Expat Women in Dubai & Abu Dhabi, UAE: Interested In Part-Time Work With SIRVA Relocation?

Hi Everyone, If you are based in Dubai or Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, or know someone who is, and you/your friends are interested in a great part-time work opportunity with SIRVA Relocation, please read on...

Introduction from SIRVA Relocation

Global relocations are on the increase and we are actively recruiting Relocation Consultants. We offer the right candidates a great part-time opportunity to use their expat living and moving experiences and be a part of our dynamic team to help our clients' international employees and their families settle into Dubai or Abu Dhabi.

Main purpose of the Relocations Consultant role

• Work closely with the SIRVA in-house team of Global Assignment Consultants
• Accompany our clients’ expatriate assignees on their: Look-See / Pre Assignment Trips; School Search; Home Search; and Settling-In Program
• Complete an end-of-program report

Ideal candidates would possess the following attributes:

• Personal experience and/or knowledge of international relocation industry
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills
• Initiative, independence, well organized
• PC literate with good knowledge of MS Office
• Must have and maintain up to date knowledge of the local and expatriate living and life style issues within the UAE’s international community with schooling information in Dubai or Abu Dhabi
• Languages a distinct advantage
• Real Estate knowledge and contacts is essential
• Training will be offered to the right candidates.

Please urgently send your resume to: Kashish.Navlani@Sirva.ae
Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted. Thank you.

SIRVA, Inc. is a leader in providing relocation solutions to a well-established and diverse customer base around the world. The company has redefined the relocation industry by offering innovative ways for customers to achieve their individual business goals, while providing global end-to-end relocation services, including program development and management, home purchase and home sale services, household goods moving, and mortgage services.

SIRVA conducts more than 300,000 relocations every year, transferring corporate and government employees and moving individual consumers. The company operates in more than 40 countries with approximately 2,600 employees and an extensive network of agents and other service providers in over 175 countries. With our global reach and local expertise, people trust SIRVA to listen to their unique needs and deliver seamless relocations every day.

Expat Women in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (UAE): Interested in Part-Time Work with SIRVA Relocation?

Hi Everyone, If you are based in Abu Dhabi, or know someone who is, and you/your friends are interested in a great part-time work opportunity with SIRVA Relocation, please read on...

Introduction from SIRVA Relocation

Global relocations are on the increase and we are actively recruiting Assignment Coordinators. We offer the right candidates a great part-time opportunity to use their expat living and moving experiences and be a part of our dynamic team to help our clients' international employees and their families to settle into Abu Dhabi.

Main Purpose of the Assignment Coordinator Role

The Assignment Coordinator is responsible for coordinating the delivery of international and domestic service programs, policy and benefits for clients of SIRVA Relocation as allocated, act as the primary point of coordination and accountability to the assignees while maintaining the highest level of customer service.

1. Under the allocation from the Manager Relocation Services, manage the entire international relocation for each global assignee within the Client's global assignment policy, being their single point of accountability and their advocate. May include services ranging from pre-decision through repatriation/reassignment.

2. Manage the suppliers involved in the process: i.e. agents, field consultants, transport, and accommodations.

3. Coordinate with all internal departments/functions to ensure successful transferee experience.

4. Administer all related information and documentation.

5. Participate in client/prospect visits and presentations.


Position Requirements / Qualifications

* A college degree, qualification in Human resources or related
discipline highly desirable.

* 3-5 years experience in real estate, relocation or human resources.

* 3+ years living in Abu Dhabi.

* Excellent communication and diplomatic skills: preferably with experience in living abroad and/or communicating with all levels of employees, and across cultures.

* Prefer fluent English speaker plus one or more languages.

* Must have a strong customer service background with ability to build relationships, proven skills in project and service partner management are required.

* Must be a Team player and self-starter with initiative and drive.

* Good computer skills - proficient in Microsoft Office applications (Excel, Word, Access).

* Location: Abu Dhabi.

Please urgently send your resume to: Kashish.Navlani@Sirva.ae
Cut off date is Friday 3 June 2011 and only shortlisted candidates will be contacted. Thank you.


