1. You want to work in tech, but not at our company

At a startup, the first 20-30 employees are fundamental to the culture and success of the entire enterprise. A startup’s journey is saturated with challenges and difficulties and the thing that’s going to get us through it is purpose.

If you don’t connect with our purpose, or you don’t feel it, that’s fine — but that probably means this isn’t the job for you.

It’s easy to spot when this isn’t there, mainly because it’s so easy to spot when it is. Some people are just so excited to join they can’t put it into words. You’ll hear phrases like, “ I can’t even describe how perfect this is for me.”

We hear a lot about product-market fit and increasingly about product-founder fit. But there’s also product-employee fit. Do you and your skills and interests make sense for this product? Will your approach and passions fit with the team ethos?

This is usually why technically amazing candidates are passed over. In the long term, it’s in everyone’s interest. If it’s not a role where you’ll care about the product, then not getting the job means you can pursue opportunities you truly care about.

2. You’re a brilliant jerk

There are some people out there who are just brilliant. Throughout the interview process, you see some soft-skill red flags, but you want to hire them anyway because you really need their skills right now and their CV is just so good .

After all, I’m building a team of geniuses, right? Wrong.

No matter how brilliant you are, if you’re not able to self-reflect and display empathy, it will create issues for the wider team. Every startup is a team, you cannot do things in isolation.

When a person can’t work collaboratively, their impact on morale is significant. They are, to use Ben Horowitz’s phrase, a brilliant jerk.

If you’re a CEO, don’t fall into this trap, it’s not worth it. And, if you’re job seeking, don’t forget the vital importance of being a team player.

3. You’re the right person with the wrong skills

You might find a company that you love and connect with. The role feels like the right fit and you submit an application with excitement. And it’s genuinely fantastic to receive these applications; full of enthusiasm and passion. But that doesn’t mean we can offer you the job.

A startup requires specific talents at different times. The evolution of the company happens so rapidly, that the team requirements are constantly shifting. Especially in the early days of the company (let’s say, the first 3-5 years) there’s little room for generalists.

A startup needs experienced people because you’re probably going to be the only person in the team with that skillset, so there’s no one to learn from.

If you’re a data scientist, you might be the data scientist. You can’t go to someone to ask tricky data questions and if you’re unsure about anything, it’s hard to troubleshoot. You could be setting up an entire function within the business, at lightning speed, with little margin for error.

If you don’t have that very specific skill set that is needed at that moment, no matter how passionate you are, we can’t hire you. But, I’d encourage anyone who’s fallen in love with a company to get in touch with the founders and tell them that you love what they’re building.

It might not lead to a yes right now, but when the job does come up, you’ll be front of mind.

Why Dubai is a booming hotspot for fintech startups

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is becoming a leading destination for fast-growing tech startups . In 2020, the region reached a record $1 billion in startup investments , signaling a voracious investor appetite in the technology sector.

The maturing digital economy coupled with region-wide innovation initiatives make MENA an attractive place to launch or scale a startup for an increasing number of global entrepreneurs. Heavy hitters like Microsoft, Google, and Amazon are also investing in the region, and recent investments are trending towards later-stage deals, indicating that the land is ripe for opportunity.

For fintechs in particular, Dubai has become an attractive hotspot from which founders can scale their operations across the Middle East and the wider MENA region.

The UAE is now home to 33 of the region’s 50 most funded startups , followed by Saudi Arabia and Egypt, with a vast majority of success stories born in Dubai. There’s Uber’s acquisition of Careem for $3.1 billion. Then there’s Dubai unicorn Swvl’s listing on the Nasdaq, and fintech leader PayTabs taking the region by storm.

These successes, among others, have created a groundswell of excitement about the Emirate’s potential for global startup domination.

For founders seeking to expand beyond their current borders, here’s what you need to know about Dubai’s fintech ecosystem.

Funding opportunities abound

When choosing a base in a new region, the availability of funding opportunities is one of the key deciding factors. According to Magnitt’s Emerging Venture Markets Report , in 2021 UAE based startups received the lion’s share of total funding and the highest number of deals in the MENA region.

