How to mobilise 100 site engineers in 6 weeks

Mobilising 100 site engineers in 6 weeks isn't a hiring problem — it's a logistics problem. The talent exists; the bottleneck is always documentation, visa processing, and onboarding sequencing. Here's the playbook we run, end to end.

Week 1: Lock the brief, source in parallel

Day one, we lock the role spec across three discipline tracks (civil, MEP, and project controls), set salary bands per nationality and experience tier, and open sourcing in five corridors simultaneously: India, Philippines, Egypt, Pakistan, and Nepal. Running corridors in parallel is the single biggest accelerator — sequential sourcing kills the timeline.

Week 2: First 200 CVs, structured shortlist

By end of week two, we've usually screened 600–800 CVs and shortlisted 200. Every CV is scored on five dimensions: technical fit, GCC experience, English level, availability, and salary fit. The 200 go into client review; we expect ~120 to pass.

Week 3: Offers and document collection

Offers go out the day after client approval. We collect documents in parallel: passport copy, attested degree, experience letters, medical fitness pre-check. Document attestation is where most agencies lose 1–2 weeks. Pre-empt by demanding pre-attested documents from candidates before offer.

Week 4–5: Visa processing and travel

UAE employment visas in 2026 average 4–7 working days for established employers. Stagger entry permits in batches of 25 — this prevents accommodation, transport, and onboarding bottlenecks on the ground. Book flights centrally; never let candidates arrange their own.

Week 6: Mobilisation, onboarding, deployment

Group arrivals in batches of 25, three days apart. Day 1: medical & EID. Day 2: site induction & PPE issue. Day 3: deployment to site. By end of week 6, all 100 should be productive.

The non-obvious lesson

The biggest delay we see in mobilisation projects isn't sourcing or visas — it's client decision speed. If your hiring manager takes 5 days to review a shortlist, you've lost a week. Build a fast-track approval process before the project starts.