Somewhere

A friend recently had an interview there.

And last week my hairdresser (from Singapore) suggested I look for my next job there.

"There" being Abu Dubai.

So, I check out the CIA's world fact book not least to find out exactly where it is. Although I'm an old Middle-East hand when I was there it was still part of the British Empire and I wasn't in to looking at maps (still not really).

I really hoped the CIA would have the low-down on the terrorist threat in that region but I guess it's not their strongpoint.

Moving on I then looked at Transparency International's corruption list. The UAE is the 37th least corrupt county. To put this in perpective, Finland is the least, the UK is the 11th, Germany the 16th, USA 18th ... hey, you can read the rest yourselves.

One thing I did gather from the CIA was that the UAE doesn't do democracy.

Felt like I could do with a bit more information so I visited the UK's foreign office for advice about the place.

Great. Not only is there a "high risk" of terrorism but drinking alcohol is illegal, well at least in public.

It's important for me to get some perspective on this terrorism-threat thing.

After all I currently live in London which is at threat, not only from Al-Queda type terrorists but also Irish ones.

A link from the FCO's site takes me to the Australian equivalent. Their advice is similar.

I also look at the US Department of State's travel advice. Maybe they know a bit more about terrorism than their CIA chums.

All these sites mention that there is a high risk of terrorism there but none advise against, or ban travel. The US's DoS site goes into more detail than the others. Advice which makes it less appealing.

Another thing I learnt: Abu Dubai is part of the Gulf States, not the Middle East (although Aussies don't seem to make the distinction.

Dismal

On a grey Sunday I got down to looking at the Job Site and job Monster.

Once again, after about a four months' break.

I actually managed to apply to two jobs. One I applied for in October but the ad was repeated in Monster.

The other job was marked as urgent. Which is a problem as I'm not immediately available (I'm committed till the end of May). But

interest in me + general pfaffing in recruitment = worthwhile applying now

We'll see what happens.

Another problem: I have to give notice to break the lease on my flat in mid-April else I have to rent it for another six months.

My job ends in May. And I can only really start job-hunting in earnest near the end of April.

So, it's going to become a very fraught time.

Oh, and to keep this flat, I'll need another very high paying job, which is a bit rare these days in IT.

Still, it'll make it an interesting couple of months.

Another year ...

... another Times Best Companies to Work For.

Competition

There's now a diarist in the Sunday Times about job hunting.

Reminder

These (1 and 2) should put some perspective on job hunting.

Barking

Rather different approach to getting a job in IT.

It gets worse ...

before it gets worse.

A bit of an illness has set me back a week. I'm still recovering and not really able to do anything on the job hunting front but am now able to go back to work.