A QU I C K N OT E

This eBook was written with the assumption that you have some
familiarity with this city, and as such, we’ll focus only on the topic of
getting hired in Dubai.
This eBook will also not cover details such the weather, the
population demographics, governmental structure, cultural do’s and
don’ts, etc.
Such information is covered in great detail on online forums and
websites, and we recommend you read about these things.

GetHiredInDubai.com
“It is never too late to be what
you might have been.”
– George Eliot

GetHiredInDubai.com
 TA B L E O F C O N T E N T S

INTERNALIZE
- THE RIGHT MINDSET
- SELF-LIMITING BELIEFS
- HARD WORK OR SMART WORK
- JOB OR CAREER
THE STEPS
- T I P # 1 D O M I N AT E L I N K E D I N
- T I P # 2 D O M I N AT E G O O G L E S E A R C H
- T I P # 3 G E T YO U R E M A I L S R E A D
- T I P # 4 F I ND YO U R P R O SPEC T ’S E M A I L
- TIP #5 ON-GROUND NETWORKING
- T I P # 6 H AC K YO U R S K I L L S
- TIP #7 UNADVERTISED JOBS
- TIP #8 MAKE IT ABOUT THEM
BONUS
TOOLS AND RESOURCES

GetHiredInDubai.com
 “It is never too late to be what
I N T E Ryou
N A Lmight
I Z E have been.”
― George Eliot

GetHiredInDubai.com
 THE RIGHT MINDSET
Before you embark on this journey, it is important to be fully
aware and internalize the fact that Dubai and the UAE in
general are full of opportunities.
The fact that you are reading this is itself an indication that
you know and can attest to this fact.
You might already be in Dubai and looking to move into a new
job OR you may be completely new to Dubai. Either way, it’s
important to internalize the fact that there are jobs that require
your expertise because of the incredible value you have to offer
and that employers are willing to compensate you very well for
it.
The economy in Dubai has been on a steady recovery since
2012, and in 2014, its GDP was $540 Billion, with 71% of it
from non-oil sectors.
Yes, it has its highs and lows, like any city in the world.
However, If you are looking in the right places and using the
right techniques, which this eBook is going to teach you, then
you definitely can expect the best.
There are far too many people who are not focusing on the best
that the city has to offer and are reading random news articles
to validate their fears. Don’t be one of them.
This is not some visualization exercise that teaches you to
expect the best in your mind and the rest will follow. There are
practical steps you must take once you have internalized the
right mindset.
Think of this as a game being played around you. The sooner
you figure out the game, the sooner you’ll have access to the
benefits that are to follow. You can make a really good income
by using the right approach and negotiating the right income
for yourself in a completely legitimate and ethical way.

GetHiredInDubai.com
 SELF-LIMITING BELIEFS
Belief: I am not good enough.
Reframe this to: I am as good as I think I am.
Write down all your accomplishments, your positive qualities,
reasons why people enjoy working with you, and the times you’ve
coped with difficult situations and been successful at
overcoming challenges.
You’ll see a new person emerging from this exercise, entirely
different from what you believed about yourself.

Belief: I don’t have enough experience.

Reframe this to: I can make my own experience.
Do you have knowledge about this industry? Do you think you
can add value? Yes, it’s true that nothing can replace the years of
experience on a particular job, but if you can communicate the
fact that you can add value though a fresh approach, then do it.
You can learn the skills online through various online mediums,
such as udemy.com, skillfeed.com, coursera.org, etc.
After you’ve gone through these courses, write a 2–3 page
proposal on how you would address their business challenges or
what you would do to thwart a recent competitor’s move, and
submit it along with your resume. The entire dynamic of your
resume has changed from ‘no experience’ to ‘a problem solver’.
They will now see you very differently. You can research
companies and their competitors via websites such as
ameinfo.com, arabianbusiness.com, gulfbusiness.com, etc.

Belief: I must be overqualified.

