Regional career progression, is it really that easy?

Lets explore some of the major components that make up a career position: professional challenge and capacity for growth both professionally and personally, the working environment, the ethics of the business, intellectual rapport with colleagues, stimulus and latitude to do the job. Then we add-in other factors such as family considerations, security, where the role will eventually lead and, we see that there are many personal issues that must be satisfied when taking a career position.

There are a variety of complex issues that combine to make career path planning and progression such a problem within the region. If there is a recipe to success, then each ingredient has its own positive and negative aspect. What is necessary to form the right hiring environment, can work against the individual and create a 'career hurdle', therefore forming a barrier to progress.

Many complex factors conspire to make career transition a far from easy task: regional growth and the turbulence and instability within the markets, the 'whirlpool' effect, alignment with protocols such as WTO, difficulties associated with assessing the value of 'human capital', the nature of company form and its influence on career satisfaction, company attitude to job titles and the impact this may have on job enrichment, avoiding being 'shaped' by some job agencies and the difficulties associated with the hiring process, changes in technology and the demands placed on today's managers, incorrect business model causing bad hiring decisions, and in addition the impact of external pressure resulting in companies establishing hiring barriers and a weakening US Dollar.

Furthermore, there are difficulties associated with disparate hiring practice across the region and the effect this has on the job seeker. Package erosion and the shift towards leaving it to the individual to make their own accommodation arrangements, creates new pressures and places undue stress on many new entrants to the market.

Three other phenomena have a significant influence on the comfort levels for many people in the area, notably: company arrogance and the seasonality factor that is due to kick-in within a few months. The third point recognises the misalignment between career need and market opportunities.

There is no stereotyped company form or ownership that enables a general statement on the subject. Many of you will have come across the unprofessional handling of people during the interview and probably worse of all, the way that some organisations decide to treat them after the interview. Sadly, people are often misled, expected to provide sensitive and personal details that are of no relevance to the interview and, many are completely ignored after the interview. It gets worse, I am aware of more than one person who has gone to sign a contract of employment, only to be told that there has been a change of policy and they have decided to hire someone else, who is cheaper. Totally insensitive and disrespectful to the person who has likely turned down other things in lieu of this 'phantom role'.

Seasonality is a real headache for many, it often creates hiring voids as decision makers leave the region to go on vacation. Putting career moves on hold can be a bad move when you are in 'full flight' on your career path. If hiring opportunities are not there, it forces the choice - to remain and wait for the upswing, or leave the area and maintain the career momentum.

This clearly works against the good of many businesses in the long-run. If you cannot create and sustain a sensible and fluid employment market then people will leave the region. A talent deficit is the last thing we need to see, especially as there is a trend towards mergers and other strategic alliances as the Middle East embraces the spirit of WTO.

There are difficulties associated with Dubai's fast-track expansion as it is often very difficult to keep track of this progress as more and more initiatives are launched. This creates a 'benevolent turbulence' in which heightened business activity creates opportunity voids and the hiring process is unable to support the changes. Not only this, but it also creates a flux for the career seeker as the market waits for service corrections to kick-in, enabling the recruiting process to deliver business need.

So we have yet another factor to contend with, the markets' phenomenal success creates temporary problems for career minded individuals to make meaningful moves.

As with any business, success within any market is contingent upon working to a carefully prepared plan. The plan must account for the product or service that is for sale, its value (not price), the market in which it is targeted and additional factors such as market conditions, competitive threat and barriers to entry are to be catered for.

All this creates a stressful environment that needs managing.