Confusion: Geophysical Specialist vs. Geophysical Consultant

Thank you, vpainter, for your very prompt reply.

Do you (or anyone else on the forum) know:
(1) The GC range for "Geophysical Specialist" position ?
(2) The GC range for "Geophysical Consultant" position ?

Thank you very much for your reply, Quanta.

Do you (or anyone on the board, for that matter) know if there is an ex-pat geophysical position higher than "Geophysical Consultant" or Grade Code 16?

I'm trying to relate Aramco positions/grades to other oil companies that I am more familiar with.

Better to hire in as a consultant with the higher GC.

Only Aramco knows why the 2 position les. Its just they way they created them, could be based on years of experience.

Argonaut,

There are salary overlap but no grade code overlap as far as I know. I've seen a person with GC13 has higher base salary than a few GC14 engineers.

No, it is not possible for there to be an overlap. Job les are linked to the grade code on a one-to-one basis.

Aramco arranges job les into "job families" so that there is an available career path within each discipline. For instance, you have Petroleum Engineer I, II, III & IV, PE Specialist, PE Consultant and Senior PE Consultant as part of the PE job family, each job le corresponding to a different GC. Each GC has a salary range and while the mid-point of each GC's salary range will be higher than the corresponding previous one, as Quanta said, the top of one GC's salary range can be higher than the low point of the next higher GC's range.

What vpainter said about GC level increases doesn't quite give the right picture - you get annual salary increases (normally) while remaining within the same grade code but in addition (or separately) to that, based on various criteria, it is also possible to get promotions from time to time (as in all companies). A promotion takes you from one GC to another (and therefore changes your job le, usually to the next one within the same job family) along with which comes a commensurate increase in salary.

The difference between Geophysical Specialist and Consultant (as per the next answer) is primarily a GC difference. Each job le (and corresponding GC) has a slightly different job description and minimum job requirements. Since one is a higher GC than the other, with higher pay, the requirements to be hired at a higher GC are, in broad terms, to have higher skills and/or qualifications and/or experience.


Already asked and answered (by Quanta):


Without trying to sound too flippant, the answer is fairly obvious. If you can get a promotion (which you can, depending on various different factors, of course) after GC 16 comes GC 17.

GC 17 is a "managerial-level" position so often an employee (whether expat or Saudi) getting to that level can be moving out of a technical area in to a more administrative, supervisory or managerial position. While it is very unusual these days for an expat to actually become a department manager (I don't know of any in the Business Lines I'm familiar with these days, though there used to be some in the past and may still be some in areas I don't know about) there are other GC 17 positions you can get into.