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^^

My PRO himself told me this work around when i informed him that i don't have my degree attested. I hold the B.Sc from OBU that i plan to get attested before my next visa renewal.

You can only get your license from where your visa is issued. It is a clear cut rule with no exceptions. I got my license form Dubai in 1st try. You will be issued a visa from the emirate your company is registered with. If your company's license is from Sharjah, ultimately you will get visa from Sharjah and D/L from Sharjah and I think now you will need to apply for Emirates ID along with medical as well before they stamp 2 years resident visa on your PP. Emirates ID has become mendatory for Sharjah residents already and gona be mendatory for Dubai residents from June 2012.


<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, san" id="quote">quote<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by DxB.Raf</i>
<br />^^

My PRO himself told me this work around when i informed him that i don't have my degree attested. I hold the B.Sc from OBU that i plan to get attested before my next visa renewal.

You can only get your license from where your visa is issued. It is a clear cut rule with no exceptions. I got my license form Dubai in 1st try. You will be issued a visa from the emirate your company is registered with. If your company's license is from Sharjah, ultimately you will get visa from Sharjah and D/L from Sharjah and I think now you will need to apply for Emirates ID along with medical as well before they stamp 2 years resident visa on your PP. Emirates ID has become mendatory for Sharjah residents already and gona be mendatory for Dubai residents from June 2012.



<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></font id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, san" id="quote">quote<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by DxB.Raf</i>
<br />^^

My PRO himself told me this work around when i informed him that i don't have my degree attested. I hold the B.Sc from OBU that i plan to get attested before my next visa renewal.

You can only get your license from where your visa is issued. It is a clear cut rule with no exceptions. I got my license form Dubai in 1st try. You will be issued a visa from the emirate your company is registered with. If your company's license is from Sharjah, ultimately you will get visa from Sharjah and D/L from Sharjah and I think now you will need to apply for Emirates ID along with medical as well before they stamp 2 years resident visa on your PP. Emirates ID has become mendatory for Sharjah residents already and gona be mendatory for Dubai residents from June 2012.



<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></font id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

You people have been doing a wonderful job for the ever confused youth of accountants in Pakistan [)]
Keep it up!

I have being on the thread continuously since last three hours, and its 3.30am[)], enjoyed it a great deal and I really appreciate such a helping nature of DxB.Raf

I have a kind of unique query dear and hoping your feedback would be helpful for me.

M an ACCA student with 13 papers cleared.
I have prepared my Thesis for OBU and will be submitting it within a couple of months, In Sha Allah.

I have two choices to go for,

01. Do ACA (ICAEW), and join EnY for the experience and by the time I get my three years of experience completed I would be an ACA and ACCA.

02. The other one is that, I am planning to go for CFA and find relevant job in some financial institution(perhaps) in the mean time.

The reason y I consider the later option (although DxB.Raf rated this option as being a completely irrational one, and yeah it make sense to call it so, coz both designations have no connections), is that what I think is dat a chartered accountancy designation cannt take you to the highest level, CFO is the upper most limit (according to my narrow knowledge).

It has now almost being a week since the CFA option has invaded my mind. So, I know very little about it.

My questions

Q1. will I get higher status (post/designation in industry) and higher pay if I opt for ACA(ICAEW) or CFA? (after say, 10 years from now, keeping the luck factor, concentration and all the other factors constant)
please note one thing, i just want to see myself in say 2021, would Fareed(ACA) in 2021 be in better post and pay or it would be Fareed(CFA)in 2021 who would win the race? Off course, no one can predict future, but based on you people's vast knowledge and market experience I think you can get me an idea at least.

Q2. Provided you people advise me to go for CFA, which kind of job should I be searching for, to expose my self to the practical experience (I want to have practical exposure and to prepare my self for the exams for CFA in the mean time)?
The nature of the job that is relevant to CFA.

I appreciate your advise.
Hi DxB,

It seems from your writings that you are an ex-ferguson trainee having worked in section c and ras, like myself. I am myself a CA finalist with one paper outstanding.

I am contemplating a move to the uae, having lived there for 17 years, however the market is very tough and my colleagues who used to go on 15+ have to settle for much less now.

I have e-mailed you my current career situation and would like to have your advice. For privacy reasons, I would be obliged if you could mail me your suggestion rather than post it here.
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, san" id="quote">quote<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Fareed</i>
<br /><blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, san" id="quote">quote<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by DxB.Raf</i>
<br />^^
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></font id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

You people have been doing a wonderful job for the ever confused youth of accountants in Pakistan [)]
Keep it up!