Reframing this to: I just need to update my skills.
Don’t let a good opportunity pass you by with this self-limiting
belief. Nobody is really overqualified. What the employer is
looking for is a set of new skills for the job. Highlight the recent
accomplishments and skills you’ve learnt rather than your ‘years
of experience’.
The employer is really interested in how good and flexible you
are at solving business challenges with new tools and new
competitive insights. Highlighting your years of experience may
give the impression that you value the years more than the
approach and the agility to solve problems.
GetHiredInDubai.com
 H A R D WO R K O R S M A R T WO R K
NO OF RESUMES SENT

TIME SPENT ON RESEARCH

The job search process itself is a very competitive process, and
you need to tackle this by working smarter, which is working
hard on consistent testing, research, and asking the right
questions.
Notice the 2 lines in the above graph. The red line indicates the
person who sends out resumes or fills in online job applications
randomly with little or no research. This jobseeker slowly loses
steam and eventually gives up.
The green line indicates the smart candidate, who puts in the
right effort on research, testing, and continuously modifying
their resumes. The new input helps this candidate swiftly adapt
to the market requirements and send out resumes to the right
jobs. Notice in the graph how the latter built up motivation,
because success breeds more success.
Sending out 90 or 200 resumes per week without research is an
example of laziness.
Continuously testing, researching, and using a focused approach
is smart and real work.
The number of resumes sent has little to do with the number
of calls you receive. Sending out a resume to every job position
you see is actually a sign of laziness. It takes hardly any effort.
Our mind deceives us into thinking this is hard work, but it
isn’t.
‘Not doing enough research is actually delegating your
responsibility to others.’
The candidate selfishly assumes that the person receiving the
resume will thoroughly study, profile, and link the contents of
the resume to the job description and this will then lead to
automatically being shortlisted for the job. But that doesn’t
happen, so use a smart approach.
GetHiredInDubai.com
 JOB OR CAREER
It’s important to understand this difference, especially in the
context of seeking a job in Dubai. For example, it’s not hard to
find professionals in Dubai who had an entirely different career
aspiration before they moved to Dubai: software developers who
work as sales managers OR sales managers who are now
procurement officers.
This is not to say that either choice (career or job) is good or
bad. The earlier you know your choice, the better for you.
A job gets you a salary, and that pays the bills, which is fine, but
if career advancement is not something you’re interested in and
the work doesn’t interest you at all, in two to five years, you’ll
most likely not be doing anything close to your current job.
A career is a series of connected rungs up a ladder of
opportunity within your company or outside, where you have
learnt skills at your previous employment opportunities to move
you into higher-paying and higher-prestige employment
opportunities later on. In five years, you’re planning to be doing
something very similar to what you’re doing now but hopefully
with more income, a better title, and more interesting problems
to tackle.
Needless to say, both are very different aspirations, and people
that do decide to take up a job should realize that moving into a
career position might only get them to the bottom or
intermediate position in the career ladder. However, people who
take up a career role should be ready for the effort, patience, and
consistency required in this role.
In Dubai the majority of people are working a job, and
depending on your industry or company that you aspire to work
in, as an expatriate, there may be a ceiling of how high you can
advance in terms of career growth and seniority. The sooner you
understand this, the faster you can make informed choices and
decisions on your work aspirations.

GetHiredInDubai.com
“It is never too late to be what
you might have been.”
― George Eliot

THE STEPS
 T I P # 1 – D O M I N AT E L I N K E D I N
LinkedIn has a regional presence in Dubai, and as such, they are
committed to increase the number of users in Dubai and the Middle
East.
LinkedIn in Dubai has managed to get some of the top companies in
the private and public sectors to set up company profiles and to recruit
through its platform.
This is good news for job seekers in Dubai, but it also means that you
must now think like a LinkedIn ninja to appear on the top.
Here are some tips to do that:
(a) Learn how LinkedIn search works
When a potential hiring manager searches for you, LinkedIn search
algorithm first looks into the:

Search engine
Looks Here Looks Here

Looks Here

(1) Job History – LinkedIn looks at a user’s current and past title at
places of employment. The more times that title (e.g. Sales Manager,
Operations Manager) occurs, the higher the ranking for that keyword.
(2) Headline – The engine also looks at the profile headline and sees
if the keyword appears there.
Prepare all keywords. For example, if you are applying for a position
of a sales manager, keywords would be: (1) sales manager, (2)
enterprise sales manager, (3) sales account manager, (4) regional sales
manager, and (5) area sales manager.
You can use this FREE keyword generator:
www.wordstream.com/keywords
Once this is done, group common terms, and make a new list, which
should look like this: sales manager, regional sales, enterprise sales,
areas sales. Once you've shortlisted these, incorporate them into your
(a) heading, (b) past and current company job descriptions, and (c)
summary. GetHiredInDubai.com
T I P # 2 – D O M I N AT E G O O G L E S E A R C H
Think of your job search as a job itself, which requires you to be on
top of your game and requires excellence.

