By: Asmaa Abdulzaher
Have you ever thought about packing your luggage and traveling to an Arab country to look for a job opportunity?Have you chosen UAE to be your destination on that trip, thousands around the world make that trip every year, especially from the Arab World, and some of them succeed in having a job, and some spend a lot of money and return home without work?
How can you get a faster job opportunity during visiting UAE ?
Catching opportunities
But how can job seekers make better use of their time within just one month of a visit?
Here are some important advices:
First: Before the visit:
• You must prepare a good English CV which is direct and concise and illustrate your actual skills, away from writing useless words, or excessive speech, or “ready-made” CVs that is compatible with millions of other CVs.
• Do not commit to one CV, verify your resume, and have at least 3 different copies according to each institution and every job you are looking for.
Ex: A person has a Master degree in economics, looking for a job, and all his previous experience is an economic analyst in a company in his country.
So you must work on two or three different copies of your CVs, and you must highlight in each separate copy different skills:
1- As an economic researcher in the private sector.
2- As an economic lecturer in a private university.
3- As an economic trainer in the sector of small and medium enterprises.
• Reading more and more about the sector that you plan to work in, and find out about the largest companies and institutions in that sector within UAE. For example, if you are looking for a work in the banking sector you must put in your mind the top 10 banks within UAE as a primary goal in your search journey.
• Reviewing the site of these companies, their latest vacancies, the level of their salaries, and the stability of work within these institutions.
• Make a personal, professional profile on the site “LinkedIn” where most of the major companies, within UAE, depend on to get new employees.
• Communicate with some employees through “LinkedIn”, or HR managers of these institutions or sector you want to work in, with polite and balanced communication, which may open the door to new opportunities and recommendations from that institutions. Avoid urging in seeking jobs, which may alienate some people of you.
• List those companies, and dates to visit them. But most companies now are putting applying application online, so you do not need to carry your resume and go to the headquarters of the company or institution, unless you have someone within that institution may help you to apply for a vacancy.
• Set a specific budget for your visit, arrange the place of residence and make it closer to the means of transport. Set a specific schedule for your interviews, whether personal or professional.
Second: During the visit:
• Divide your day between day and night searches, daytime for interviews for companies, and night for online search via popular recruitment sites or local newspapers and magazines.
• Communicate directly to the list of companies you have according to the opportunities available in each company, feel free to accept any reasonable salary at the begining, or to accept of a job may not matching 100% with your skills.
• Negotiate strongly on the salary provided, all HR departments have a budget for each vacancy, and usually offer the lowest salary at the beginning and waiting for negotiation: for example a job “customer service” which the salary specified by HR is between “5-8 thousand AED” according to experience, but the first offer is 5 thousand AED, if you do not negotiate, you lose you at least two thousand or three thousand AED.