Expat in the Middle East (AMA)

[Primetime]

Congrats first of all.
This is a move myself and my wife are hoping to make by the end of the year( Im IT, she a math teacher)

So as someone actively trying to look I have a few questions:

1) When searching for jobs, did you come across pay rates? Im seeing alot of jobs that are "competive" i just dont wanna waste my time. Did you do your seatching through a recruiter?

2) What is your apartment like, good quality? What about the broadband?

3) You drive? I hear its way cheper to buy a 2nd hand whip than to lease?

4) How them barbers treating you?

Appreciate it bro!

1. I only came across pay rates for the contractor roles. A 3rd-party recruiter contacted me for a position 5-6 years ago, via Linkedin, but ultimately i lacked the experience at the time. He was upfront with the pay. When i applied a few months ago for the salary position, i didn't know what the pay would be but i had an idea of what it could be. I still had to negotiate when i got the formal offer bc it was much lower than the contract offer, which was like 187k/year contract. Of course, that was with no benefits, no vacation, no paid for housing, no 9k travel allowance, etc. So after they gave me their counter to my counter, i actually called up that recruiter from 5-6 years ago and he was cool enough to give me his perspective on the offer sheet; and i also called up a buddy who used to worked there as a contractor but knew the pay of his salary coworkers (all same field as me); long story short, the total amount of the package (benefits +perks) was reasonable in comparison to the contractor amount, and in line with what others of my expertise were getting. Basically i did my due diligence to make sure i was getting paid right. No matter what the price, def don't be afraid to negotiate.

2. If you have a wife and/or kids then you get a house that looks more like what you see in the Family Matters tv show lol. For singles like myself, i get a small 2 story townhouse. All the singles live together in their neck of the neighborhood and all the family status live in their neighborhood; tho there are various clusters of those groupings. The 2 story townhoses are nothing to sneeze at but my work buddy who is married with 2 kids has a ridiculously huge house. The internet they provide is meh. Great for posting on the coli and browsing the internet but laggy for streaming. There are other 3rd party companies that offer better internet (or so i'm told, i need to switch). Apparently they are normalizing high speed internet here soon, but until then... meh.

3. I don't yet but i'm going to buy a car just to get around camp. The camp is too big of a community to walk; and while they have a pretty good bus system, it's not the same as having a car. People typically buy cars from each other; from people going back to their hometown or whatever; you can get a used car to get you around for like 9k. Or you can get a new/used one from the dealership, but most recommend just by it from your neighbors. There are websites where people put cars and stuff for sale.

4.I got a baldy, so I can't speak much on this, other than my corporation has a barber in our building and he is A1. There are barbers on camp but i just get mine once a week at work; there's quite a number of brehs here and they got fresh cuts so i gotta ask who they go to.

 

[xXMASHERXx]

Yes. They are big on IT and cybersecurity. Big fukking deal there.
If you got the education/background and a ton of experience, you'd be good money there.

Good shyt. I might have to make the move. Get out of this crazy country for a bit and stack some money. Like mentioned above where's the best place to find these positions.

 

[Apollo Creed]

Appreciate it bro!

1. I only came across pay rates for the contractor roles. A 3rd-party recruiter contacted me for a position 5-6 years ago, via Linkedin, but ultimately i lacked the experience at the time. He was upfront with the pay. When i applied a few months ago for the salary position, i didn't know what the pay would be but i had an idea of what it could be. I still had to negotiate when i got the formal offer bc it was much lower than the contract offer, which was like 187k/year contract. Of course, that was with no benefits, no vacation, no paid for housing, no 9k travel allowance, etc. So after they gave me their counter to my counter, i actually called up that recruiter from 5-6 years ago and he was cool enough to give me his perspective on the offer sheet; and i also called up a buddy who used to worked there as a contractor but knew the pay of his salary coworkers (all same field as me); long story short, the total amount of the package (benefits +perks) was reasonable in comparison to the contractor amount, and in line with what others of my expertise were getting. Basically i did my due diligence to make sure i was getting paid right. No matter what the price, def don't be afraid to negotiate.

2. If you have a wife and/or kids then you get a house that looks more like what you see in the Family Matters tv show lol. For singles like myself, i get a small 2 story townhouse. All the singles live together in their neck of the neighborhood and all the family status live in their neighborhood; tho there are various clusters of those groupings. The 2 story townhoses are nothing to sneeze at but my work buddy who is married with 2 kids has a ridiculously huge house. The internet they provide is meh. Great for posting on the coli and browsing the internet but laggy for streaming. There are other 3rd party companies that offer better internet (or so i'm told, i need to switch). Apparently they are normalizing high speed internet here soon, but until then... meh.

