Hi,
I am wondering in what ways does the Dubai office differ from other Middle East region offices? More specifically, is the work pressure (work-life balance) in the Dubai office considered to be more intense/worse? I am struggling to make a decision between Dubai and another regional office and would appreciate the help. Many thanks!
Hi there,
there is not much of the difference between offices if you work for MBB, you will still work hard and as Ian says, 70 vs. 75 hrs. it won't make difference.
Good luck!
Lucie
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The work-life balance would be broadly the same as they would cover the same pool of client projects in the region. The major difference is travel which naturally drives up the hours and lack of flexibility. For example, many Dubai based consultants spent Sun-Wed working in Saudi Arabia where the bulk of client work was happening. Ultimately, I would choose based on where you want to live.
Hi there,
If you're making your decision based on work-life balance then you're in the wrong industry!
Both are going to be immensely demanding. If you're worried about work-life balance, 70 hours/week isn't going to be much different to 75 hours/week.
There is much higher variability across projects, bosses, clients, etc. than across offices. Additionally, how you handle your work affects this immensely as well (if you work efficiently and focus on what needs to be done in the right way, you can cut your weekly hours by the tens).
If you're interested in other factors, well, we need to know what they are! To simple ask “what's different” shows you're not actually being deliberate in your decision. What do you want/need? Only once you know that can any information be helpful.
P.S. Networking isn't a bad way to find these things out either ;)
If you are comparing Dubai to other ME offices, there will not be a difference in work-life balance as you are serving the same pool of clients, and have the same group of partners and managers leading the cases.
There will be variability in work-life balance for every case depending on the length of the case, type of the case (e.g. PMO, strategy, DD), practice area, etc.
Some things to consider in Dubai vs ME other offices:
1) Travel - if you are based in Riyadh or Doha, it is much more likely that your clients will be local, so you will save the flying time each week.
2) Work week- The UAE has changed their work week to Mon-Fri. If you are serving clients in the rest of the GCC, you will have to be on their Sun-Thurs work week. So if you are located in Dubai, your work week will not be aligned with most other people in the UAE. This could either be an advantage or a disadvantage for you, but something to consider.
The variation between clients, industries and teams/partners is much larger than the one between offices…
You'd rather network a bit and collect on multiple people's experiences.
