This is most effective way to land a UAE job

Half your battle in landing a job will be done if you know exactly where the employers are and the avenues they use to hire people.

Surprisingly, it isn’t just the social media where they will always come looking for candidates. A new report by social networking website LinkedIn reveals that some employers are still relying on old-fashioned techniques like word-of-mouth to find candidates, which many of us thought was an outdated strategy.

The study, which polled 300 employers and 1,500 job seekers in the GCC, states that majority of employers (70 per cent) rely on this single way to look for talent.

This is in contrast to what the candidates are doing. Professionals in the country flock online looking for jobs and potential employers, and this leads to a disconnect between the parties in the job market.

And this mismatch means not hiring the right candidates for the jobs. The study shows that 82 per cent of job-seekers and professionals currently hold jobs that do not match their skills and qualification because the employers are not on the same wavelength as them when the roles are being advertised and filled up.

What is more striking is that the most used tool by employers (word-of-mouth) is the least-used channel by job hunters.

The study reveals that second most effective and used tool by employers are professional social networking websites, thirdly their own websites and lastly using recruitment agency to fill up the vacant roles.

Candidates, on the other hand, use professional networking sites the most. They also believe direct contact with employees, job boards and online searches can help them on their job front.

Recruitment agencies come next on the list and replying on traditional ways like scrolling though newspapers and magazines or word-of-mouth are the least used, thereby making them the least effective job search tools for professionals.

“If employers are unable to find and attract the best candidates to their organisation then they will struggle. This study shows that, while more and more employers are effectively engaging candidates through social media, many aren’t keeping up with the advances in technology and could be missing out on key hires. The most striking fact is the mismatch between how information on available jobs is communicated, and how jobseekers prefer to go about finding these jobs,” says Ali Matar, Head of LinkedIn Talent Solutions, Mena.

This finding comes despite the fact that 100 per cent of polled UAE employees agreed that there was a shortage of talent in the labour market, and that it was hard to find candidates with the required skills and qualifications.

More than half of companies included in the survey had lowered the job requirements in order to fill positions, indicating that companies could be making unnecessary sacrifices to productivity and effectiveness, the study adds.

(Image via Shutterstock)

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