How to land an expat job in Qatar

To score an expat position in a Qatari government department you’ll need to jump through all sorts of hoops. I should know, it took me almost 12 months from initial interview to job offer — and I had friends inside the organisation.

Here are some of the inside tips and things I learned during that long and arduous process…

Firstly, the typical HR manager will require signed letters from every single job you’ve ever held confirming your employment status and duration.

You will also need to provide a signed affidavit from the police in your home country confirming your clean criminal record. Also, your diploma, which will need to be signed and stamped by the university in question.

The other thing to keep in mind is that your remuneration for most government jobs will be based on your ‘years of experience’ rather than previous roles or responsibilities. Since people are arriving in Qatar from all over the world with all sorts of different job titles, work history and experience, someone decided to ‘simplify’ the process by ignoring individual circumstances and assigning jobs based on years worked.

Oh, and while we’re talking experience, Government departments don’t recognise freelance work. It’s simply not a thing. You either have a day job or you don’t, and juggling several freelance writing gigs (for instance) doesn’t count.

The good news is you can ‘tweak’ your CV to make it more palatable for your typical Qatari HR manager. With a little chutzpah and some creative job titles you can turn several years of freelance work and odd jobs into a distinguished career of solid employment.

First things first, if you held a part-time job when you graduated university then that’s where you should start your employment history. If you’ve had several short-term careers with intermittent breaks, it might be an idea to pick the most impressive sounding and stretch out your employment time a little bit.

You’ll be asked to supply letters from all these employers on official letterheads confirming your title and time of employment. Depending on your industry and employment record, half these places may have closed down years ago. Not to worry, the odds that a Qatari HR manager will pick up a phone and dial overseas to check your references is approximately zero.

What you choose to do with this information is entirely up to you. Qatari has been cracking down on fraudulent diplomas from places like India, but no one is going to check exact employment dates for a western expat. As long as your support material is based on real experiences, in real places and you’re not simply making things up, the HR department is not going to go all NCIS on you. Besides, they have YouTube videos to watch.

You can find more tips on living and working in Qatar in my book — God Willing: How to survive expat life in Qatar.