EK28

My husband and I have been thinking about moving abroad for a while. We have expat family in BKK and SIN but haven't had much responses on jobs. My husband is a senior engineer in building services, has 7 years experience at an international firm and a smaller private firm and has applied for many jobs mostly direct to engineering consultants but also through one recruiter and through gulf talent. He has been looking and applying for about a month and has had one phone call from an international consultants in Qatar but they said they will take a few weeks to get back to him as it's Ramadan. It's been a few weeks now and still nothing from any. He has applied to Saudi, Dubai, Qatar, Oman, Phillipines, Malaysia and Singapore and nothing. Am I being impatient? Im the one obsessing of the job situation as Im a teacher and on school holidays so have too much time on my hands whereas he is far too busy at work to worry about it! Is there anything else he could be doing to up his chances of getting a response? I was always more worried about the salary rather than chances of getting a job as I thought engineering was a high sought skill but Im starting to think just getting a job will be hard!

mikewot

The advice often given on the bored is this:
Network
Linkedin
Find target companies - Link with them on Linkedin and network
Network some more
Gulftalent
Network more
Monstergulf
Network more
Naukri Gulf
Network more
Careerstructure
Network

EK28

Thanks for that. i did read that in another post. I think I should of made my questions bit more clear. He has applied directly to companies rather than through recruitment websites but hasn't heard anything back. Is this really because it is a slow time in the ME or are they just not interested? As he has what I assumed was a sought after skill I thought he would find it much easier to get a job. Also he can't really network as he doesn't live in Dubai and alot of the companies he is applying to have separate HR departments and are completely separate from the same company in Britain so it is difficult to make contacts with people already out there. He does have Linkedin so he has been using that also.

OriginalSunshine

Yes it is slow in Ramadhan. And hot in July. Most expats have escaped. Most locals have little supervision and are sleep deprived. Nothing will start to happen until mid august earliest.
As an example, Oman is on public holiday now from 24 July through to 02 Aufust, inclusive.

EK28

Thanks for all the help. He was going to call to see what is happening but he might hold off a week or so.