About SIRVA, Inc.

SIRVA, Inc. is a leader in providing relocation solutions to a well-established and diverse customer base around the world. The company has redefined the relocation industry by offering innovative ways for customers to achieve their individual business goals, while providing global end-to-end relocation services, including program development and management, home purchase and home sale services, household goods moving, and mortgage services.

SIRVA conducts more than 300,000 relocations every year, transferring corporate and government employees and moving individual consumers. The company operates in more than 40 countries with approximately 2,600 employees and an extensive network of agents and other service providers in over 175 countries. With our global reach and local expertise, people trust SIRVA to listen to their unique needs and deliver seamless relocations every day.

Expat Women: Interested in a position with SIRVA Relocation in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia?

Hi Everyone, Our valued Gold Sponsor, SIRVA Relocation, would like to invite qualified friends of Expat Women to apply for their current full-time vacancy for a Destination Services Consultant (DSC) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. If you are interested, or know someone who might be, please read on (especially if you already have a work permit)...

Job Opening: SIRVA Relocation: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

SIRVA Relocation is looking for a full-time Destination Services Consultant (DSC), who would be responsible for coordinating the delivery of local destination service program programs based on SIRVA Relocation clients’ global policies and benefits.

The DSC will act as the primary point of coordination and accountability to internal Global Assignment Consultants and transferring assignees, while maintaining the highest levels of customer service. This includes managing expenses at the lowest possible level for the corporate client while contributing to optimum revenues for SIRVA Relocation.

Essential Functions and Responsibilities

1. Under the allocation from the management, administer and manage the process of the relocation for the assignee and family from pre-decision trip to arrival, through to settling and ongoing support manage. This may also include services like preview trip, home search, school search, settling in and repatriation.

2. Administer initiating documentation from client and establish (and maintain) paper and soft files.

3. Make timely contacts with SIRVA internal consultants, 3rd party providers and designated assignees within given Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).

4. Coordinate with all internal departments/functions to ensure successful assignee experiences.

5. The DSC is expected to remain up to date on local as well as expatriate issues in the international community including but not limited to, knowledge about housing market (basic knowledge), international schools, recreation, health issues, public transportation, groceries, ‘Expatriate’ activities, domestic help etc.

6. The DSC is expected to maintain inventories of SIRVA Relocation reference materials for the Expatriate ‘Welcome Kit’ and to keep abreast of useful information that is deemed beneficial for the destination service program.

7. Maintain good relationships with international schools (administrators) and to be updating of international schools occupancies and participating in schools invitations to ensure we have full knowledge on the school curriculums.

8. Maintain good relationships with the help of SIRVA tenancy team on managing our temporary accommodation program for SIRVA Relocation.

9. Manage third-party providers like field consultants, car rental companies etc and liaise with them in co-ordination of the destination service program for the transferring assignee and family member(s), where applicable.

10. Educate assignees or internal consultants on minor relocation issues as these relate to transferring family, communicate with Client HR (where applicable) regarding exception management specific to individual assignees, including recommendations on specific exceptions to policy; providing status updates, and keeping client HR abreast of issues and solutions that arise.

11. Provide SIRVA Relocation reports as requested.

12. Work according to the requirements of the Company Quality System.

13. Report real and potential problems, as well as any unsatisfactory practices, to your manager for
action.

14. Maintain the Relocations Database – Service Engine / SMARTS.

15. Participate in client/prospect visits and presentations, where required.

Position Requirements / Qualifications

A college degree, qualification in Human resources or related discipline highly desirable.

3-5 years experience in real estate, relocation, human resources and/or accounting or finance.

Excellent communication and diplomatic skills: preferably with experience in living abroad and/or communicating with all levels of employees, and across cultures.

Preferably a fluent English speaker plus one or more languages.

Must have a strong customer service background with ability to build relationships,
proven skills in project and service partner management are required.

Must be a team player and self-starter with initiative and drive.

Good computer skills - proficient in Microsoft Office applications (Excel, Word, Access).

Interested?

