Growing up and going through college, I always felt I was built for business. While studying for my engineering degree, I spent my days running our family’s business hands-on. It wasn't just a side hustle for me—it was where I belonged. We actually managed to scale the business to three different branches, and at the time, I honestly never planned on using my degree to take a standard corporate job.
Then reality hit. A combination of heavy inflation and our own lack of structured experience in diagnosing deep operational problems eventually caused the business to collapse. To secure a steady income, I turned to my degree and stepped into the energy sector—first working in oilfield engineering back home, and eventually relocating to the UAE.
Over the past four years in the field, I’ve gained solid international engineering experience, but I’ve never felt truly fulfilled. Deep down, I kept searching for that same strategic drive I had when we were managing and expanding our business.
Recently, I stumbled across strategy consulting, and something immediately clicked. Seeing how consultants break down complex business problems made me reflect on my own past. I realized consulting is the exact bridge I’ve been looking for: a way to build the structured problem-solving toolkits I wished we had back then, while combining my real-world operational experience with my technical engineering background.
My Questions
Positioning: How can I best frame a story that combines scaling a 3-branch family business with 4 years of international oilfield engineering to appeal to recruiters?
Recruiter Outreach & Networking: How can i with a non-traditional background effectively reach out to consulting recruiters and practitioners to get noticed and secure interviews? Also with zero referals
Regional Dynamics: How do Middle East offices UAE view candidates transitioning out of the local energy and engineering space?