One of the top five fintech funding rounds in Q1 went to Dubai-based NOW Money at $7 million . Co-founders Ian Dillon and Katharine Budd will now use the investment to grow their UAE based operations further and expand their business into Saudi Arabia.

Q2 and Q3 saw even larger deals with ‘buy now, pay later’ (BNPL) startup Tabby closing a $50 million round in August . According to Chief Executive, Hosam Arab, the company is planning to maintain its Dubai base, while continuing to expand into new markets.

SEZs offer business-friendly regulations and licensing options

One of the biggest challenges of establishing yourself in a new market is overcoming the market processes, from getting familiar with the local legislation to getting the right licenses for your business to start operations.

To help grow local business and attract international founders, the UAE set up a number of special economic zones with their own independent jurisdictions and business-friendly civil and commercial laws.

The leading platform in the MEASA region is Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) established in 2004 to facilitate the growth of the Emirate’s finance scene. It’s now ranked in the top 20 financial centres in the world and hosts over 3,200 active companies including over 1000 finance and innovation related companies.

As a special economic zone, DIFC offers key benefits such as zero tax on business income and profits, 100% foreign ownership, and no restrictions on foreign exchange or capital/profit repatriation. In addition, the DIFC is founded on business-friendly laws, derived from English common law principles, addressing insolvency, advanced employment and pension provisions, and globally compatible data protection regulations. Its robust yet flexible business and legal framework provides a safe environment for market newcomers. Another benefit for fintechs in particular is the zone’s licensing options, including subsidies and a testing license introduced to allow for greater experimentation.

A unique aspect of DIFC is the community hub it’s facilitated for tech firms through the DIFC Innovation Hub , an important pillar of the new Dubai Future District. It’s home to the largest innovation ecosystem in the region and paves the way for early stage startups, growth stage startups, unicorns, and big Tech firms to come together.

For this reason Julian Dixon, CEO of cybersecurity fintech Napier, decided to launch the company’s Middle East operations in the DIFC Innovation Hub. In a recent podcast with Innovate Finance , Dixon said:

“It offered us a frictionless way of setting up a presence in the Middle East. This allowed us to focus on scaling rapidly, without the problems we had experienced in other parts of the world such as complex laws and banking operations.”

Digital infrastructure and tech talent

Along with favorable regulations, for innovation to happen, you need a solid digital infrastructure. And it just so happens Dubai’s main objective is to transform itself into an international technology hub. As a result, it’s adopting emerging technologies at a rapid rate and, more importantly, introducing new legislation to move the process forward.

One of its first objectives has been to become the ‘ first blockchain powered city ’ with the goal to have 50% of financial transactions done on the blockchain. DIFC hosted the inaugural Blockchain week at its Innovation Hub, to discuss the adoption and regulation of blockchain tech with stakeholders across the ecosystem.

Beyond this, tech firms focused on the crypto boom will be interested to know that the Dubai Financial Services Authority (the independent regulator of financial services conducted in or from the DIFC) recently launched a regulatory framework for Investment Tokens .

The city also introduced a Chamber of Digital Economy which is set to develop a digital-centric economic growth plan focused on attracting investment, international talent, and entrepreneurs, and proposing digital economy friendly policies and legislation.

Of course, even with the best digital infrastructure in place, you can’t build a great fintech without tech talent. According to the IMD World Competitiveness Centre’s latest World Talent Report , the UAE maintained its position as the top country for tech talent in the Arab world and second place in the MENA region (after Israel). In the global ranking, it reached 23rd place.

Dubai in particular continues to attract international talent with its high quality of life. It’s been ranked the best city to live and work in the MENA region by Kearny’s Global Cities Report for eight consecutive years. InterNations’ Expat City Ranking 2021 saw Dubai reach third place out of 57 cities that were ranked.

Still not sure if Dubai is right for your fintech?

Of course entering a completely new market can be intimidating, especially if you don’t have contacts or experience in that region to begin with.

