With no more than a fortnight left before we embark upon 2016, with it comes a list of New Year’s resolutions with job/career change featuring dominantly on it.
If you are on the lookout to brighten your chances of landing a new job or just want to keep abreast of what’s happening in the job market, here are the 10 trends to watch out for.
According to recruitment firm Hays, these trends are likely to shape the job market, something that candidates should take into account to make their search more effective.
Growth of flexible workforces
This may be good news to many UAE employees. Flexible working hours are very important to those working in the country and a factor that can influence an individual’s decision to stick to a company or not.
A previous Robert Half study indicated that 24 per cent of the people in the country, who participated in the poll, said they may switch jobs if a company offers better and flexible work hours.
Hays, put this as the top trend in the coming year as engaging talent on long-term contracts will become important as organisations seek a flexible headcount.
Organisations will also continue to engage employees on a contract basis with a view to making them permanent if more projects are undertaken.
For candidates this means that being flexible and staying open to both contract and permanent is a must in 2016 if you want to access a greater range of opportunities.
Like-for-like skills and local experience
Local skills and experience have always been very important on a recruiter’s mind but this too is evolving. Hays experts highlight that while doing business in the UAE remains quite different from conducting business in many expat communities, the economy is becoming increasingly globalised.
So, candidates who have both local and international expertise and who are used to working across different cultures, will be at an advantage.
For those who lack this, can gain multi-cultural experience to become a preferred candidate of choice. And, candidates who have the right mix will be the favoured ones.
Digital Influencers and analysts
Data analytics has been a big focus in 2015 and this will continue into the New Year as well. Predictions by the recruitment firm show that more organisations will look at this and how they can scale those up into actions. “This is about making data relevant to a business as they continue on the digital transformation journey.”
Since this factor will become increasingly important for companies, employees in relevant roles, should look at upskilling to keep with the pace with data trends.
Focus on security
Those in roles such as firewall experts, cyber security specialists and security engineers can expect to see their demand go up as more organisations will be keen to keep their increasing volumes of data safe and prepare for action in the cased of a cyber-attack.
Digital & Mobile Apps
As customers look to transact with companies in more user friendly and simpler ways a higher number of mobile applications are being developed.
And, this will push up the demand for developers in this particular area along with support staff with experience in mobile devices.
To keep pace with these technological changes, candidates will need to up their technical skills that is in sync with the company’s brand and values.
DevOps
Dev Ops the short for development and operations – will be another defining trend in the year to come.
As technology becomes important in every aspect of business, more organisations will build and deploy more software more rapidly. This will push further the demand for DevOps professionals, including engineering managers with strong software development and application deployment experience, to upskill or look externally for specialists in application management.
Customer experience
Customer experience will gather more momentum and organisations will use technology in a bigger way to understand customers. For jobseekers, the use of technology in this area will be key. “Showing employers you can design a leading customer experience across all platforms will be critical to secure your next move.”
HR to harness content marketing
Content marketing is being leveraged by companies for recruiting, PR, employee training, and other departments. And, in the coming year, experts at Hays believe that human resources content marketing will be an ongoing trend in 2016.
“Jobseekers should research exactly what their prospective employer is doing by way of utilising technology to create original and engaging HR content. Candidates should also ensure that they showcase examples of where they have done this in past roles in order to demonstrate their suitability for the role and organization,” the report advises.
Workforce diversity
More companies in the UAE will be looking to increase the diversity of their workforce. This is more obvious in the government sector, where efforts are being to push Emiratisation further.
Private sector lags behind and this has resulted in initiatives to upskill nationals from secondary school age, with particular focus on skills akin to working in traditionally male-dominated sectors such as banking & financial services, engineering and technology. Labour forces are likely to consist of an increasing proportion of Emiratis and women in the region, to reflect this change.
Revolution of recruitment outsourcing
Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) comes last on the list of the trends to be seen in 1916 but will experience a revolution as more businesses turn towards it.
So, jobseekers in 2016 will notice they may be dealing with partner RPO companies throughout a hiring process, who will introduce them to the employer at a specific stage of the recruitment process, the report says.
Source: http://www.emirates247.com
Courtesy: Gulf Jobs