dereknmarcia

Hello,

I'm a kiwi thinking about moving to Dubai later in the year. I haven't completed my degree, as I left university early to start my career. I have now been working as an IT Business Analyst for 5 years (contracting for the last 18mths), but have read on some "dubai info" sites that a degree is really important to get well paid work.

How true is this? I have only one paper left to complete my degree, and it is not relevant to my career. Does this matter?

Thanks for any help you may be able to offer.

Marcie

Bob

yup, it's important...without it, no chance of getting a job...plus there's stacks of people who have the qualifications and the experience from the sub continent who'll do the work for peanuts...

dereknmarcia

Thanks Bob - thought this might be the case, but had hoped not ;-)

NorthernLad

I work for a large IT company here, we have two new blokes who joined last year who do not have degrees, however they are very experienced in our particular section of the industry.

At first DIC were a bit tricky, but the two blokes actually got it sorted themselves eventually.

On the other hand, as Bob says you will face huge competition for any jobs that are open from people who will work for a pittance.

Jammy_Dodgers

All the posts above are correct, Unless you have a degree you have little to no chance.
In fact even with a degree, your chances will be slim due to sub-continent works.
if you search this forum you will find that this has been covered in detail in previous posts.

I dont have a degree, but i work in a niche market where experience out-weighs qualification.

I think as a generic BA you will have your work cut out.

Rgds
JD

GrecoRomano

Plus, according to the UAE Labour Law, you cannot be a "manager" without holding a degree, any field. You might still have the position, but the word "manager" won't be written on your contract, and companies use this sometimes to negotiate your package DOWN. Which means you won't even have the salary of a manager, just the pain!

Not to mention that passing to a bigger competitor like a MNC could be tricky, since their HR departments are just allergic to work, and you will mean much more work for them.

As you can guess, I am (was) in the very same position, but thanks God I saw the light a few years ago and left IT consulting and all of its bvllshit! The competition here is on salary, there's little or no competence to be seen anywhere, and rightly so. A skilled Indian IT guy will do far better in UK than here, at any given time. If he doesn't speak enough English he comes here, where that's not such a big issue (>60% of the population is from the subcontinent).

The white bastards (myself first) come here knowing that the Arabs need some white faces to market professionality and reliability to the "rest of the world" (and the real estate is a BEATIFUL example of marketing, here!!!), but there is truly NO team-work, traning, no transfer of know-how, no technical improvement, no nothing, na-da what-so-ever.
Just skilled labour exploitation and some white (olive-skinned in my case) painting on top to sell it with a heftier price tag.


Some of the locials are pretty decent technicians I have to say, but that's because as kids they loved to hack around. THEY land into packages we cannot even dream of , but even THEY need a degree!

Again, as said before: you can make it, but it will be tricky. IMHO, not worth the trouble.

MJC

Weird one GR, I was employed as a manager without a degree!

Jammy_Dodgers

Me too, but it was the free zone so im not sure if different rules apply

dereknmarcia

Hey guys,

Thanks for all the feedback (I think )

I guess I may need to re-consider either my OE working location, or put it off until I complete my degree. Back here in NZ, a degree is only really important if you don't have any experience and good references. I was lucky to get a foot in the door before I completed my degree, and haven't looked back since.

Very hard to find the motivation to complete a degree when you don't really need it!

Cheers,
Marcia

snowbunny

You may need it someday.

There are many many workers the world over competing for IT jobs. If you've not been impacted by outsourcing or immigration reducing your opportunities, you've been fortunate. I remember being told that after I had my degree (yes I have one) the world was my oyster as a female engineer. Well that would have been true twenty years previous. Now? I have to look for ways to compete.

dereknmarcia

I had definitely planned on completing it one day, but had hoped I wouldn't need it to travel. My feet have been getting a bit itchy, and the call to travel is getting much louder.

Maybe I'll just have to put on ear-muffs for one more year.

MJC

Well I can think of 2 perfectly formed reasons....

GrecoRomano

Me as well, but in the contract the denomination was: "consultant", and they negotiated the salary 2k/month down because of it!

fazzo

pants. im having a bit of a nightmare recently with all this degree/visa malarkey. i have a lot of exp in my particular field and thought it was enough to keep everyone happy. company i work for are happy but to get the res.visa processed, i need to show a degree cert. double pants. i dont have one! not sure how this is going to be dealt with :/

Bob

that's the thing, you've just shown why it's handy to have, if you want to move abroad...and also if you want to move into a different field, a degree will be very handy...