I have being on the thread continuously since last three hours, and its 3.30am[)], enjoyed it a great deal and I really appreciate such a helping nature of DxB.Raf

I have a kind of unique query dear and hoping your feedback would be helpful for me.

M an ACCA student with 13 papers cleared.
I have prepared my Thesis for OBU and will be submitting it within a couple of months, In Sha Allah.

I have two choices to go for,

01. Do ACA (ICAEW), and join EnY for the experience and by the time I get my three years of experience completed I would be an ACA and ACCA.

02. The other one is that, I am planning to go for CFA and find relevant job in some financial institution(perhaps) in the mean time.

The reason y I consider the later option (although DxB.Raf rated this option as being a completely irrational one, and yeah it make sense to call it so, coz both designations have no connections), is that what I think is dat a chartered accountancy designation cannt take you to the highest level, CFO is the upper most limit (according to my narrow knowledge).

It has now almost being a week since the CFA option has invaded my mind. So, I know very little about it.

My questions

Q1. will I get higher status (post/designation in industry) and higher pay if I opt for ACA(ICAEW) or CFA? (after say, 10 years from now, keeping the luck factor, concentration and all the other factors constant)
please note one thing, i just want to see myself in say 2021, would Fareed(ACA) in 2021 be in better post and pay or it would be Fareed(CFA)in 2021 who would win the race? Off course, no one can predict future, but based on you people's vast knowledge and market experience I think you can get me an idea at least.

Q2. Provided you people advise me to go for CFA, which kind of job should I be searching for, to expose my self to the practical experience (I want to have practical exposure and to prepare my self for the exams for CFA in the mean time)?
The nature of the job that is relevant to CFA.

I appreciate your advise.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></font id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

First of all, I agree with you, I think this thread is a must read for people planning to relocate to the UAE. Secondly, If I may, I would like to comment on your query.

Even though your post does not suggest that you wish to relocate to the UAE, neither does it question the potential for different qualifications in the UAE market, I would still like to provide a couple of pointers; whilst steering the topic for the UAE market specifically.

The first thing students need to clear is the difference between an "Academic" qualification and a "Professional" qualification. Chartered Accountancy qualifications like CPA, CA and ACCA (yes ACCA is a Chartered Accountancy Qualification) is a Professional Qualification, which means it is not a degree in itself like an Academic Qualification. In the Academic Qualification world, where you start with your Bachelor’s degree the next or "higher" step is the Masters and after that a Doctorate. In the Professional Qualification world, there is no such ladder, a shocker for Pakistan students. You absolutely cannot say one Professional Qualification is "better" than the other in the academic sense. However if you look at monetary benefits, that's a different issue.

As your query is focused on the monetary gains associated with Professional Qualifications, I'll try to answer those in terms of the UAE market. The UAE market for accountants is a Global mess; you have accountants and qualifications from all over the world. The majority being from India (CA), Philippines (CPA)and Pakistan(CA). The ACCA being a global body has no associated country, although companies may bias on hiring people from their own countries, but I have yet to see a single advertisement that specifies a preference for a Pakistani CA over an ACCA. Over there, they do not differentiate between these qualifications. What differs, as DxBRaf and myself have both discussed earlier is the Quality and Quantity of experience one might possess, here the employers draw the line. So you see it's not a matter of which qualification rather than the experience behind the qualification. In the field of Accountancy and Finance, being a CFO is not the end of the world, mind you. Nevertheless all major posts in the UAE advertise their requirements as “CA/CPA/ACCA with 10-15+ years of UAE experience”. This is true for all companies and groups operating in the UAE. So if you are a member of these bodies you do not need any other qualification if you stick to this field.

Keeping this in mind, In my opinion, if you already have a Professional Qualification like ACCA AND you plan to move abroad, it would make absolutely no difference to you academically or in your professional career which professional qualification you choose. The CFA is a separate issue from CA and ACCA. Please do not consider it higher than these qualifications; it’s like comparing tea with coffee. A CFA charter holder is targeting a separate market than the ones ACCA and CAs are targeting, reason being, it’s entirely a different subject. I will not go into details regarding the CFA charter as there are people with more experience and authority in this subject to argue CFA’s case. However, I will advise you to pursue CFA only in the case you would like to U-turn from your accountancy qualification. Monetarily speaking, the market for CFA is a small one. If there are 100 vacancies for accounts and finance, a requirement for CFA charter holders would be less than 10. Then again it depends where you are looking. With regard to the relevance of CFA, I believe after the devastation the Global Recession brought about ( you should research the cause of it FYI) mainly by the financial markets, people are skeptical of investing money in the speculation and derivative industry. Which is the CFA holder’s expertise area, mind you? So no money means no business, and no business means no jobs, get my point?
In short, I cannot tell you what you should be doing, it’s all up to you, but I do advise you to research and do more research before thinking of starting a different career. Hope this helps,
HarryAL
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, san" id="quote">quote<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">

First of all, I agree with you, I think this thread is a must read for people planning to relocate to the UAE. Secondly, If I may, I would like to comment on your query.

