Hello and welcome back to our weekly Newsletter.
My name is Charlie and I am the CEO at MCG Talent. I oversee our operations across the UAE, KSA, Hong Kong and Singapore.
Each week we bring to you our priority roles, updates and insights into what we’re seeing in the market at the moment.
It’s great to have you onboard and fingers crossed there’s something in here that might be of help.
Table of Contents
TLDR: This week includes: a quick intro into the approaching Lunar New Year and our current live roles across APAC and MENA.
P.S. if anyone has any travel tips for Osaka/Kyoto - please let me know!
All of our previous content can be accessed through the archive.
Here’s 3 ways I can help you today
1) I run a small group with limited spaces where I directly answer ANY of your questions about the job search directly through LinkedIn Chat.
My aim is simple: To help you as much as possible each week until you're in your next role.
It’s designed for those serious about making a move to or within the UAE, and to help navigate whatever pain points you’re encountering in your job search.
There’s 4 spaces left for this weeks cohort 👈🏻
2) The above also includes multiple deep dives into your most asked questions which you can access below:
You don’t need a Recruiter, you need this.
The Cover Letter is dead. Replace it with this. (Coming on Sunday)
3) We run a Whatsapp Community where we publish our lives roles whenever they come in.
Last week we facilitated three interviews from direct applicants from the channel.
Quick Thoughts - Lunar New Year
Next week is Chinese New Year and this has a massive impact on our operations across Asia.
CNY is an unusual one - largely as it takes place so close to the Christmas/New Years break which is important to lots of us from the West as a window of rest.
I came back fresh and raring to go in January - after an extended break - only to find most of our clients in Asia are in second gear until we get around CNY.
CNY Decorations by our HK Office
You end up starting the year at an odd pace.
This is slightly similar for our Middle East operations where Ramadan is starting soon, a month-long period of reduced hours that leads into an extended public holiday.
For those that don’t know, CNY is a festival symbolising the start of a new Lunar year on the Chinese calendar. 2026 is the year of the Horse.
It also marks the world’s largest annual migration of people with some pretty impressive facts to go with that:
China is preparing for 9.5 BILLION passenger trips internally
1 in 6 people in the world are expected to take part in CNY celebrations
Almost every train is sold out from HK to CN over the next week
SCMP ran a fantastic infographic which breaks the festival and the traditions surrounding it down into more detail. You might want to avoid the part about this year being tipped to be ‘one of extreme volatility and unpredictability.’ Nice.
On a lighter note, our staff members here in Hong Kong were telling me the tradition behind ‘lai see’. These are small red envelopes filled with money that are handed out during CNY from elders.
They said they make a point of visiting the more affluent elders in their village during the festival and end up coming out of the period quite well... I asked for directions.
Anyway, Kung Hei Fat Choy to those celebrating.
I’ll be doing what any self-respecting Hong Kong expat does whenever there’s a window of opportunity in the calendar… getting on the first flight to Japan 🇯🇵
If anyone has any recommendations for Osaka or Kyoto - please send them my way!
In the meantime, here’s our live roles for the week.
Live Roles - APAC and MENA
For full JDs and more information, please direct CVs to [email protected] with the preferred role in the Subject Line.
APAC
Hong Kong 🇭🇰 | Singapore 🇸🇬 | Others 🌎 |
|---|---|---|
Art Director - Luxury/Hospitality 🇭🇰 | Business Development Director (Mandarin) - Media 🇸🇬 | Paid Media Lead - Agency - Tokyo 🇯🇵 |
PR Account Director - Global Agency 🇭🇰 | Account Manager - Media (Mandarin) 🇸🇬 | Agile Coach - Tech/SAAS - Guangzhou 🇨🇳 |
Growth Marketing Manager - Financial Services 🇭🇰 | PR Manager - PR Agency - Singapore 🇸🇬 | Senior Growth Marketer - Financial Services - USA 🇺🇸 |
MENA
UAE 🇦🇪 | KSA 🇸🇦 | Qatar 🇶🇦 |
|---|---|---|
VIP Account Manager - Financial Services - Dubai 🇦🇪 | Financial Comms Experts - Agency - Riyadh (also maybe UAE) 🇸🇦 | Technical Architect - Consulting - Doha 🇶🇦 |
Social Media Manager - eCommerce - Dubai 🇦🇪 | Senior Manager - Media Agency - Riyadh 🇸🇦 | Senior Manager - FS/Consulting - Doha 🇶🇦 |
Account Director -SAAS/Tech - Dubai 🇦🇪 | Senior Manager - FS/Consulting - Riyadh 🇸🇦 | |
Applied AEO Lead - Dubai 🇦🇪 | Management Consultant - Big 4 - Riyadh 🇸🇦 |
Due to the volume of applicants we receive, we are only able to respond to those who match the criteria.
If you think anything here might be a fit for someone in your network, please feel free to share!
Made it this far? Thanks for reading! Make sure to drop me a Connect on LinkedIn for more live roles and day to day across both the Middle East and Asia!