If you are interested in this great opportunity with SIRVA Relocation, please urgently email SIRVA's Tram Claudel, with your CV and details of how you meet SIRVA's criteria.

Many thanks and good luck to potential applicants! Andrea

Happy 4th Birthday Expat Women & Blog Shout-Out Competition!

Hi Everyone, Today is ExpatWomen's 4th Birthday online. It is a day that we celebrate all of the wonderful supporters like you in our audience - who send us positive emails, contribute ideas and who help us gain new members by telling your friends to join ExpatWomen.com as well. (More members = more sponsors = more bills paid = we stay online longer!)

So, a huge thank you to you, wherever you are around the world.  We genuinely appreciate your support and we are eternally grateful that you read our newsletters and share our site with your friends.  Thanks to you, ExpatWomen.com now has over 10,000 members worldwide - of 165 nationalities, based in 187 countries!

We also need to say a big thank you to our sponsors.  Despite the odds at times, we have managed to keep our site completely free and still paid all our bills (which is a great achievement for a very niche site). For that, we would like to take a minute to thank our (2011) sponsors: Aetna (Health Insurance); Barclays Wealth International; SIRVA Relocation; Trafimar Relocation (Mexico); Clements International (Multi-purpose Insurance); and US Global Mail. If you are in need of any of the services that our sponsors offer, please consider supporting them, as they do us.  Many thanks.

***

Expat Women Blog Shout-Out Competition:

To celebrate our birthday, we are randomly giving away one US$100 Amazon.com voucher to one lucky blogger who gives us a positive, happy birthday shout-out on their blog - anytime between now and midnight 31 January 2011 (US EST).

To enter is as easy as 1-2-3:

(1) Say good things about our site and wish us a happy birthday for this month;

(2) Remember to include a link in your shout-out back to ExpatWomen.com; and

(3) Please email us your blog URL (in an email entitled something like “Blog Competition”), your name and location, by the deadline above.

Blog shout-outs help us a lot, so thank you very much in advance and good luck!

Potentially useful text for your shout-out:

ExpatWomen.com is the largest global website helping women living abroad. The site displays 1,000+ content pages, 1,600+ expat women blogs, 300+ readers' stories, invaluable country resource pages, interviews with successful expat women, loads of motivational articles and an inspirational blog and newsletter.

***

Thank you very much again for your support Everyone! 

Have a great day/evening/week/year! Andrea x

Expat Women Living in Shanghai: Interested in Part-Time Work with SIRVA Relocation?

Hi Everyone, If you are living in Shanghai, China, and are interested in part-time work (or know someone who is), please read on...

SIRVA Relocation, one of the world’s premier relocation companies, is currently seeking part-time SIRVA Relocation Field Consultants for their office in Shanghai, China.

SIRVA’s Field Consultants will accompany expatriates and family members on tours such as (but not limited to) orientation, preview trips, home searches (together with a SIRVA designated housing agent), school searches and settling-in services.

SIRVA’s Field Consultants will act as the subject matter experts for the number of days that are being authorized by the client on specific services. An itinerary will be drawn for this program so that the Field Consultants will take that as a generic guideline in providing the required services.

Work days will be flexible, depending on each Field Consultant’s personal schedule and availability. SIRVA will provide a car and driver for the programs that will be carried out for their clients. The Field Consultants will be required to submit a comprehensive report upon completion of the program in providing observations, feedback and concerns of the family so that SIRVA can take this up with the expatriate and the client’s Human Resources team to address any issues.

Anyone interested in gaining fabulous experience with a very friendly, highly-reputable, global company, this could just be the perfect opportunity for you during your time in Shanghai and perhaps a stepping stone to bigger and greater things.

Main Responsibilities:
• Work closely with the in-house team of Global Assignment Consultants
• Accompany SIRVA Clients’ expatriate assignees on their:
- Look-See / Preview Trips
- School Search
- Home Search
- Settling-In Program
• Complete an end-of-program report

Ideal candidates would possess the following attributes:
• Personal experience and/or knowledge of international relocation industry
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills
• Initiative, independence, well organized and able to work under pressure
• PC literate with good knowledge of MS Office
• Must have and maintain up to date knowledge of the local and expatriate living and life style issues within Shanghai’s international community
• Languages a distinct advantage
• Training and attractive remuneration will be offered to the right candidates.

