Business & Money | Tuesday 27 January, 2015 8:06 am |

The Bayt.com ‘Skills and Hiring Trends in the MENA’ poll, recently conducted by Bayt.com, the Middle East’s leading job site, sheds unprecedented light on the workforce strategies of companies operating in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region today. The survey revealed that a staggering 84.1% of respondents working in HR departments conduct reference checks prior to hiring eligible candidates.

The poll revealed that online hiring will be more important than ever before in 2015. According to 20.2% of those responsible for hiring talent, leading online job sites like Bayt.com will be most widely used to source candidates in 2015. In parallel, 29.3% of respondents operating in the field of HR claim that the recruitment of active candidates online will become the number one hiring trend of 2015. On the other hand, 11.6% state that the recruitment of passive candidates online is set to be the leading hiring trend in the next twelve months.

As for the time needed to find a qualified candidate to appoint, it’s not very fast; 48% of respondents responsible for hiring admit that their company now takes one to three months to fill a vacant position. Most employers (32.9%) call up candidates to notify them about a hiring decision, with a further 30% notifying job seekers via email.

Interestingly, 16.1% of respondents involved in the hiring process say that the biggest mistake that candidates make with online recruitment is not emphasizing their skills enough. For 15.9%, a critical misstep made by job seekers online is having an incomplete public profile. The third most cited critical mistake (according to 12%) is not having active online conversations.

To acquire new and important skills, companies will be helping professionals in the next year in acquiring new skills via a combination of on-the-job experience (13.5%), formal internal training provided by the company (21.9%), formal external training provided by the company (16.5%), and by shadowing and observing others (9%). Additionally, the top three skills most likely to get job seekers hired in 2015 include problem-solving/analytical thinking (18.5%); creativity (14%); and leadership (13.3%). Fortunately, 73.1% of respondents claim that their company’s project investment in training will increase in 2015.

From the point of view of employees, 39.4% believe that their company currently has all the skills it needs, while 35.6% say that there is definitely a skills gap in some areas. For 29%, a solution to building necessary expertise is simply by increasing training investments. Other suggestions comprise redeploying employees to roles where their skills are most needed (22.1%) and working closer – and earlier on – with universities on specialized curricula (19.2%). Furthermore, the top three departments with the highest perceived skill shortages in companies are Human Resources (17.2%), IT (15.1%) and Engineering (14.5%).

Suhail Masri, VP of Sales, Bayt.com, said: “In today’s ever-evolving job market, talented candidates are constantly looking to find new ways to differentiate themselves, optimize their profile and effectively navigate complex employment sectors. In order to truly enhance their chances of actually landing a job, however, they must gain in-depth insight into the screening process from an HR perspective; more importantly, they need to become strongly aware of the skills that are in demand.”

He also added, “The power of online recruitment is more important than ever before. With a majority of employers sourcing talent on the internet, job seekers are advised to create searchable online profiles to stand out. The poll shows that two of the three most critical mistakes that job seekers make are having an incomplete public profile, and not having active online conversations. Bayt.com’s Public Profile is an avenue through which job seekers can brand themselves online, and then engage on Bayt.com Specialties. They should also make sure to be “active” on leading job portals, like Bayt.com, by refreshing their CV every week. Ultimately, it is about arming job seekers – facing steep competition – with the right tools to help them excel in their respective fields.”

Data for the Bayt.com ‘Skills and Hiring Trends in the MENA’ poll was collected online from 14 December 2014- 14 January 2015, with 5,961 respondents from the UAE, Algeria, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Oman, Qatar, Tunisia, and Yemen.