As you go on to promote your personal brand, there are two critical

tactics that you must deploy immediately. Just as large companies
optimize their websites with search engine optimization (SEO), so
must you.

There are 2 reasons:

(a) To be found online and ranked among the best,
(b) To establish a positive online reputation.

There are 10 websites that are heavily search engine optimized, and
you must set up your profile on these (with your job keywords).
Remember that, along with your job history, make sure to enter all
the job description keywords and include the brand names of the
customers that you’ve worked with. This will increase your rank on
Google.

(1) indeed.ae, (2) naukrigulf.com, (3) monstergulf.com, (4) careerjet.ae,

(5) bayt.com, (6) dubizzle.com, (7) gulftalent.com (8) workcircle.ae, (9)
trovit.ae (10) jobs.laimoon.com

Once you do this, proceed to the next step of creating your online
presence on websites that will help your personal brand and will rank
you high on Google search:
(1) www.about.me
(2) www.hi.im
(3) www.flavors.me

GetHiredInDubai.com
T I P # 3 – G E T YO U R E M A I L S R E A D
Hiring managers and recruitment consultants get a lot of emails that
don’t seem very different from each other.

The purpose of an email is primarily to engage and not convince or

sell, and as such, you much pique curiosity with your first email.

(a) The subject should grab their attention, e.g.:

Your Name – Sales manager with 147% sales conversion history
Your Name – HR manager with 87% employee satisfaction record

(b) Don’t make the email your job description or a list of skills.

Keep it short, and tell them exactly how you can help them ______
or increase their sales by ___%. Avoid using terms such as ‘I hope’, ‘I
was going through’, or ‘I just.’ Rather, have a degree of certainty in
your communication, and end with a request for a short meeting or a
phone call.

(c) Write as though you are communicating with your peer or

colleague.

(d) Establish social proof immediately. Yes, you can include names of
professional contacts and organizations who you have helped and are
happy to recommend you.

(e) Keep the content very short. The idea is to solicit a response and
not force a decision upon them whether they should hire you or not.
So, make it easy for them to just respond.

(f) Sending a courteous follow-up at least 5 times with a gap of 2–3

days is acceptable, just to get on top of their inbox. They are
genuinely busy, and emails do get buried, so a follow-up is in fact
appreciated.

GetHiredInDubai.com
 T I P # 4 – F I N D YO U R P R O S P E C T ’ S
EMAIL
Any hiring decision starts from the email Inbox. Your primary aim is to: (a)
get to the inbox, (b) get a response, (c) get a call to action – either a
meeting or telephone call.

(a) Make a list of companies that you want to work with.

(b) Go to LinkedIn, and search for the person using the company name and
designation.

(c) Go to Sellhack.com, and find ANY email address from the above information.

(d) Go to www.tools.email-checker.com to double-check if this email is functional.

GetHiredInDubai.com
 T I P # 5 – O N - G R O U N D N E T WO R K I N G
The Dubai trade show calendar is filled with events throughout the year.
For example, take a look at the Dubai World Trade Centre calendar at
www.dwtc.com/en/events:

On-ground networking can help you directly reach hiring managers of

Dubai-based companies and overseas companies that potentially want to set
up in Dubai. The first day of trade shows in Dubai are particularly
important because that’s when the senior management of exhibiting
companies are in attendance.

How do you register for these tradeshows?

Job seeking is a job – Set up a one-page consulting website that speaks
about your expertise, and use a corporate domain name and a one-page
website from godaddy.com.

Once you have a corporate email and a one-page consultant website, print
300 business cards with your corporate email and mobile number.

The business card is not to solicit business but to share your contact details
with potential hiring managers.

GetHiredInDubai.com
 T I P # 6 – H AC K YO U R S K I L L S
It is possible that some job postings can be quite intimidating.
The people who write these job descriptions, in most cases, don’t want to
miss out on anything and, as such, make them as descriptive and lengthy as
possible.