If you are genuinely interested in this position and would like to know more, please urgently email Claudia de Jong in SIRVA’s Singapore office to introduce yourself and to request the full job description.

All information received will be kept in strict confidence and only for employment-related purposes.  Applicants who are not invited for interviews within four weeks may consider their applications unsuccessful.

Many thanks and good luck to any interested candidates! Andrea

PS. Please share this with anyone else who might also be interested.

Taking Expat Women Around The World: An Update, Some Thanks, and Lessons Learned: Andrea Martins

Hi Everyone, A few times each year, I have the very good fortune to travel to some wonderful places to promote Expat Women.

I consider this travel an incredible privilege and I owe a belated but sincere thank you to everyone who has helped me and/or hosted me in my travels of late, plus every sponsor, advertiser, peer, partner, member and blog reader (ie. you!) for supporting Expat Women and making this all possible. 

Thank you!

**

Here is an overview of what I have been up to... and what I have learned along the way...
 
1st Stop: Hong Kong, China

In September, I attended the first Search Engine Strategies conference in Hong Kong.  Afterwards, I wrote up some insights and learnings from the conference, which I encourage you to read about here: 6 Ways to Improve the Success of your Website.

Lesson learned in Hong Kong... keynote like Avinash Kaushik - with passion - and equally importantly... with simple, creative and minimal-text slides!

A big thanks to my friend Linda Yan for accommodating me in Hong Kong and another big thank you to our wonderfully generous friends at SIRVA Relocation for hosting us one fine evening!  If you are looking to be relocated, anywhere in the world, please contact SIRVA Relocation and support the company that supports us.  Thank you!

**

2nd Stop: Shanghai, China

I then travelled to Shanghai for the 3-day Expat Show Shanghai.  It was great to meet so many (mostly new) expats in Shanghai - and I thank all the women who signed up as Expat Women members at that Show.  It was also lovely to meet the friendly and dedicated volunteers at Lifeline Shanghai (from the exhibition stand next to ours).  I applaud their commitment and the difference they are making to so many expat lives in Shanghai.

Coincidentally, our featured Thrive authors (Ruth Kuguru, Lisa Blunt Rochester and Alejandra Guzmán) were holding a 'Meet-the-Women-of-Thrive' event at the Glamour Bar while I was there, so I got to meet all three women in person, plus some of the women featured in their book, which was fantastic.

Lesson learned in Shanghai... If an airline sells you a ticket with a different name in brackets after the main city name, such as "Shanghai (xxx)", do not assume that this airport is close by: be sure to Google the "xxx" name in brackets, so you do not find yourself like me and unable to get to the "xxx" airport (apparently 3-4 hours away) without having pre-purchased a train ticket several days prior.

**

3rd Stop: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia 

Two weeks at 'home' to spend time with my husband, children and friends.

Lesson learned in KL... Time away from your family and inner circle of friends makes you realize just how good you have it.  Try not to ever take these wonderful people for granted.

**

4th Stop: Dubai, UAE

This was my first-ever visit to Dubai - and I could not get over how similar Dubai was for me to Las Vegas: grand hotels; dancing water fountains; desert; shops, shops and more shops; lots of 'big' buildings; a great array of visiting artists/musicians/celebrities; and lots of Westerners.

One of the highlights was meeting our Expat Women team member and my co-author for our first upcoming Expat Women book (due for release early 2011), Victoria Hepworth!  Thank you Victoria for taking me to that groovy Lebanese restaurant where we enjoyed hummus while watching the skiers whiz by on the indoor ski slope!

Another highlight was joining in on an American Women's Association (AWA) Dubai meeting.  (Thanks to Donna Haas for arranging for me to speak there, briefly!) The room was full, with about 160+ women (8 per breakfast table, so that was a lot of tables) and was very, very impressive.  Congratulations AWA Dubai and keep up your great work!

