WHEN a market is in a state of growth, it can potentially find itself not having enough talent available for all the exciting – and desirable – jobs on offer. Businesses today look for more and more ways to identify and attract the best talent, including social media, referral programs, university career events, and putting the pressure on recruitment consultants to find the ideal candidate. But what if these steps are the talent acquisition equivalent of screaming into the void? How do you ensure that you attract the right talent and get the responses to your job posting that you seek? By focusing on where the jobseekers are, of course. In a survey we did recently polling 300 employers and 1,500 jobseekers across Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, the stand-out finding was that some employers still heavily rely on traditional recruiting methods to bring in returns. Recruitment consultants and company websites are the most commonly used platforms to find suitable candidates. This is in stark contrast to where professionals are actually heading to find jobs: social media. Employer responses to the survey paint a pretty grim picture; it suggests there is a significant shortage of the right talent that is required for the continued growth and success of markets such as these Gulf states. More than half of them agree that it is very hard to find one candidate that possesses all the skills and qualifications that the job calls for. One option to address this issue is for employers to consider being more flexible by reimagining roles based on the existing talent pool they have access to. Other data in the study indicates this might be possible: the majority of jobseekers in these markets would take a job that doesn't exactly fit their skills and qualifications, if the compensation package is attractive enough. While these two factors may offer a way to help employers fill roles in the short-term, it points to a lack of efficiency in skills not being deployed where they can create the most value. While roles may be filled today, the long-term costs may ultimately be higher with the additional training needs, and employees leaving jobs once they discover they can't make the best use of their skills. This shifts the perception of the talent gap somewhat, to suggest that perhaps there is a disconnect in employer-candidates dialogue. If employers were able to better reach candidates where they are looking for jobs, and better understand the skills available, companies wouldn't need to compromise on finding the best person for the job, and professionals would have more fulfilling careers. The recruitment process is simple in theory: the employer publicizes their requirements and jobseekers highlight the skills and qualifications that most closely match. In this region, however, there appears to be a mismatch here as well, which could be leading to a complicated recruitment process. Employers place a premium on technical and multicultural experience, proven efficiency and creativity, while jobseekers tend to highlight their education, and their analytical, interpersonal and communication skills. We hear that ‘the world is going social', and now this is true in the recruitment sector as well. Matching the right talent to the right job is not an easy task in the most ideal situation, and when there is a communication gap between the two parties in terms of platforms and priorities, the rift can only widen. It isn't all doom and gloom, however. Employers are eager to move their recruitment efforts to what is known as ‘social recruiting', which will then bring them face-to-face with a broad talent pool that could be their ideal hires. Social media offers huge advantages to employers in the form of up-to-date information into the available skills and experience of professionals active on those platforms. Part of this shift is ability for employers to find not only active jobseekers, but also passive candidates; those who are not actively seeking a job, but who could be open to the right opportunity. On LinkedIn, around 70 percent of members fall into this passive candidate pool, and it vastly increases the available talent employers that have access to. The platforms exist, and the awareness is growing: worldwide, more than 30,000 employers are using LinkedIn to find talent today. Employers from across the region are looking to social media to create and strengthen their employer brand, find the right candidate for the job, and use data insights to bridge the talent gap. Together, we can transform the way markets such as ours match talent with opportunity, and help every member of the workforce take advantage of our economic growth. • The writer is the Head, Talent Solutions, LinkedIn MENA
