More than a third of respondents (34.5%) across the Middle East and North Africa said that online job sites are the most effective recruitment method, according to the latest online poll series conducted by the Middle East's number one job site Bayt.com. The results of the 'Recruitment Methods in the MENA 2010/ 2011' poll also showed that 25.7% of respondents said newspaper jobs ads were the most effective, 11.2% said recruitment agencies, 10.2% said word of mouth, 9% said online job fairs, 6.1% said corporate website job ads, 1.8% said college alumni clubs and 1.6% said traditional job fairs.
When asked what percentage of their friends and family had a resume on an online jobsite, 42.7% of respondents said up to 10%, 12.9% said between 10 and 20%, 8.5% said between 20 and 30%, 5.4% said between 30 and 40%, 6.5% said 40% to 50%, and as many as 24% said more than 50% of their friends and family had a resume on an online jobsite.
Participants in the poll were asked why they frequent online job sites; 20.2% said it was the fastest, easiest, most effective way to land a job, 12.8% said they allowed them to access jobs outside their country, , 8.2% said because most of them are free to jobseekers, 5% said because they are rich in facts and information on careers, 3.4% said almost all top employers recruit using them today, and 44.1 % said all of the above reasons while 6.3 % said none of the above. The respondents were then asked whether they were passive or active jobseekers. An overwhelming majority (84.4%) answered that they were active while only 13.5% said they were passive. Only 2.1% said they were not seeking a job at all.
"As the number one job site in the Middle East, Bayt.com is dedicated to researching and analyzing data that can be useful to both employees and employers," said Amer Zureikat, VP Sales, Bayt.com. "The results of our most recent poll show that online job sites are today widely seen as the most effective job search tool and a proven and indispensable recruitment solution for today's professionals for a very wide range of reasons.''
When asked what career level online job sites catered to in their opinion, 27.9% said mid-level, 27.3% said senior level, 20.3% said entry level, 18.4% said all of the above while 6.2% were not sure. ''Clearly the region's professionals understand that leading jobsites such as Bayt.com are not the exclusive domain of the technically savvy or highly experienced but rather cater equally to all segments of the population from fresh graduates to mid-management to senior executive management. The Bayt.com database is well proportioned and very rich across all industries and career levels and the system allows different levels of confidentiality and privacy to cater to different segments of professionals and employers'' continued Zureikat
When asked if they had any issues with having their resume on a jobsite, 51.2 % of respondents said they did not as they were aware it allowed them the most access to employers. Moreover, when asked if their company recruited using a leading job site, 39.3% of respondents answered yes, indicating the great penetration online recruitment currently enjoys in the region and its wide popularity with the MENA's employers. Finally, in a brilliant testimony to the success of online recruitment in the region, more than 10% of respondents said they themselves knew more than 5 people who had found their jobs online including 7.2% of professionals who knew more than 10 people who had found their jobs online.
