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But most people are optimistic about meeting their career goals this year
Byline: Cleofe Maceda
Dubai: Just a few days after the New Year rung in, Eloisa’s HR manager delivered some unexpected news: the company is implementing some budgetary cuts and that her monthy salary is going to reduce.
The news came at such a bad time and she has no other recourse but to look for another job. The revised pay won’t just be enough to cover her growing monthly expenses. "I need to spruce up my CV right away," she said.
Eloisa is one of the majority of professionals in the region who are actively looking for new work. According to a new survey by Bayt.com, nearly nine in ten (98 per cent) of employees in the Middle East plan on looking for new opportunities in 2017. The study, however, was not clear about the reasons behind the high number of employees currently looking for new vacancies.
The good news, though, is that most professionals are quite optimistic about their prospects this year. Nearly all of them (95.1 per cent) said they feel more prepared and qualified to apply for new roles in 2017 than they were a year ago.
“Overall, the majority of respondents are feeling good about the year ahead,” the job portal said. When asked to describe how they feel, many workers (55.6 per cent) said they were “positive” and another fifth claimed they were actually “excited” for what lies ahead.
Among the professionals who choose to stay with their current employer, three quarters (75.5 per cent) are positive that they will get a raise this year, and nearly the same number (74.8 per cent) feel optimistic that they will earn a promotion in 2017.
For those who are active in the job search, more than half (53.2 per cent) said they will look for openings using online job sites and other methods, while 29.8 per cent will completely rely on online career portals. Less than one in ten respondents prefer company websites (7.1 per cent), personal networks (6.4 per cent) or social media (3.5 per cent) for finding work.
However, for Anthony, another Dubai-based expatriate who works in the IT field, the chances of getting hired through a job site is very minimal. The European national has recently been hopping from one networking event to another, in search of a new employer.
“This is the only way to get a job because most people would hire talent they know already. If you can avoid going through a job site you will avoid going through. If you were to hire someone, you want to get it done quickly rather than go through hundreds of CVs and spend weeks filtering them,” he said.
But Suhail Masri, vice president for employer solutions at Bayt.com, pointed out that the region’s professionals value the importance of job portals in finding new opportunities. “We have witnessed tremendous growth in the number of professionals who use [our site] to access the career tools and information they need. In fact, jobseekers in 2017 are able to have daily access to over 10,000 jobs.”
Jobseekers and other professionals in the region also acknowledge that there are some obstacles to overcome. The main barriers that hold them back from achieving their career goals are lack of “growth opportunities” (27.7 per cent), lack of funding (22.6 per cent), lack of experience (14.5 per cent), poor company management (14.3 per cent), lack of work-life balance (10.9 per cent), too much competition (5.1 per cent) and fear of failure (4.9 per cent).
“It is evident that jobseekers in the [Middle East and North Africa] region are determined and inspired to seek more career opportunities and better professional development strategies,” said Masri.
© Gulf News 2017
