UAE Job Market: Ask your Queries Here!

DxB.Raf · 10-02-2011, 04:06 PM

<blockquote id="quote">quote<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by umairahmed
 DXB. Raf,
I appreciate your efforts of helping the folk on this forum & I need your advice as well

I am ACCA affiliate but donât have bachelor degree. I have three years accounting experience in a supervisory role at two local FMCG companies. Do you think that being ACCA affiliate is enough to find a reasonable job in UAE? Or not having a bachelor degree would be a major disadvantage? Further I am planning to visit UAE next month for a job hunt. Do you think this is the right time?

Thanks,

<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

First of all you do have a worthy experience. I assume you have exposure to recievables, payables, bank management, fixed assets and parts of management and financial reporting. This is very good experience. If you check out the UAE job sites, finance related jobs are always available in numbers. The only problem is that the number of candidates applying is more than you can imagine. So the jobs are always there but the competition is fierce. You have to beat lots of good candidates to get selected. So prepare yourself to face it.

Regarding education, there are 2 drawbacks of not having bachelors degree.

First, employers here prefer a mix both academic and professional qualifications. I am strictly talking about industry. Obviously in Big4s qualification matters most. However, i am sure you will be looking at industry. If you are on for an interview in industry, you are bound to face questions pertaining to academic degree. Having no bachelors would adversly effect your chances. You might just not get short-listed because of no bachelors degree as there are hundreds out here offering both professional and academic degrees with experience. That's why i advise all ACCAs to complete the BSC degree first thing after passing the required exams.

Suppose, you still got your job then comes the second drawback. Look we are not going to get high level designations like Finance Manager or AVP or something like that with 3 or even 6 years of experience. These posts are demanding upto 10 years if you look at job sites today. You are most likely to join as Accountant, Senior Accountant, Executive, Analyst, Management Accountant, Cost Controller. You are going to face very cruel salary negotations for these posts. The HR would be arguing about their collective costs and how much you are not being cost effective for them by demanding a certain salary. They start looking for your negetive points like no local experience, no industry exp, no dirving licsence and numerous other things to put you down. That is where your lack of bachelors degree would kill your salary. I faced the argument of no local or accounting experience (i have consulting and audit experience only) and faced cut of 3k. I was offered 3k more at a BIG4 advisory as compared to what i earn currently. But the advisory role is not inline with my long term goals so i had to give it a pass.

So it's better you get one if you can. ACCAs are very lucky to have the BSC option. It is a very prestegious degree here for employers. So got for it.

See there is a minimum you need to get for UAE market. It includes a Qualification, A degree and atleast 3 years of experience. only then you ENTER the competition. Beating it is the next step and without these, you are not even in the game.

Up to March next year, it is the ideal time to visit. One of my close ACCA friend is on visit here these days. He has done 7 interviews in 2 weeks.