meonline

I am working in Dubai at the moment, and want to return to the UK after April. Whilst friends and relatives question my decision, I am doing it for personal reasons. I am here alone, and all my family are back in the UK. Missing my baby daughter has been very hard for me. Enough is enough.

I cannot return to the UK without a job as my family circumstances don’t allow me to. What I want to find out from your experiences and wisdom is the best way of finding work back in the UK, more precisely Scotland. So far I have had one very promising response to a job application, and am waiting to hear from them in early 2010. As far as applications and interviews go, can I persuade the perspective employer to carry out a telephone interview. What is the norm in situations like this? Do they insist you attend an interview? Do you think I should arrange a number of interviews and apply for holiday leave to go to the UK? I still have my UK mobile phone with me to enable employers to contact me freely. I have registered with all the main recruitment agencies, and regularly check online for new jobs posted. I no financial commitments here in Dubai.

Apologies if I rushed this post but I really am desperate to get the wheels in motion.

Thanks.

dunroving

It probably depends on what your line of work is, but in mine (academia), it's not unusual to interview an overseas applicant by phone or videoconference. However, from experience on both sides (interviewer and interviewee), I think the interviewee is in a stronger position if he/she interviews in person - there is just so much nonverbal communication that gets lost when you're not sitting across the table.

In the States, we also once gave an international candidate a preliminary telephone interview in order to decide whether to bring him over for a full interview, rather than put him and us through the inconvenience of expensive travel arrangements until we at least knew he was a "possible".