Answering the most asked question from international talent across the globe since I relocated to Dubai, specially as a Recruiter.
First things first, there is no 100% rule or recipie, and what I will share with you here applies 80%-90% of actual hirings, yet anything can happen.
Let's make this brief, UAE is an attractive international market, and its getting more and more stronger as talent magnet attracting top talent from all across the globe. So the competition is really high.
- Clean city with nice architecture.
- High tax free pay
- Lots of global challenges in other regions specially EU, Africa and Asia, where talent are coming to a centralized location as UAE.
- Ease of mobility to UAE, job based residency is easy to get in a couple of weeks with even new options for Visa presented by government lately.
- And more attractions...
Therefore, getting a job offer in UAE specially for someone not yet based here comes after:
- Being top notch in what you do! After gaining rich experience in your area of expertise, gaining related certifications, having lots of achievements and success stories for at least 3 to 5 years if not 8 to 10. Yet coming as a junior, or at senior/manager level but not yet at the top of your game lacking proper education, experience and talent and your plan is to try your luck by applying on tens or hundreds of roles and maybe it might just happen, is not how the game works here. For each role we advertise in UAE, we get not less than 500 to 1000 applications, where at least (50 - 100) are strong talents coming with vast experience in the needed domain, and we put much effort selecting the top candidate for each role.
- International experience. Even if you never worked abroad before, you need to have some experience working with international teams from different cultures and backgrounds. If all your experience was local in your home country (specially if its a local talent based country) where you didn't get the chance before to work with abroad teams, then the chances are lower, as companies here think you would need more time to adapt and be very productive in such a new environment, and they will give preference to candidates who are already are in the market or have been working on a similar model in their home country.
- Confidence and speed. You come with high confidence in what you do, you know how to quickly bring results from your 1st month. As the talent bar is high and pay as well, where business understand that by choosing to hire a talent in (Dubai for example compared to a low cost country) that they are doing it for a reason and the ROI for their investment will be high and quick. You will not find companies here giving 3 and 6 months to understand the business and then ask for results. Mostly, your performance evaluation will start after your 1st month if not 1st week at a new role.
- Residency and visa. If you can come and get one of the options of visa for professional freelancers, investor, job search visa or any other option, that will greatly help you with landing your 1st job. I know its a lot, but recently a lot of talents are doing the same and it provides a lot of available talent in the country where companies don't need to hunt talent from abroad and bare the relocation and higher onboarding costs, not mentioning time.
- Personal branding. Your brand is very important, even if the role you are applying for is not customer facing, any business in UAE itself is for them the brand is important and its partly presented through the talent they hire.
- One last advice, don't start putting your CV everywhere and to any role that might be close to your profile, only apply when you are ready with the exact experience, as most companies in UAE have ATS systems where by time your profile shows that you applied for 5+ different roles in each company for irrelevant roles and they would see you as a non professional.
Don't let the above affect your motivation, yet being ready, realistic towards your next steps and expectations helps you protect your personal branding and motivation.
And I wish all the best of luck :)