3. I don't yet but i'm going to buy a car just to get around camp. The camp is too big of a community to walk; and while they have a pretty good bus system, it's not the same as having a car. People typically buy cars from each other; from people going back to their hometown or whatever; you can get a used car to get you around for like 9k. Or you can get a new/used one from the dealership, but most recommend just by it from your neighbors. There are websites where people put cars and stuff for sale.

4.I got a baldy, so I can't speak much on this, other than my corporation has a barber in our building and he is A1. There are barbers on camp but i just get mine once a week at work; there's quite a number of brehs here and they got fresh cuts so i gotta ask who they go to.

You see things slowing down any? The thing about being Married really intrigues me because my girls job is one where she can work anywhere in the world since its a virtual role. Seems like a good move to do after getting married for 5-10 yrs and stack a 500k-1mill quick.

 

[Splash]

@Primetime Appriciate the response breh Glad to see you eatin, just confirms for me thats its for certain the right move for me, my son is 3 days old so given me a little more kick to get shyt done by the time the year is out, I was a lil worried about raising a family out there as an expat.


Speaking of which, you cookin meals or you out every night?

What a typical evening off work look like for you?

 

[Primetime]

Good shyt. I might have to make the move. Get out of this crazy country for a bit and stack some money. Like mentioned above where's the best place to find these positions.

you can try Jobs in Gulf - Jobs in Middle East - Job Search - Job Vacancies - Naukrigulf.com
but really, in my case, i had a buddy who told me to check Linkedin around November because he was cool with a department manager who told him when they were going to drop some new job postings; and so it was around then that I checked and like clock work there were a bunch of new job postings. I applied to everything that was relevant, in addition to the site above and a couple others I don't recall off top.

Mind you, they hire year round.. so i'm not sayin wait til November if there's something out there now. And i don't know which job search platform was the one that they scooped me from, but definitely check linked (do worldwide search, instead of the standard national one) and apply for all things middle east and dubai.

 

[Primetime]

You see things slowing down any?

Not drastically, 1st world countries may adopt more environment friendly energy alternates as the years/decades progress but even assuming USA and China one day completely drop petroleum and oil, 3rd world countries likely gonna run on that ish damn near forever. Basically there's still gonna be a need, likely even past our lifetime; let alone the next 5-10+ years.

Only thing that'd be interesting is that US expats are the most expensive; we demand the most in pay, perks, etc. So that's why they like picking those that have an ish load of experience so that they get good value in what they are investing in. Internally, they want their own people to be managers and supervisors, so there is the politics of knowing that you'll get paid good money but chances are slim of you moving up to a permanent manager/supervisor position (if you like that type of career advancement). That's not always the case, and varies by company, but that is something to consider as well.

 

[Primetime]

The thing about being Married really intrigues me because my girls job is one where she can work anywhere in the world since its a virtual role. Seems like a good move to do after getting married for 5-10 yrs and stack a 500k-1mill quick.

That's the appeal. It's why ppl, esp black folks, should look into it. One of the best kept secrets in building wealth. Tell your kids get good grades, keep a clean record, go to college, get your 5-10 years worth of experience in America, and then by 30 you can find yourself as an expat overseas making tax-free 6-figure money... traveling the world with all your vacation days and no extra weekly work hours (they don't do that 50+ hour work week stuff) plus, if married, receive an additional 50-80k depending on how many kids you have (the anti-"get married brehs" perk). All so you can retire a multi-millionaire at 50. Or take your 1+million at 40, and invest it in whatever the fukk back home in the states.

Obviously it's not a viable solution for *all* people but it's one to recommend for those in a position to.

 

[Apollo Creed]

That's the appeal. It's why ppl, esp black folks, should look into it. One of the best kept secrets in building wealth. Tell your kids get good grades, keep a clean record, go to college, get your 5-10 years worth of experience in America, and then by 30 you can find yourself as an expat overseas making tax-free 6-figure money... traveling the world with all your vacation days and no extra weekly work hours (they don't do that 50+ hour work week stuff) plus, if married, receive an additional 50-80k depending on how many kids you have (the anti-"get married brehs" perk). All so you can retire a multi-millionaire at 50. Or take your 1+million at 40, and invest it in whatever the fukk back home in the states.

Obviously it's not a viable solution for *all* people but it's one to recommend for those in a position to.