Even though your post does not suggest that you wish to relocate to the UAE, neither does it question the potential for different qualifications in the UAE market, I would still like to provide a couple of pointers; whilst steering the topic for the UAE market specifically.

The first thing students need to clear is the difference between an "Academic" qualification and a "Professional" qualification. Chartered Accountancy qualifications like CPA, CA and ACCA (yes ACCA is a Chartered Accountancy Qualification) is a Professional Qualification, which means it is not a degree in itself like an Academic Qualification. In the Academic Qualification world, where you start with your Bachelor’s degree the next or "higher" step is the Masters and after that a Doctorate. In the Professional Qualification world, there is no such ladder, a shocker for Pakistan students. You absolutely cannot say one Professional Qualification is "better" than the other in the academic sense. However if you look at monetary benefits, that's a different issue.

As your query is focused on the monetary gains associated with Professional Qualifications, I'll try to answer those in terms of the UAE market. The UAE market for accountants is a Global mess; you have accountants and qualifications from all over the world. The majority being from India (CA), Philippines (CPA)and Pakistan(CA). The ACCA being a global body has no associated country, although companies may bias on hiring people from their own countries, but I have yet to see a single advertisement that specifies a preference for a Pakistani CA over an ACCA. Over there, they do not differentiate between these qualifications. What differs, as DxBRaf and myself have both discussed earlier is the Quality and Quantity of experience one might possess, here the employers draw the line. So you see it's not a matter of which qualification rather than the experience behind the qualification. In the field of Accountancy and Finance, being a CFO is not the end of the world, mind you. Nevertheless all major posts in the UAE advertise their requirements as “CA/CPA/ACCA with 10-15+ years of UAE experience”. This is true for all companies and groups operating in the UAE. So if you are a member of these bodies you do not need any other qualification if you stick to this field.

Keeping this in mind, In my opinion, if you already have a Professional Qualification like ACCA AND you plan to move abroad, it would make absolutely no difference to you academically or in your professional career which professional qualification you choose. The CFA is a separate issue from CA and ACCA. Please do not consider it higher than these qualifications; it’s like comparing tea with coffee. A CFA charter holder is targeting a separate market than the ones ACCA and CAs are targeting, reason being, it’s entirely a different subject. I will not go into details regarding the CFA charter as there are people with more experience and authority in this subject to argue CFA’s case. However, I will advise you to pursue CFA only in the case you would like to U-turn from your accountancy qualification. Monetarily speaking, the market for CFA is a small one. If there are 100 vacancies for accounts and finance, a requirement for CFA charter holders would be less than 10. Then again it depends where you are looking. With regard to the relevance of CFA, I believe after the devastation the Global Recession brought about ( you should research the cause of it FYI) mainly by the financial markets, people are skeptical of investing money in the speculation and derivative industry. Which is the CFA holder’s expertise area, mind you? So no money means no business, and no business means no jobs, get my point?
In short, I cannot tell you what you should be doing, it’s all up to you, but I do advise you to research and do more research before thinking of starting a different career. Hope this helps,
HarryAL

<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></font id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

I appreciate such a long, detailed and relevant reply and thank you very much indeed for your precious time.

I already know almost half what you wrote and the remaining proved completely advantageous for me.

Your knowledge and the spirit of sharing that, has been appreciable.

I would first summarize what I get from your reply,
"You want to say that ACCA (with the required experience) has the potential (off course besides other factors, like my personal efforts, luck, motivation etc) to take me to the highest designation in an organization...!!!"


You made the roughly blurred picture of my future plans quite clear, but still I would like to ask you (or any other person having relevant knowledge),
"What you talked about is about the markets in UAE, what about the markets in middle east and/or the west?"
Are those markets a reflection of the UAE markets or there is a significant difference?
I would like to join big4 for my article ship (In Sha Allah), In the mean time, I would also claim exemption from ICAEW and appear for the remaining three ICAEW papers.

I would most likely complete those papers In Sha Allah upto the end of 2012.

