Expat wannabe

Hi again,

As i wrote in the original post I am one of those looking for a job in Qatar and Middle East in general and I am actively searching since May 2012 and unfortunately still searching. In fact I have aplied for multiple vacancies through both job boards (bayt, gulftalent etch) and companies websites througout the Middle East area, but not only I had no interviews so far but didn' t have any replies either. Although I have to admit that it took some time for me to understand the way most construction companies in Middle East work, in terms of project diversity and size, opposed to my experience being in relatively small residential projects (up to 2000 sq meters).

Truth is I didn' t expect job hunting to be an easy process, but I thought that my 12+ years of combined Design and Construction experience would be attractive at least to mid sized companies (Really are there any?).

So I would like to ask what do you think is preventing companies from considering me as a potential candidate;

- the fact that the projects I' ve been involved to are relatively small?

- My lack of Middle East or international experience?

- Bad timing (meaning that recession hit ME countries to)?

- The fact that i only specialise in residential projects?

Thank you in advance

Zach

Good point i never thought of that.

Thank you Mandi, you have been really helpful

I always think a professional CV is a good idea. But I would go independent, not bayt who would have an interest.

Mandi

I am aware of that. Do you think that having my CV written by a professional (e.g. Bayt.com ) would help?

Sounds good to me! But you will be competing with a few million engineers from the sub-continent who tend to bid their services very low.

Mandi

I am a self employed civil engineer, I have my own design office and a small construction company. I design as a civil engineer ( architectural plans and structural analysis modeling and design in residential buildings) and after the building permit is issued I hire sub contractors and build them. So if that is translated into skills, it would make me a design engineer, site engineer and a project manager

No Gulf experience is OK, but I'm not sure I understand the self-employed thing. If you can sort of translate that into skills, etc, it would probabaly be OK.

Mandi

Thank you guys for all your comments. Special thanks to those who PMed me with usefull advices. Although no one made any comment on the self employment / non gulf experience issue. I would be really thankful if anyone has any information to share

Oh and of course I know I can' t find a job in two weeks

Thanks again

Zach

Two weeks??? The rule of thumb in the US is that you have to look one month for every $10,000 annual salary you expect.

Mandi

they (Pakistanies) r only 5-7 % of total expat population in doha , plz match ur figures again,

lol , moza

No actually it was downtown Doha in the area they call little Pakistan.....

lol dohaguy

Moza,

may be u conducted the survey in industrial area ?

plz have a go again , and try west bay , pearl ,Lusail areas

I did conduct a survey in English but only 20% could read it and only 10% could complete it.

moza ,90 % are not civil structural engineers,

Zach, keep trying hope ur ll get gud job , or directly visit company's websites,

and moza had conducted a survey of those 90 %

I wouldn't worry about your English, what you have written is better than 90% of the people here in Qatar.