Girl on the Brink: Surviving Desperate Times with Desperate Measures

You got to hand it to overseas employers. They call it like it is when defining job requirements. But, hey, if you’re selling “lifestyle” products, which I take to mean condoms or something involving family planning, then wouldn’t you want a male with an MBA to target teens and yuppies?

Lobo Management Services, a recruiting company in Abu Dhabi, did just that when it advertised for a brand manager with a “young and vibrant” personality. As a girl, I couldn’t sample the product from a man’s perspective. Well, that’s one of the reasons I didn’t apply. I don’t speak Arabic, but how important is talking when testing which condom color women prefer?

Lobo also advertised a job that specified the age for a business development manager: 40 years old. Apple Search & Selection, another recruitment agency in the Middle East, sought a “female” administrative assistant, and if you wanted to apply for one of its temporary office positions you’d need to submit a letter from your spouse granting you permission to work.

A job site advertising careers in the Middle East said the better looking you are the better your chances at getting hired. The site admitted that this practice was unfair, but I’d rather know about a country’s hiring practices before jumping on a plane to Dubai when I should have headed down to Argentina to see a low-cost plastic surgeon for breast implants.

At first, when I read these employment ads, I was a bit taken aback because of U.S. labor laws governing what you can and cannot say in a job description. U.S. companies have lawyered up to become uber conservative. While no one wants to get slammed with a discrimination suit, are we as “equal opportunity” as we’d like others to think when we create such neutral job descriptions? Probably not.

While I can’t say that I agree with everything about the frankness of ads for overseas jobs, I wish HR directors here could be more candid about how they portray positions. If a company would rather have a man than a woman or vice versa, I don’t see anything wrong with saying so, as long as certain ratios are kept to ensure that not all secretarial positions are filled by women, and upper management isn’t a male bastion.