Dubai career champion aims to help people reach their full potential

Canadian Shane Phillips runs free career clinics where people can go to learn about career strategies and hear from some of Dubai's most successful business people.

Shane Phillips says many people make the mistake of selling themselves short. Lee Hoagland/The National

DUBAI // Shane Phillips wants to prove that no matter what your background or education, you can make a success of your career and life.

For the past two years he has helped hundreds of people get the job they wanted, gain the promotion they deserved or start the business they always dreamt about.

“Growing up most of us thought that, if you kept your nose down, worked hard you would get that promotion,” said Mr Phillips, who runs Shane Phillips Consultants, a headhunting company in Dubai.

“But the reality is a little different and, if you look at the people in the top 5 per cent of earning potential, they are definitely organising themselves in a certain way.”

An Ivy League education gives people with that background an edge through networking and knowing how to manage yourself and get noticed inside a company, he said.

“But most people don’t even have a single career strategy,” he said.

To help, he has been running a free career clinic, twice a month, from the Canadian University of Dubai, as well as hosting his weekly radio show Eye on Careers on Dubai Eye.

“I try to give access to strategies for people who have not been to Ivy League business schools,” Mr Phillips said. “These schools get the top business people who go in and talk to the students.

“I wanted to bring that to the streets, to people who maybe didn’t even finish school or who don’t have parents and life is really tough.

“But they can come into a career clinic and you have access to similarly successful people here who talk about how they achieved success.”

The first clinic began in 2012 and was held in a cafe with one person turning up, but it has grown rapidly and now attracts some of the most respected business leaders in the country, who come to share their experiences.

Guest speakers have included Colm McLoughlin, the executive vice chairman of Dubai Duty Free; Yogesh Mehta, the founder and chief executive of Petrochem; Mark Shuttleworth, the former chief financial officer at du; Erich Kaeser, the chief executive of Siemens Mena; and K Rajaram, the chief executive of Al Naboodah Automobiles.

Born in Ottawa, Canada, and raised in Toronto, Mr Phillips read psychology at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver.

After graduating, he set up a film-production company before following in his father Carl’s footsteps and becoming an executive headhunter.

He moved to Dubai in 2008 during the boom years but chose to tough it out during the financial crisis and feels he is better for it.

“In a sense, it was a good thing because it forced you to be a smarter business professional,” he said.

When he first arrived in Dubai he initially tried to do community work for the Gulshan Special Families Support Group, but found he was not suited to the role.

“I wanted to help people and realised that the best way I could give back would be to use my skills as an executive search professional and that’s how the career clinics started.”

Lacking in self-confidence and self-belief and not being yourself are the key factors that prevent people from being successful, he said.

“The biggest mistake in life is not that you aim too high and miss, but that you aim too low and hit,” he said. “People sell themselves short and then they spend the rest of their careers blaming others for short-changing them.

“Successful people don’t sell themselves short. They step up to the plate and believe in themselves.”

Another important element in being successful is building skills while in a chosen profession over a number of years.

“If you look at the successful people, more often than not they have been in their profession for at least 15 years,” he said.

“If you can spend your lifetime in one industry, learn about it and find out why some people are more successful than others, it will help you.”

People can also take advantage of technology and reach out to people they admire in whatever field they are interested in, Mr Phillips said.

“If you keep pushing yourself, you will acquire that knowledge. It’s not IQ that differentiates but how you think. The opportunities are not in the market but inside you.”

The career-clinic sessions run between November and February two times each month. For information, visit www.shanephillips.net.

Eye on Careers is on Dubai Eye radio station every Thursday from 9pm to 11pm.