Only one company seemed concerned that soon many more geophysicists will be retiring than are enrolled in universities today. One senior executive believes we needn't worry since new interpretation software technology will replace many current geophysicists. The job skills required by service companies are quite different from those needed by oil companies. The technical skills they require are more closely aligned to existing university curricula - seismic imaging, inversion, data processing, acquisition, signal analysis, geostatistics, velocity analysis, model building, pore pressure prediction, attribute analysis, reservoir characterization, etc. Nevertheless, since most technical interpretation is being carried out by service companies, new hires need a much stronger foundation in geology and reservoir engineering than 'data processors' of the past.
Most service companies find that a geophysicist is the best person to do interactive programming.
Service companies need to address the problems of data structure, data transfer rates, and parallelization, which are not addressed by higher-level software tools commonly used in the universities. Many felt that interactive Java and other web-based applications are on the horizon. Next to technology, formal communication skills are paramount in service and software companies. In essence, everyone is a marketer, whether doing a high-tech demo at a trade show or rolling out paper seismic sections for QC in a client's office. Extroverts thrive in a service company, particularly in the marketing and technical support roles.