Finding the Right Job Abroad

Office administration roles, as in the western world, are more likely to be filled by female workers in the UAE. Indeed, these kinds of jobs within the Middle East are sometimes open specifically to women only. These jobs include personal assistant (PA), secretary, administrative assistant, receptionist, office manager, data entry clerk or clerical assistant. Generally these are seen as ‘support’ roles and involve coordination of various office maintenance duties, diary management (e.g., of the Managing Director), correspondence and document control. Organisational and presentation skills are paramount and successful candidates are required to be both discreet and reliable. In the UAE, even more so than in the UK and the USA, the ability to communicate in more than one language is often a prerequisite of the job (typically Arabic, English and at least one other European language). Increasingly administrators are expected to be very well-educated with a high standard of IT literacy as well as having impeccable interpersonal skills.

Traditionally in Arab countries, men are seen as the ‘provider’ and women as the ‘homemaker’ and the relatively small proportion of Arab women who do paid work are often secretaries, teachers or nurses, but attitudes are shifting slightly and increasingly more women are finding work in the financial and service sectors – and giving the men a run for their money, too. Some employers in fact look more favourably on female employees because they believe them to be more dependable and – equally important and sadly an enduring discriminatory issue – considerably cheaper to employ than their male counterparts.