Dubai Municipality at Careers UAE

The fifth edition of the annual jobs fair was opened by General Sheikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and UAE Minister of Defence, and Sheikh Nahyan Bin Mubarak Al Nahyan, Minister of Education at the Dubai World Trade Centre on Monday.

Obeid Salem Al Shamsi, Assistant Director General for Administrative and General Services Affairs in the Municipality said the civic body was not participating in this exhibition for the first time. "We have been there actively right from the inception of this career exhibition. We have been receiving highly positive response from the concerned candidates. Our participation also shows that the Municipality is quite serious about developing a quality staff base," he said.

Al Shamsi said the Municipality has lately been introducing quite a good number of diploma courses aimed at qualifying the students holding secondary school certificates in various specialties related to Municipal work," said Al Shamsi.

"We send these students to special courses that are not available at some of the local universities such as Diploma in quantity survey, public heath, building control, food control and others. We are also planning to introduce more in this array of courses," he said.

Yusuf Jawad Al Reda, Assistant Director of Personnel Department said the Municipality participation in the exhibition is in three capacities. "First of all, we market Dubai Municipality explaining to the young nationals about the benefits of working with the Municipality. Secondly, we seek maximum number of CVs from qualified nationals, and thirdly, we offer consultancy to students on higher studies, to facilitate them to join Dubai Municipality later after completing the job requirements of the civic body," he said.

"We are focusing on fresh graduates from the universities. We are looking for engineers in general for different departments. We are also on the lookout for IT professionals," said AlReda.

"This is also a chance to enhance the nationalization process and to find suitable national professionals for many posts, especially some posts that are easy to nationalize. It is a place where you can meet the right person you are looking for," he said.

AlReda said the Municipality stall at the exhibition is getting a good number of enquiries from prospective national candidates for employment. He said officials of the Personnel Department present at the Municipality stall explain the job opportunities at Dubai Municipality.

"A considerable number of them are registering their names at the stall. We will scrutinize these applications immediately after the exhibition and call them for interviews," said AlReda.

He said the Municipality also gets applications online. "During the last quarter of 2004 and the first quarter of this year we have recruited over 100 graduates with different specializations," he said.

"We appointed them on vacant jobs as well as development jobs. In development jobs these graduates will be put on training for two years. After that they are inducted as staff," said AlReda.

He said that the Municipality has reached 59% in nationalization process of its jobs. "We have already accomplished 100% nationalization in the managerial level jobs whereas the middle level jobs have reached 59% nationalization. We are aiming for 100% in this level," said AlReda.

He said the Municipality's participation in these kinds of exhibitions will help the process of nationalization in a big way. "In our stall we also offer consultancy to new students on the market needs and guide them on what are the fields where government departments need professionals," said AlReda.

He said Dubai Municipality has been positively benefiting from its participation in the Career Exhibition for the last few years. "We received a good number of CVs last year. This year also we expect tremendous response from qualified nationals and also the student community," said AlReda.

The Municipality stall also has many booklets, brochures and other publications about different departments of the civic body. Three terminals have been installed at the stall to access Municipality website to facilitate the candidates to register themselves online. Senior officials of the Personnel department also explain the training courses offered by the Municipality as well as its job requirements.