All set and done!! You have decided to take up an overseas assignment, so you shortlisted good recruitment agencies in India and applied to them. At the same time you also applied to direct advertisements and job posts of prospective Employers and got shortlisted for some interviews. Being a professional, clearing interviews was not much of an issue, although negotiating for good package was a bit difficult. You did manage to get through all these and now the overseas employer (in Dubai/ Doha / Dammam / Muscat ) is asking for your original degree certificate attested by the UAE Consulate in India without which your employment visa cannot be processed. So you come to this juncture where getting this job done becomes your utmost priority and again handing over your certificate to an unknown agent carries a certain risk because of this person loses the certificate your job is at stake and you may have resigned from your present job by now. Let us see what your options are:
1.) Doing it yourself: Here you must understand that like all government documentation and processes there is a method in the madness and nobody will give you readymade solutions on platter if you insist to “do-it-yourself”. So be ready to spare a good amount of time a minimum of one week to maximum of a month’s time depending on whether your certificate carries an HRD stamp or you have to start the process right from scratch.
2.) Look for an Agent: As mentioned earlier getting an agent is easy but getting a reliable agent who will deliver the services in time is difficult. Also do not go with the lesser quotes from agents for a simple reason that the service of any agent will be worth what he is charging and finally it is your original degree certificate which is at stake.
Before you weigh between the above two options, let us understand the process of attestation and why is it so difficult to “do-it-yourself”
For that matter if we see the process of attestation of Educational certificates for GCC countries (UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia (KSA), Kuwait and Oman), there are common threads which run through all of them which are as follows:
1.) For all consulates it is required that your certificate is first attested by HRD of respective state i.e. if your certificate is from University in Maharashtra, it is expected that you do the attestation from HRD (Mantralaya in Mumbai) first before you proceed to the Consulate of that country.
2.) Once you finish the HRD, your certificate can be submitted to the consulates for further attestations in Mumbai / Delhi as applicable.
Now suppose your certificate is from University in Kerala or Orissa and you are not in position to go all way back to Kerala / Orissa and do the HRD, is there a way out? Yes if you happen to visit New Delhi often, what you can plan is to make a visit to MEA (Ministry of External Affairs) and get your certificate attested by MEA. Once attested by MEA, then your certificate can be submitted to the consulate for further attestations.
For any further information or assistance please visit http://manavconsultants.com/contact-us/ and call us on given numbers. Alternatively you can drop an email at hr@manavconsultants.com and send us your queries.
by Mr.Joshi