Finally, I really enjoyed meeting our long-time friends Explorer Publishing, who donate our prize book pack every month.  They produce the most gorgeous books for residents/expats in various cities around the world and if you have not checked for your expat location yet, I highly recommend you do so!

Lesson learned in Dubai... Avoid toy shopping there.  The Barbie that my daughter wanted that was US$18 on Amazon.com and US$30 in Malaysia, was US$70 (!) in Dubai.

**  

5th Stop: London

On to London (I love London!) to meet up with: the London arm of SIRVA Relocation; an upcoming new sponsor (who will hopefully be on our site soon); good friends and contacts in the relocation scene (including Corinne Hearne, who took me to a City Women's Network event - thanks Corinne!); as well as our long-time Gold Sponsor, Aetna Global Benefits.  If you are looking for international health insurance, please check out what Aetna (a huge, very reputable, global company) can do for you.  Thanks!

Lesson learned in London... never laugh at those signs in the Tube trains that say London has bed bugs: I did; London does; I got them.  Not fun. :-(
 
**

6th Stop: Geneva

Now, this was a special treat: I got to stay with a family (Jo and Lee Heeson and their children) who were one of our favourite families during our posting in Mexico City, years ago.  Jo and Lee are now living in Lausanne, and when Jo was not helping me at the Geneva Expat Expo, she was generously taking me on a lovely afternoon boat ride, a long walk through vineyards looking over the water, and for a traditional Swiss fondue dinner along Lausanne's waterfront.  It felt surreal and I loved every minute of it - thanks Jo!

Lesson learned in Geneva... if you are lucky enough to be riding in a flashy car and people keep looking at you... remember, they are not looking at you, they are looking at the car. ;-)

**

7th Stop: Washington, D.C.

On to Washington for Clements International's Expat Forum 2010. This was  panel discussion, with author and former WSJ.com "The Expat Life" columnist Alan Paul, adult TCK and Foreign Service Youth Foundation (FSYF) representative Alyson Rose-Wood, Maureen Johnston from the U.S. Department of State's Overseas Briefing Center at the Foreign Service Institute (FSI), and myself.  The audience was about one-third expats and two-thirds organizational representatives servicing expats.  It was lots of fun.  Videos from the panel discussions will be available soon (I will let you know).

A huge thank you to Clements International for organizing everything for this event at the U.S. Navy Heritage Center and providing breakfast as well!  Serving expatriates for 60+ years, Clements International offers insurance coverage in over 170 countries for automobile, personal property, life, health, as well as businesses, international schools, and relief and development organizations.

Clements also run the annual Expat Youth Scholarship (EYS) - an initiative to be applauded and supported. If you have children who would like to get involved next year, follow the EYS on Facebook and be among the first to learn about next year's scholarship competition!

Shout-outs also go to the World Bank Family Network (WBFN) and the U.S. State Department's Family Liaison Office (FLO).  I met the warm and wonderful teams in both of these organizations and it is so heartening to learn just how much these organizations are helping support the families of global relocatees.

Finally, to my good friend (from our Jakarta days), Steffi Stallmeister: thank you for taking me out for your birthday dinner. And for hosting me in Washington, I need to thank the awesome Susan Musich and her gorgeous children.  Susan left the World Bank to develop Passport Career - a dynamic global job search tool for organizations to support accompanying spouses/partners of international assignees - which, if your organization does not offer this yet, I encourage you to ask them to get in touch with Susan.  (Thanks also go to the 60+ of our members who helped Susan with research for her new venture!)

Lesson learned in Washington... You do not have to be American to get a thrill out of being inside the State Department and the World Bank's Washington D.C. office, and/or standing outside the White House. ;-)

**

8th Stop: Las Vegas

Las Vegas was BlogWorld: the world's largest blogging and social media conference.  It was full of well-known names from the new media world, like: Survivor creator Mark Burnett; ProBlogger's, Darren Rowse; Ms Facebook, Mari Smith; Unmarketing's Scott Stratten; and more.  The schedule was like a smorgasbord: I mean, have you ever been to a conference where for each session, there were 12+ track options to choose from?  Incredible.