Explain the 50-80k dependent thing again?

 

[Primetime]

Explain the 50-80k dependent thing again?

So the expat community i'm in has schools for those with kids but they only run through elementary/middle school, so from there the kids have to go to boarding school (parents pick; whether back in the states or wherever) and the company pays for the education; i believe they give the employee whatever lump sum that varies depending on the amount of kids you have. So if you have 3-4 kids, you could get a big pay out.. that you obviously would use to pay for their education and then pocket whatever is left.

 

[Apollo Creed]

So the expat community i'm in has schools for those with kids but they only run through elementary/middle school, so from there the kids have to go to boarding school (parents pick; whether back in the states or wherever) and the company pays for the education; i believe they give the employee whatever lump sum that varies depending on the amount of kids you have. So if you have 3-4 kids, you could get a big pay out.. that you obviously would use to pay for their education and then pocket whatever is left.

So with the contracting there isnt a staffing agency serving as a middle man like you see in the states?

 

[xXMASHERXx]

you can try Jobs in Gulf - Jobs in Middle East - Job Search - Job Vacancies - Naukrigulf.com
but really, in my case, i had a buddy who told me to check Linkedin around November because he was cool with a department manager who told him when they were going to drop some new job postings; and so it was around then that I checked and like clock work there were a bunch of new job postings. I applied to everything that was relevant, in addition to the site above and a couple others I don't recall off top.

Mind you, they hire year round.. so i'm not sayin wait til November if there's something out there now. And i don't know which job search platform was the one that they scooped me from, but definitely check linked (do worldwide search, instead of the standard national one) and apply for all things middle east and dubai.

Good looks. I already see a few jobs that I probably qualify for. Got to make some changes to my resume and start looking into applying. With all the madness going on in the country I think getting away for a few years to reset is what I need.

 

[phcitywarrior]

@Primetime How are dating prospects for a single black man? Is this a place you could actually find a long term GF or more so loose flings with other expats?

 

[Primetime]

@Primetime How are dating prospects for a single black man? Is this a place you could actually find a long term GF or more so loose flings with other expats?

Both. There's different hunting grounds so to speak. One are the expat compounds, where there's more single women than single men, and the single women are looking to get locked down. But vast majority of the single women expats in my camp are 24-30 year old British/UK women. So if you like young blonde/brunette white girls with funny accents who want to cook for you, suck your dikk, and be submissive just as long as you genuinely claim her as yours exclusively (i.e. don't fukk her associates, no matter how hard they try to fuk you behind her back), then yea there's plenty of those here. Of the Brits, i'd say 50% average or meh looking, 30-35% very nice, 15-20% dime piece white girls.

Other camps have slightly different makeups, like women from Spain (nurses) but same concept where they are trying to get locked down. Just gotta understand that these women are making hella money but they are cut off from day to day dating (or whatever) in their home country and their biological clocks are ticking... and they know they around men on camp who are also stacking major paper as well.. so they know what time it is. So if you don't mind having some Steph Curry lookin ass kids lol, then you can find a wife on camp.

Otherwise, you can be like my homeboy (black man from Philly), who found his wife (also black/afrikan) in Dubai. Dubai a short flight (45min) so you can go there fairly often. I'm going their next month to check it out so I can't speak on it now, other than reiterating what we probably all hear about it; women from all over the world vacationing there and they bad lol. I think he bought them and their kid a house in Paris, while he works in IT here.

There's other spots like Abu Dhabi, Manama (Bahrain), and Muscat (Oman) that are short flights or even drives where you can meet bad females with great night life. And of course, it's almost encouraged to find a wife and have kids, because of the perks. Conversely, so many brehs on camp and at work state how they are living their BEST life by living the single life. It'd be another post just to get started on the night life lol, but long story short, it's whatever you want to make of it man.

 

[Primetime]

Good looks. I already see a few jobs that I probably qualify for. Got to make some changes to my resume and start looking into applying. With all the madness going on in the country I think getting away for a few years to reset is what I need.

That's exactly what it is, to keep it a buck. The first couple months of adjustment will be a pain (visa, permanent ID, setting everything up, etc), but any grumbling you have, that first paycheck will shut you the fukk up

Then you adjust and learn how to move and maneuver, and then you're able to start traveling, and things just open up to you

 

[Primetime]

So with the contracting there isnt a staffing agency serving as a middle man like you see in the states?

There is. But i got hired for a permanent position through the company i work for. There are 3rd person staffing agencies that work as a middle man. It just depends on what you apply for (contract vs permanent).