It's been a while since my last post. I have been busy lately. The thing is when you move to another country, you kind of have to start all over, you have to make new friends, get to know the place, discover your own favorite places, etc. And if you think about it; it is really not that hard to get to know Dubai. It's very easy to get a new start and find all the things you need to find to make things the way they were before. But one thing is not that easy to find in Dubai; a job.
I was a bit lazy in the beginning of my stay here, I was newly married, hoping for a long vacation from work, telling myself: How difficult could it be to get a job around here? I thought it wasn't that hard, but I was wrong.
I started looking almost a year ago, checking out websites like Gulftalent.com and Linkedin.com, applied for a couple of jobs here and there, but never got a reply. I wasn't worried at the beginning because we were travelling and moving between Abu Dhabi and Dubai a lot. Then after settling down I started intensively looking in October 2011. I sent my Resume and Portfolio to almost every company I was able to know of. Friends were helping too, but still never got a reply. Some people told me that business is not doing well these days, and some people advised me to start looking in different fields. I didn't because I simply knew that I won't be able to master any other profession (which is in the Design Field), since it's not only a degree, it's actually the best qualification in me, my creativity. Plus; it would make a huge gap on my C.V. that I don't want it to be there.
So it was a struggle, not only to find a job, but to believe in myself, it started to get depressing and annoying, apparently sending out C.V's here and there wasn't the right way. If I want to find a job, I need to let people know me.
Knowing few people from social media helped a lot, and I took it from there to expand my connections, twitter, facebook, art communities, friends of friends.. all sorts of ways, eventually, the word was heard. People knew who I am, knew what I do, and the had an idea what I was looking for.
One of the most important factors of not getting a job in the beginning was my C.V., that piece of paper that tells companies all they need to know about you in order to hire you. And my husband, being an HR manager before, he had a look at it and he was disappointed. He wasn't impressed about it as it wasn't professional or creative. And it finally hit me, I concentrated ONLY on my portfolio and totally neglected my C.V., and it never occurred to me that when those two files reach the inbox of a person, this person tends to open the C.V. first, and judging by that would go for the Portfolio. I have to admit it was a mistake, and a huge one! So I took the time to redesign my C.V., and started sending it across to advertising agencies, and BOOM! Offers started piling up my inbox. It was the first time I actually got the chance to choose where I wanted to to go. Now; Elhamdullelah, I started a month ago freelancing with one of the biggest advertising agencies, and this explains why I was away from blogging this long.
After I was getting frustrated by all the "Position Closed" emails in my inbox, I knew something was wrong with the way I was applying. Redesigning my C.V. was a huge factor, connections and friends were also too. What I want to share with you about this experience is that in the beginning it was hard, I started getting depressed, but I never actually focused on the reasons, if you do, you might realize it very soon and fix the problem. Don't start applying by the end of the year, companies usually don't look for employees by that time, make an interesting C.V. that stands out and pleases the eye. But the most important thing; NEVER stop believing in yourself, we all have special professional capabilities, and we all can be successful.
