkmenistan with the U.S. Peace Corps.

How did you become interested in innovation and new directions in the industry?

I became interested in innovation in the talent arena due to three main reasons. First, my father was retiring but wanted to continue his electrical engineering consultancy work after retirement. He loves the problem solving part of electrical engineering, but wasn't keen on the traditional selling that was required to find new projects. So I wanted to help him sell his services while still enjoying his retirement. Second, while the energy industry is changing, so is the consulting industry. Freelance platforms were making it easier for talented consultants and companies to find each other and work on interesting, innovative projects. Last, we noticed a gap in the process of how companies found experienced talent, especially in new areas like hydrogen or carbon capture; the hiring process is still quite difficult, which in turn hampers the abilities of companies to shift strategies or take advantage of opportunities like those found in the IRA. Our team wanted to build a platform that would help our industry be more nimble in how it hired.

Please describe a new technology or process that you are involved with.

Our mission is to support the future of the energy industry by helping to connect energy talent to energy companies through a variety of hiring solutions, including strategic search and project-based technology-guided hiring. As a talent platform, we help companies and contractors alike reduce risk in hiring by increasing transparency and making it easier for people and companies to work together. We also aspire to provide on-ramps for people to new and evolving energy sectors like geothermal, carbon capture, hydrogen, or strategic corporate initiatives like digital transformation and sustainability.

Who will benefit from it?

We see energy professionals and energy companies being able to greatly benefit from our work. As the energy industry evolves, we want to make sure both people and companies have the opportunity to evolve with it. For example, if coal is in cyclical decline in the US, the question we ask is how do we provide on-ramps for talent to not get left behind as coal goes away? We believe we have a role to play in helping build a digital version of that on-ramp.

Where will the technology or process be in a year? three years? five years?

Within 1 year, we plan to be well beyond our beta version of our platform and actively serving our core beachhead markets of oil & gas, geothermal, power and utilities. In three years, we anticipate that our online service revenue to eclipse our offline service revenue. Five years from now, we plan to have multiple thriving lines of business that truly reflect the current and future of the energy industry.

What makes you optimistic about the future?

The talent found in the energy industry consistently impresses me and gives me hope. I have no doubt that whatever technical challenges we face, human ingenuity will give us breakthroughs we need.