Fewer serious job applicants at fair

, recruiters expect less than 25% of applicants to actually follow up with the recruitment process.

Statistics from previous years has shown that the nation’s largest job fair has consistently roped in thousands of applicants in various sectors of the economy over its 10-year run. Applicants who manage to secure jobs after the exhibition is significantly fewer. But the reason for this may have little to do with competition and more to do with the attitude of the seemingly eager applicants.

“Last year, we received more than 3,000 applications through Careers UAE alone,” said Mohammed Abdulrahman, Head Recruiter of the Human Resources department, Dubai Municipality. “We only had about one-tenth of the number in terms of vacancies, so we initially thought we would have to disappoint thousands of highly competent people. But, it turned out that out of the 3,000, only 700 people showed up for the interviews,”

Anticipating a large turnout, most government institutions have set up online application systems to help weed out competent applicants from the majority of indecisive applicants.

“We received over 350 applications on our first day at Careers UAE, out of which I think only a handful are actually serious about pursuing a career with us. Many people apply just to gauge their worth, if they are considered competent enough to receive an interview,” Abdulrahman added. Other government offices, such as The Private Office of Shaikh Majid bin Rashid Al Maktoum, have in place a rigorous recruitment process in order to ensure the highest level of professionalism.

The Private Office has introduced a training initiative to help direct qualified and interested nationals into top-tier international companies like the ‘Big Four’ auditing firms (Deloitte, Ernst & Young, KPMG and Price Waterhouse Coopers), in order to increase the presence of Emiratis in the financial sector.

“We only have 250 vacancies, and so far we have received close to 800 applications,” Khawla Al Shaiba, Customer Service Representative at Emirates Islamic Bank, said.

“How many of them are serious remains to be seen. If they take the time and effort to complete the supplementary test, then we can assume that they are serious,” she added. Almost every bank requires applicants to take psychometric tests as a part of their application, which significantly cuts down the number of frivolous applicants.

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• UAE