By Amanda Leon, founder of OilMoney.io. Houston-raised, came up in the Houston marketing team of Vallourec, and has run Unrth, a brand and growth studio for oil and gas and industrial companies, since 2017, with her boots on client locations in Midland and Odessa. Last reviewed October 20, 2026.
Maybe you're a hand who has watched the sales rep who calls on your crew and thought, I could do that. Maybe you sell something else and keep hearing about the Permian. Either way, to get into oil and gas sales you need to show a hiring manager two things: that you can pass the screening to work around a location, and that you know something about the customer's work.
Two roads lead in. From the field side, you know the work and learn the selling. From sales in another industry, it runs the other way. If you're still sorting out which kind of sales role you want, start with New to Oil and Gas Sales? Start Here.
Whichever road you take, expect rounds. I once went through nine rounds of interviews for a job in L.A., because I wanted it badly. If getting hired here takes more rounds than you expected, that's normal, and wanting the job is what carries you through them. A hiring manager in this business is about to hand you a company vehicle, a territory, and his customers, and the rounds are how he gets comfortable doing that. Give the last round the same effort you gave the first.
What Permian Postings Ask For
Drilling Tools International's field sales listing in Midland asks for 5 or more years of experience and lists field sales calling on rigs in the Permian as desired expertise. It involves extensive local travel within the Permian Basin, requires a background check, an acceptable driving record, and drug testing, and comes with a company vehicle and expense reimbursement.
B-P Supply's September 2026 business development posting in Monahans makes vendor approval and new customer MSAs part of the job and requires the hire to live in Midland, Odessa, or Monahans; we break that posting down in clearing the vendor gate with supply chain.
A Regional Sales Manager posting from recruiter The Energy People Group, dated March 30, 2026, leads a Permian Basin sales team from the Midland office, prefers experience with production-side products such as artificial lift and sand tools and with HubSpot CRM, and pays a $150,000 to $200,000 base plus a 20 to 45 percent bonus, which is a manager's pay, not a starting wage.
All three want someone who knows the products or the buyers and can cover a lot of road. Learn how operators set up suppliers before your first interview, because at least one of these jobs makes it part of the work.
Ways In: From the Field or From Another Industry
From the Field
If you've worked on location as a hand, an equipment operator, or a service tech, you already know things an outside sales hire learns the hard way: the equipment, the language, and what a bad day on location looks like. That's a head start on a listing like the Midland one, which wants field sales experience calling on rigs. What you'll add is the business side: quoting, RFQs, MSAs, vendor setup, and a CRM.
Tell your supervisor, and the sales rep who calls on your crew, that you want to move over. Nobody loves this land more than the people who work it, and the people who have watched you work are the ones who can vouch for you.
From Another Industry
If you've sold somewhere else, you bring the selling habits a field hand has to learn. What you're missing is the work. Learn the product line and how operators approve vendors, then learn who you'd be selling to and what their days look like. Expect the same screening a field hire faces, and expect to be asked where you live.
The Job Market in Midland and Odessa
The Bureau of Labor Statistics put the Midland metro area's unemployment rate at 3.3% in August 2026. In that count, 44,600 of the metro area's 129,800 nonfarm jobs were in mining, logging, and construction, about 34%.
For the Odessa metro area, BLS put the August 2026 rate at 4.0%, with 19,700 of 84,500 nonfarm jobs in mining, logging, and construction, about 23%. BLS reports that as one combined sector, so it isn't a count of oil and gas jobs.
The Dallas Fed's Permian Basin Economic Indicators for the second quarter of 2026 show Midland-Odessa total nonfarm employment up 3% from March through June 2026, against 2.4% for Texas and 0.8% for the U.S., and up 1% year over year in June. The same report has Midland's unemployment rate rising to 3.4% in June from 3.1% in March, and Odessa's to 4.3% from 3.8%, with Texas at 4.4%.
If you're coming from outside the area, learn who sells to whom before you apply. Start with our maps of oil companies in Midland and oilfield companies in Odessa, and our Permian oilfield service sales guide.
Building a Profile That Shows What You Know
A referral from someone already inside the company usually opens the door faster. Your profile backs that referral up if the hiring manager looks you up, but it won't replace it. The profile you build to get hired is also the one your first customers may look up once you're carrying a bag, so build it for both:
Say what you know in the headline. The basin, the products, the kind of work. "Experienced professional" tells nobody anything.
Write your experience the way you'd explain it on location. What you ran, what you fixed, and who you worked alongside.
List only training and certifications you actually hold.
Post now and then about what the work taught you. Take a question customers ask and answer it in plain English.
Connect with the people a referral could come from. The reps who call on your crew and the people at the companies on your list.
Once you're in and carrying a book, that profile can work as a sales channel, and building it is the job of The Warm Walk-In™. For what a profile does for a working rep, see does my LinkedIn profile really matter if I sell oilfield equipment, and for the day-to-day, how it works in oilfield service sales.
Get Your Bison Walk-Around
Already have the seat? Start with a free look at your profile.
Send us your LinkedIn. We'll send back the Bison Walk-Around: five minutes of plain English on what's costing you callbacks and what we'd build. No call. No invoice. We give first.
Sources and As-Of Dates
Drilling Tools International: Midland, TX Field Sales/Technical Sales listing. Undated listing, accessed October 17, 2026. The Midland field sales listing.
BP Supply Inc, Business Development Representative (job posting). Posted September 29, 2026, viewed October 17, 2026. The Monahans business development posting.
Regional Sales Manager, Permian Basin (job posting, PCRecruiter), from recruiter The Energy People Group, employer unnamed. Dated March 30, 2026, viewed October 17, 2026. The regional sales manager posting and pay.
BLS Economy at a Glance: Midland, TX. August 2026, preliminary and not seasonally adjusted; extracted October 16, 2026. Midland unemployment and jobs; the 34% share is our calculation.
BLS Economy at a Glance: Odessa, TX. August 2026, preliminary and not seasonally adjusted; extracted October 16, 2026. Odessa unemployment and jobs; the 23% share is our calculation.
Dallas Fed, Permian Basin Economic Indicators, Second Quarter 2026. Through June 2026. Job growth and unemployment.
The Warm Walk-In™ is an original method created by Amanda Leon and owned by The Valours Creative Innovation LLC.