What then? (one of my friends suggests me to do LLB)

Any one who have any suggestion or any thing to share...???
(I know it would seem weird for most of you, but what I believe is that with your article ship, you can easily appear for some professional qualification, which has the potential to add value not only to your Resume but which also improves your professional developments)

Just to remind you that I have cleared 13 ACCA Papers.
salams,
dXB Raf anf Haris, im here in uae, just arrived yesterday, staying in ajman, could u plz guide for the addresses of recruting agaencies in uae?? like the HRS Outsourcing and others. plz reply soon as im here for a months visit only,

Extremely grateful for ur help earlier,

Afnan
Guys i am extremely sorry i have been very busy this month. I shall be replying to everyone today, im hoping to get some free time. Sorry for the delay.

Regards

@Fareed

Sorry for the delayed reply. I am glad you find this thread helpful and informative. We have tried to accumulate all the issues in one go. Anyone who reads this thread from the start till end will have most common queries answered by itself. <b>As of this date i will consider the information on this thread up to date.</b>

Look buddy. CFA is a qualification that was initially persued by the highest people in the industry in Pak when it arrived and that resulted in its prestige. Most treasury heads, CFOs, MDs and Higher level Managers opted for CFA most of whom are around peak of their careers. There is absolutely minimum market for this qualification today in Pakistan. 75% of the financial theories you study in CFA is not applicable to the financial industry of Pak. It is something everyone wants but they don't know why they want it. Lets just say everyone is following everyone. I personally know atleast 3 CFA qualified invididuals working as simple treasury officers for around 25-35k. Here in UAE financial industry is still in its infancy to tackle CFA. This qualification is absolutely for world financial centres USA, Australia or Japan. It has no application here. Don't expect any advantage. Rather, expect disadvantage form it. You will not be called by employers because they think you have a CFA and you will demand 1 Lac salary. It has happened to my friends. Employer starts to think you are over qualified for entry to mid level jobs. Market for CIA is more mature in Pakistan than CFA. As i mentioned most CFAs are already working in proper positions. There is hardly any place for "fresh" CFAs. Most jobs relevant to the CFA were tradionally handled by finance professionals. It will take some time before CFA starts making its place. The prestige is just artificial.


You are abo****ely wrong in saying that with accountancy qualification, you can't reach CFO level. Obviously in Pak CA is the ultimate to become a partner and most of the times CFO and righly so. 80% of Pak CFOs must be ICAP qualified. If you move abroad and continue in finance, i assure you even with just ACCA, you will reach CFO in 12 to 15 years or may be less depending on your skills.

My personal goal is to become CFO and i am going to do it with ACCA only. I consider it to be my base and most beloved designation. I never thought i would need anythign more than this. Though, i am planning to study further for personal satisfaction ONLY.

I would really advise you to stick to finance and accountancy. This field is mature and has proper career graph. Rest is your decision. I'll get specific now.

Q1.....No. You will reach wherever you are suppose to reach with ACCA in 2021, no matter you take no matter how many qualifications. It is my personal opinion from experiences that number of qualifications would hardly give you any advantage over other candidates who are also qualified. The rule is simple. Your 5 qualifications does not make the person having one qualification, non-qualified. You both are qualified and that is it. Now comes the question of quality of experience. Always remember to go for further designations for personal satisfaction, know your limits and ensure you are studying in the relevant field that you are persuing. Working as finance /executive manager and doing CFA makes no sense. Many people say they will move later to treasury. Well, if you keep moving you will start fresh or low everytime. Choose a field stick to it and build a career.

Q2....Anything in treasury/Risk management and may be Investment Banking. These will become your home department like finance is for CA/ACCAs.


@Faisal_Faisal
I think i have your email. Sorry for the delay i will reply to you directly.

@haris_alshafi
The diff between Academic and Professional is spot on. Having ACCA+Masters is MUCH better than having ACA+ACCA or ACCA+CIMA or whatever. Finance professionals totally ignore academics in our country. They must know that there are a huge number of people who are working in top finance positions with a Masters degree only having never done Articleship or Profesisonal qualification. Obviously i am talking about out of Pakistan.

Regarding the UAE market and combo of designations, whatever you mentioned is correct.

@fareed, i am strictly talking about UAE Market. For e.g. as i mentioned above CFA has quiet a huge market in the west. However, as we all know their economies are in a mess so forget the west for a while now. Don't go for LLB or MBBS. My advise is to complete your ACCA get your OBU and focus your energies on gaining quality experience. Give yourself a break from the books.

