How to impress BP’s engineering team – and win a two-week trip to the Caribbean

When even internships at big engineering companies are so competitive, you need to do anything you can to make your CV stand out.

Several hundred students recently spent several months trying to do just that by entering BP’s Ultimate Field Trip competition. And this week three engineering students won the grand prize of a two-week tour of BP’s operations in Trinidad and Tobago.

The competition – which asks entrants to design an innovative technology solution to a problem in the oil and gas sector – gives students the chance to demonstrate how they can put their engineering skills to use within industry, to work with mentors at BP and to get company’s name on their CVs. But it also helps them to learn what working in oil and gas really means.

Winners and finalists of the competition often go on to undertake BP internships and secure places on the firm’s graduate scheme, which has become increasingly competitive in recent years as recruitment in the sector has been scaled back.