civineer“Big jobs usually go to the men who prove their ability to outgrow small ones.”
–Ralph Waldo Emerson
If you are an Engineer or any other professional and interested in working in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) or Middle East, well, here is the good news, there are numerous opportunities existing there waiting for people to grab them. And I want to share with you how to grab one for yourself. The easiest way of securing a job in the UAE, specifically Dubai or Abu Dhabi, is to travel and reside there for a period of time. When you are close to employers and you have a local mobile phone number, you make it a lot easier for the employer to pick up the phone and place a local call to you. Although, this doesn’t mean they won’t call you if they are interested in your profile (I received a call from a potential employer from Oman while in Nigeria). However, by making yourself physically available and being able to show up for an in-person interview quickly makes the process a lot easier. They will easily opt for potential employees who are already present in the country, even though you will still have to seek for work permit when employed.
If you happen to take that risky decision (of spending some of your hard earned money to travel to Dubai) not everyone around you might support, then you are almost there. Upon finding yourself in the UAE, the easiest path to start looking for possible recruiters is through the internet. All you have to do is log in to the sites, upload your CV and mark it “looking for a job”. Potential employers normally will see your profile as “looking for a job”. It is from here that they will get your number and place a call to you. The most popular site now is Dubizzle. Others are Naukrigulf, Careerbuilder, Bayt etc. All these job sites have openings in Middle East countries like UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, etc.
However, other employers prefer the other way round. They put up job vacancies on these sites, then you look them up and apply according to instructions by the recruiter. If you are lucky, you will get called. The idea is to apply as early as possible because once they find the candidate they want, they might not take down the ad and so you will be applying for a filled position.
For my 12 days in Dubai, I and Bashir, about to conclude our graduate studies then, decided and tried to job hunt in Dubai from two different angles. The conventional walking up to offices and dropping our CVs and applying on the internet. Of course, there are hundreds of construction companies in Dubai and we cannot possibly visit all of them. We used a strategy that will make this task very easy.
Actually the robust Bashir came up with the idea (talk of what someone said about ‘lazy’ people, give the hardest job to the laziest person in the room, he will find the easiest way of doing it). There are two metro lines in Dubai, one passing through the Sheikh Zayed road and the other through downtown. We simply agreed to look up online, companies with offices close to metro stations only. So that at each metro stop, we don’t have to work far or spend a lot on metered taxis to get to a location.
You might not get the best of receptions when you show up at a place without an appointment. One of the offices we dropped our CVs who informed us, like other firms, no vacancies, eventually called Bashir. So yeah, they might say no at first, but there is no harm in trying. While through the online platform, I personally received 2 calls from potential employers asking further details about my expertise. I left Dubai without securing any job in 12 days. Bashir who I met and left there eventually got called for an interview and offered a job in Abu Dhabi. So yeah, it totally works if you match the requirements.
One thing you should keep in mind however is some employers prefer Indians and Filipinos, who I heard are the cheapest labour in the UAE. So let it not be a surprise to you when an employer asks about your nationality and doesn’t call you back again or he offers you a salary you are not expecting. Talk about equal employer opportunity. Again, employers will ask whether you have any Gulf experience; experience working in the Gulf region. You still can get hired without those. There is a starting point for everyone.
Are you ready to work abroad? Or you want another young man to tour the world with your old guitar.