When I get a spare day (smile), I will go through all my notes and write up some of the great things that I learned from my three days at BlogWorld, to share with you, I promise.

Also, it was really nice to catch up with my expat friend Annabel Candy again, the author of our feature article this month, Successful Blogging: 5 Steps to Planning a Successful Blog.  Annabel  has just released her first e-book about blogging, Successful Blogging in 12 Simple Steps.  I have read it: it's excellent.  Congratulations Annabel!

Finally, big thanks to the Queen of CRAVE (a fabulous events and self-publishing company), Melody Biringer, for being my BlogWorld buddy.  Melody is a self-described "start-up junkie" who has started 20+ businesses.  Her memoir, recounting all the business lessons she has learned from each of her businesses, will be out very soon...

Lesson learned in Las Vegas... Tech-savvy audiences (like the ones at BlogWorld) are changing the way presentations are being delivered and received.  At every presentation, a good three-quarters (!) of the room were always either blogging, typing, foursquaring, tweeting or reading tweets about what was being presented either in that room, or another room at the conference.  It was a real eye-opener - and I found myself mimicking this multi-tasking behaviour - tweeting things I was learning and/or reading the tweets of everyone in the audience around me, commenting on what was being said up front.  One ear was listening to each presentation and one ear was listening to was being said online. It was never boring.

**

9th Stop: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia 

Three weeks to recover and then in a few days I will be in...

**

10th Stop: Singapore

I am honoured to have been invited to speak next week at the American Association's Career Resource Center for Expatriates (CRCE) event on Wednesday 10 November, and the PrimeTime: Business & Professional Women's Association event on Thursday 11 November, details here.

**

11th Stop: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Home, sweet home... at least until Christmas, then it's back to our other 'home' for the holidays!

**

THANK YOU to Everyone who made my recent travels so memorable.

I will try and upload some photos another day, when my internet connection is not so slow.  (It took six hours just to write, insert all the links and complete this post... which would be funny, if it wasn't sadly true.)

BEST WISHES to all of you and enjoy your weekend!

Andrea x

Expat Women Welcomes SIRVA Relocation!

Hello Everyone, We would like to give a big shout-out today to our new Expat Women Gold Sponsor: SIRVA Relocation. 

Expat Women depends on the support of fine companies such as SIRVA, who are willing to invest in our online, niche community.  So to return the goodwill, if you are looking for a reputable, global relocations company to look after you and your family, please recommend SIRVA Relocation to your employing Company…

"As a leading provider of relocation services, SIRVA Relocation has been redefining the industry with hassle-free relocation services focused on customers' diverse needs.

SIRVA Relocation provides innovative relocation solutions to manage the entire relocation process for corporations and their employees. By considering every aspect of their move and their new location, we make sure your employees are free to focus on their work.

With services in over 130 countries, SIRVA Relocation has the global reach and local expertise to help relocate lives: anyone, anytime, anywhere.

SIRVA Relocation delivers international and domestic assignment management with a single point of contact and co-ordination in real time. This is achieved through having dedicated specialists based in our Centres of Excellence and Global Certified Partner Networks to provide on-the-ground services in over 130 countries.

Our process is supported with state-of-the-art technology that can cost record, track and report on every aspect of an assignment. This system enables the client to access information in any part of the world at any time.

SIRVA Relocation's core business includes:
• Global Mobility Consultancy
• Visa and Immigration Services
• Destination Services
• Assignment Management Services
• Household Goods Move Management
• Expense Management
• Cross-Cultural & Intercultural Management Programs

As each organisation has its own unique culture and operating style, SIRVA Relocation can tailor a portfolio of services to meet the client's mobility needs.  The single-point of contact is what relieves clients of the burden of administering international and domestic assignments, providing more time to focus on their core business.

Click Here to enquire about SIRVA Relocation's services."

Thank you in advance for supporting the companies that support us! Andrea