@afnan

Most HR agencies here are scam. They fake interviews and ask for upto 500 AED for registration of your CV. Use the following sites. These are actually recruitment agencies but do not charge the job seeker. I had extremely good experience with these sites. I still keep getting calls from CVs i uploaded around June this year. One of my friend was hired directly from Pak to Gulf through Monster in July this year. I never got call through Nadia but it works for others. It is all about luck at the end.

www.gulftalent.com
www.jobs-me.com
www.gulfnews.com
gulf.monster.com
www.nadia.com
www.bayt.com

Do not get in the web of head hunters. MOST of them are scammers. Just start applying online as much as you can. Wait for interview calls. That is all you can do.





















@ DXB.Raf...!!!
Friend, I have never seen such a helpful person as you are.
M not buttering, and I dont need to.
But keep it up.
May Allah rewards you for all, how u r helping your country men.

I will surely ask for your written assistance, but for the time being just wanted to thank you for helping the **** youth (on behalf of all of those who get benefited from the highly beneficial thread initiated by you).

Thanks buddy.
DxB Raf. right on, as always. @ Fareed, as I have stated in my earlier posts, this thread is focussed on careers in the UAE only - by locality, the Gulf countries are also somewhat covered in these discussions. I would request everyone reading this thread to keep this thread professional, and of course, to the topic. I'm sorry if that offended anyone, I assure you that is not my intention. As far as what to do, I absolutely agree with DxBRaf, go for the Oxford Brookes programme. Having an academic degree (Bachelors/Masters) is definitely a bonus point! as far is LLB is concerned, that is your choice, while it would'nt affect your professional career as much, I would recommend to stick to your original field of study. ALWAYS go for studies that augment and improve upon your existing qualification rather than going into a separate line entirely!

The problem I realised is that I did not read the other threads before I was engaged to this one. There is a lot of information and knowledge sharing going around in other threads that I am sorry to say is baseless and absolutely false. Please, do you own research! Do not simply start racing to what a couple of "Dosts" would suggest. By that I mean PERSONALLY MEET those people instead of listening to someone quoting "Meri Phopi ka beta, and Mera Khala ki Nand ka Damad.." These sort of questions come naturally to someone who has not started his professional career, I was one of them. I assure you in time and with experience you yourself will know what is a better option for you! I hope you all understand what I am trying to say.

@ Afnan, sir, if you have read the ENTIRE thread you will realise that all forms of job hunting techniques and methods are discussed in extremely relevant detail. However, If you follow the websites DxBRaf mentioned and apply for jobs in both the GulfNews HardCopy classified AND on the ads posted on www.gnads4u.com, you will start to receive responses Immediately. Please do not go to Headhunters/ Recruitment Agencies!!! I can not stress how wrong that would be friend! I request that you read the entire thread too Afnan!

One last thing I would suggest to people who are coming to visit the UAE soon, is to get their highest academic qualification attested by the UAE embassy!

Hope this post was helpful.
@Faisal_Faisal

I have replied to your email.

Thanks everyone for the kind words. Glad this is helpful to everyone.
Today, i was going through finance jobs and this one particularly got my attention. This Ad shows the average requirements of employers for mid-high career level job.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, san" id="quote">quote<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">
Assistant Finance Manager (Budgeting)
• AED 18,000 - 20,000 Per Month
• Ref 919199
Do you have extensive knowledge and experience in managing the budgeting function of a large organisation? This is an opportunity to join a well established group company in Dubai. The key focus will be to support management with producing financial reports, budgeting and financial estimates to enable decision makers to put in place appropriate financial strategies. Whilst other responsibilities include; producing monthly statements, financial analysis and revenue and expenditure analysis. You will be expected to report any variances and improve the budget and reporting processes, which overall should improve efficiency. You will monitor finances for development of the budget, prepare detailed feasibility financials for new investments and optimise accounting packages to improve reporting in accordance with IFRS. You will be managing other staff within this role so you must have supervisory experience. Candidates must have at least a Bachelor's degree in accounting. A professional accounting qualification such as CA, CPA or ACCA would be an advantage. To be considered it is essential that you have at least five years experience managing all budget related functions within an ERP environment. <hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></font id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, san" id="quote">quote<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by wicky</i>
<br />its nice 2 c that u got ur job within month. gud luck

can u plz tell me what r the job opps. 4 aca or aca finalist in uae and what abt the pay per month in uae.

well i do c loads of job in uae on respective job site for middle east.

thx

<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></font id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">
Dear Brother
I am a qualified CA , having more than 5 yaer post qualification and over all 11 year experiance , (Not belong to BiG 4) wishing to explore my career in Gulf. Can you help me and guide me as I have tried with many online portals but even no response to me .

Reagrds and with best complements.
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