Out and About in Dubai

 

A non-food related TT this week!

9 months after quitting my job in New York, getting married to the BF of 5 years, relocating to Dubai, and taking the time to explore a new country, I am just about to say goodbye to the life of leisure and embark on a new job, new career, and a whole new set of experiences.

Only 3 more days of leisure left!

13 Things I’ll Miss When Starting the New Job

 

13. Marathon sessions of Heroes, 24, Lost, etc.

12. Wearing pajamas all day and not even bothering to brush my teeth (at least until the hubby gets home).

11. Meeting up with other non-working friends for coffee, lunch, tanning, or mahjong.

10. Impromptu trips like the Seychelles.

9. Spending all morning at the gym - run 6 miles, yoga class, sit in sauna, then enjoy a leisurely beach-side lunch.

8. Prepping and cooking time-consuming recipes likes roasts or stews all day long.

7. Being able to jump in a car at anytime and explore Dubai on a whim.

6. Drinking until all hours of the morning on Sundays (due to hashing).

5. Shopping at the malls when it’s quiet b/c majority of the population is at work.

4. Rock climbing at Wafi on Sunday and Wednesday mornings when the rock wall is open to non-members and practically empty (evenings are packed and hectic).

3. Free time to work on my online blog and photo projects.

2. Sleeping in if I so choose to (although try as I might, I’m usually awake at 5:30am and out of bed by 7am).

1. And the #1 thing I’ll miss the most - Reading all my blogs!!!

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Tags: job hunt, thursday 13 | 12 comments »

Just a quick post to say that this past Wednesday (1.5 weeks after I received my offer letter) I received my employment contract and am now due to start work on Monday, June 15th - WOOHOO!!!

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I got my offer letter yesterday from the company I had interviewed with - yay!!  After my last interview, they said the offer letter would be forthcoming in a day or two but that was 2.5 weeks ago. Things are definitely slow here.  My husband waited over a month before his offer letter and contract came through. And I’ve been told that’s pretty good for Dubai standards.

However, knowledge of the fact that things are slower here doesn’t make the wait (nor the job hunt) any easier. I still worried that the company was going to take back their offer and decide not to hire me after all.  I’m glad that wasn’t the case.

So now I’ve filled out and returned some paperwork.  I think the next steps are reference checking, medical testing, and labor card applying. I wonder if I need to have my college degree attested?

Tags: job hunt | 1 comment »

 

It’s been exactly two months since I started looking for work in Dubai and there has been some developments since the last round of rejection emails. A very very good development actually. Last Wednesday I was offered a job position and I accepted! Woo-hoo!

But I am superstitious so until I get the actual contract in my hands, I am keeping mum on the position and the employer from everyone. Only the husband knows (of course) and one friend who had interviewed with the same company.

I will say that this job hunting thing is just awful. It’s not exactly stressful as I’ve done it so many times before in New York, Miami, Puerto Rico, Chicago, New York again, and now Dubai. It does get easier each time in terms of interviewing and selling yourself but then again, with each job, you have more experience to sell.

But the parts that I hate are the getting-the-interview and the waiting-game part. For example, I started off by sending my resume to all the major recruitment companies in Dubai as well as applying to ads in Monster, RecruitGulf.com, Bayt.com and a bunch of others. Did any of them get back to me to schedule an interview? Not a single one.

I know I am a great candidate and any company would be lucky to have me. Now these are not my words but words from ALL my former employers as well from a recent interviewer. But why didn’t anyone pick up on my resume? Ah, that was a rhetorical question by the way. We all know the HR game: It’s something like 10% experience, 30% luck, and 60% who you know*. Wait, does that add up to 100%? Think so.

So a month and a half into job hunting, I was starting to get royally pissed off at the lack of response. There’s nothing like anger to get your ass off the couch and do SOMETHING. Drastic. Anything.

Well, I played the who-you-know card, which got me a few preliminary interviews. Then perhaps luck got me second interviews and experience landed me the job. Or, maybe luck landed me the job…who knows.

However, after those first prelim interviews, there was nothing. Nada. Nilch. Not a peep. One week passed. Then two weeks. Then a third. I thought they had forgotten about me. That’s when I got angry again and sent another flurry of resumes to the recruiters - this time I addressed them to the CEO’s and managing directors. I had nothing to lose, right? Seemed to have worked as I did get some responses. And guess what? I think this second anger event created momentum in the form of a second interview for the position that I really really really really wanted: The day after I sent out this second flurry of resumes, a recruiter called me for the first time and just 10 minutes later, I also got a call-back from one of my prelim interviews. Yes, it took them 3 weeks to do so. But I forgive them.

My recruiter interview went okay - though it was only 20 minutes and I felt sort of like cattle beind herded through the gates of job placement commissions. Whereas my other interview lasted an hour and a half and in the end, I was offered the position, and as much as I tried to play it cool and say that I’d think about it, I just blurted out, “I’ll take it!”

So that’s the update. Now I play the waiting game again - this time it is for my contract. Hope they don’t forget about me or wait another 3 weeks…

*not scientific…just my experience.

Tags: job hunt | 2 comments »

Last night, I received my second rejection email from a company that I had sent my resume to. It was from a recruitment company that had advertised on RecruitGulf.com. They said they were in constant need of candidates to fill temp positions so I thought: Hey, I’ll send them my resume since all I do is sit at home all day doing nothing (not true but sounded good).

So I sent in my resume and this is the response I received: Your details are of great interest to us, however, we will not be taking your application further at this time.

Hmm. Of great interest huh? I’d call that an outright lie. Because if something were of great interest to me, I wouldn’t reject it now, would I?

So the search for employment continues…

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We are back from St. Moritz, Switzerland and had a wonderful time skiing/snowboarding, eating lots of fondue, raclette, PORK sausages, drinking Braulio (yuck!), catching up with friends and meeting new ones.

More details and photos later as I’m supposed to be working on my resume right now. The deal was that I would start looking for work as soon as we returned from our Switzerland trip so technically I’m supposed to have already finished revising my resume given that I’ve had the last 6 months to do so. Ah, but the old procrastination set in and here I am procrastinating again.

I leave you with one photo that epitomizes our week-long gastronomical gluttony. This was taken the day we arrived in Switzerland at our friend Marco’s house where we would gorge ourselves on cheese, pork, beer, wine, and then start over again every few hours. Ah, heaven.

Wish me luck job hunting!

Tags: job hunt, travel | 1 comment »