According to Daumantas Grigaravicius, Country Manager UAE at Ebury, setting up their startup’s presence in Dubai felt like starting from scratch. Not being familiar with the market, they decided to go for a sandbox approach , setting up a temporary office in DIFC to get a better sense of the business dynamics and understand the client base.

Going into a new market can be daunting, but having a partner that can give you a direct contact and route to peers helps.

Even ‘dream jobs’ have their flaws: Why honesty is the best recruiting tool

What happens when you land your dream job but it turns out to be anything but?

Friends, career consultants, and the media inundate us with a constant barrage of advice telling us to follow our dreams, find our bliss or pursue our passions in our professional lives. Yet this kind of advice is not always easily followed .

Even when it’s heeded, the advice can come with downsides , especially when it turns out that those aforementioned passions involve jobs with routine, day-to-day tasks that people are less than passionate about. In short, work is often hard work.

People land jobs in data science and artificial intelligence, for example, expecting to create brilliant algorithms that will solve big problems. But they often end up performing menial data collection and cleaning tasks. The excitement of working for a startup loses its luster with difficult and boring work often outside an employee’s primary areas of interest.

And not everyone promoted to the lauded ranks of management is thrilled to be there performing management tasks, or even see the job as a step up.

People romanticize working in the media, fashion, film, fine and performing arts, and other cultural industries, but the work often ends up being more drudgery than glamour. Any job, especially an entry-level position, has elements of drudgery.

‘Glossy work’ is lackluster

This gap between expectations and the day-to-day reality of jobs is a phenomenon we’ve labeled as “glossy work” in a recently published study .

For the study, we interviewed magazine fact-checkers who worked for high-status organizations in a glamorous industry while performing menial tasks every day. They experienced a kind of dissonance between their work and its setting.

As one fact-checker described it:

We examined how this phenomenon affects them.

For employees, the glossy work dissonance can spur attempts to change the actual job, frustration, and a quick exit from the position. Glossy work also creates a dilemma about how to present the work and themselves to the world. How do they balance their simultaneous needs for self-enhancement and to be fully understood and authentic?

Glossing over mundane work

We find they do so by differentiating their descriptions of their jobs across different audiences. When talking to complete outsiders — people at social gatherings, for example — they focus on the more glamorous aspects: working in journalism and for glossy magazines.

For the high-status writers they collaborate with, they focus on their own expertise and other status markers. And to insiders, they present a more complete view of their work.

Presenting themselves differently depending on who they’re talking to can mean that anyone who is not a true insider at the company ends up with a partial or biased view of the work. The full nature of the work is often glossed over, and that’s a problem for those considering taking one of these jobs.

When they only hear about the gloss, prospective employees end up with false expectations that tend to fuel the cycle of disappointment.

Potential employees can get around this by doing more careful research on the true nature of the jobs they’re considering taking. They should ask questions about the position’s day-to-day requirements and consult a range of people who currently have the job or who have previously held it.

What employers can do

“Glossy work” also comes at a cost to employers as they try to manage worker frustration and staff turnover. They can stop this vicious cycle by providing realistic job previews. This doesn’t mean they should only show the negative side of work, but they should provide an honest balance of the glamorous and less glamorous aspects of the job.

Employers may also want to consider alternative ways of assembling tasks so that the less pleasant tasks are spread across employees and jobs.

They may also want to be open to employee efforts to craft and tweak their jobs and create new opportunities within their organizations.

Ultimately, however, performing many mundane tasks remains a reality in all jobs despite the promise that AI will eliminate more and more rote chores.

What’s more, hiring managers should exercise caution when listing “passion” as a job requirement. In an analysis of more than 200 interviews for a project on startup hiring , passion was a frequent subject of discussion. Hiring managers looked for it. Potential employees wanted to live their passion.

Yet none of the hiring managers who were looking for passion in their prospective employees could describe how they would assess passion in candidates, or why it was important for the specific job being filled. The risk here is that they hire people who are passionate and then provide work that either doesn’t match or douses that passion, creating a problematic situation for both employee and employer.

This article by Lisa Cohen , Associate Professor, Business Administration, McGill University , and Sandra E. Spataro , Professor, Northern Kentucky University is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article .