However, there are certain skills you cannot be lacking, and either you must
refine your existing skills or learn new skills to fit the job description.

How do you do this?

Register on udemy.com and skillfeed.com to access thousands of online
courses, many of which are free.

(a) These will get you up to speed, and your confidence will skyrocket.
(b) You will have learnt a skill in 4–8 hours that will not only help you on
the job, but the structure is built to make you an expert on that topic.

For example, if the job description requires project management skills,

udemy.com will give you the most updated project management skills,
tools, and resources. It also gives you access to a forum where thousands of
students participate and ask questions on the forum.

GetHiredInDubai.com
 T I P # 7 – U N A DV E RT I S E D J O B S
Yes, it’s true that most jobs are not advertised and only about 15–20% are
made public. The percentage can vary, but the fact is that most jobs are not
advertised.

However, there's an unconventional way to find these jobs.

During your job search, you’ll notice that some of the best Dubai and
multinational companies use third-party recruitment applications like
taleo.net.

These applications help them streamline the recruitment process, and the
interesting bit is that they also use them for unadvertised jobs and internal
vacancies.

If you request Google to search taleo.net and give it a list of keywords, the
results will be: unadvertised jobs.

Here's how you type the search into Google:

site:taleo.net intitle:careers [write the job designation] [any other keyword]

You’ll have to try out different keywords and get familiar with it, but you’ll
be rewarded with job listings that haven’t been made public.

GetHiredInDubai.com
 TIP #8 – MAKE IT ABOUT THEM
Organizations exists to give value to consumers and in return make profits
for the shareholders and/or business owners. You get hired because of the
value you are able to deliver, which in turn helps the organization.

An average Dubai-based posting receives more than 300 applications, and

less than 12 seconds on average will determine the fate of this resume.
More than 50% will not even be looked at because of the following:

(a) The hiring manager/recruiter will scan the cover letter and not find
anything about the company, the job, or any keywords in the job posting. A
generic cover letter means that there was no research on the job or the
company.

(b) Typos on the resume will result in instant deletion.

(c) The cover letter should be about what you can do for the company or
what you have done in the past that can add value to this company. If your
only credibility is ‘12 years of experience’ or ‘bachelor’s and master’s
degree’, it adds little value. Yes, education and experience are important, but
to be considered, you need to show the real value that you can offer this
company.

Recruitment managers in Dubai are known to go through a checklist on the

job description.

(1) Understand and internalize what the job requires of you, and then
proceed to incorporate the keywords from the job description to fit your
resume.

(2) Focus on the employer’s needs, not yours. This will most likely get you
noticed at the first glance.

(3) Your cover letter is meant to get their attention, and your resume is to
communicate that you are an ideal fit for the job.

GetHiredInDubai.com
 B O N U S – TO O L S A N D R E S O U RC E S
Job seeking is either a full-time or part-time effort and, as such,
requires the same drive and motivation that a job requires. These
tools and resources will help you brand yourself, organize, track,
reclaim your time, schedule effective interviews /meetings, and
ultimately land your dream job in Dubai.

URL: sunrise.am/meet/
Pick the times that work for you, and send an invite with just a
tap. Let the other person pick their favourite time, and you're all
set.

URL: www.macfreedom.com

Freedom is a wonderful app that locks you away from the Internet
so you can be more productive.

GetHiredInDubai.com
 B O N U S – TO O L S A N D R E S O U RC E S

URL: www.charlieapp.com
Charlie combs through 100s of sources and automatically sends
you a one‐pager on everyone you’re going to meet with, before you
see them.

URL: www.slideshare.net
Slidshare allows users to easily upload and share presentations,
infographics, documents, videos, PDFs, and webinars.

URL: www.vizualize.me
Create your infographic resume for free. With over 500,000
infographics created, Vizualize.me is the #1 infographics maker
for resumes.

GetHiredInDubai.com
 B O N U S – TO O L S A N D R E S O U RC E S

URL: www.carbonmade.com
Simple to use. Easy on the eyes. A hassle-free online portfolio. No
HTML necessary. Chock-full of features. Proven aphrodisiac.

URL: www.emaze.com

The next generation of online presentations, empowering you to

create an amazing impression through design and technology.

URL: www.calendly.com

You and your invitees will love not having to trade several emails
to find a meeting time that works.
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GetHiredInDubai.com