If the best way to predict the future is to invent it, Bayt.com has certainly made some remarkable predictions for the future of recruitment since 2000 and throughout 2013. Here are just a few of them:

Prediction One: There can no longer be a substitute for having an online profile

The Bayt.com professionals community is today over 14 million professionals strong and growing fast! At every career level from fresh grads to senior executive and C-Suite, professionals are realizing the importance of having an online profile to their career growth and advancement whether they are actively looking for jobs or simply interested in tuning into the best opportunities out there. According to the recent Bayt.com ‘Personal Branding in the Middle East and North Africa’ poll, September 2013, 92% of MENA professionals agree that good online personal branding can help them get more interviews and grow in their careers. Additionally, 61% of professionals in the same poll agree that their company does check the profiles of new recruits online before hiring them. With over 10,000 jobs advertised on the Middle East’s #1 job site on an average day, candidates realize that a lion’s share of recruitment activity is also happening in the “hidden” job market by employers using the candidate Search functionality and that, to capture these opportunities, often at the more senior end of the spectrum, they must have an active searchable CV and a public profile.

Prediction Two: A static CV can no longer be enough

Launched in 2013, Bayt.com Specialties is the new frontier in candidate search. It allows professionals to network with like-minded professionals, engage in career discussions with specialists, showcase their skills and specialties and interests, and get recognized and ranked and rewarded for them. All this makes it easier for skilled professionals to attract the best employers and easier for employers to hone in on top caliber highly relevant talent. Hiring mistakes are expensive and employers require maximum information about prospective talent including more insights vis-à-vis hard and soft skills which Bayt.com Specialties has now largely enabled. Whatever your career question you can now find it or ask it on Bayt.com Specialties and invite answers directly from specialists in the field.

Prediction Three: Employers expect and can get higher recruitment ROIs than ever before

Top employers are accustomed to online search and have largely invested in the online recruitment arsenal either to complement traditional recruitment techniques or substitute them. More than a third of respondents (35%) across the Middle East and North Africa said that online job sites are the most effective recruitment method and 39% of respondents on the Bayt.com ‘Recruitment Methods in the MENA’ poll, November 2010, when asked if their company used a leading job site for recruitment, answered yes, indicating the great penetration online recruitment currently enjoys in the region and its wide popularity with the MENA’s employers. Increased employer commitments have brought with them increased expectations for top relevance and top efficiencies and Bayt.com has delivered with a state-of-the-art improved candidate Search tool that allows instant screening and filtering by even more relevant and sweeping criteria. Bayt.com’s highly dynamic Job Postings also now come with added features. When an employer posts a job on Bayt.com and tags it with specific specialties, the jobsite will instantly and automatically match and suggest top professionals who stand out in these specific specialties; thus you get the best of both active and passive talent and an even richer pool for your shortlist. Couple the powerful Search and Postings tools with the growth trajectory of the region’s most dynamic careers portal and employers have never had it easier to quickly, easily and optimally source, screen and select top talent.

Prediction Four: In the battle for top talent employers need new tools to stand out

Top employers realize that to consistently source top talent they need to maintain an ever more active, dynamic and branded presence on the leading regional job boards. Through JobBrands and JobHighlights Bayt.com initially enabled the required differentiation for employers posting jobs. Bayt.com has now significantly further facilitated this through its Bayt.com Company Profiles which allow employers to optimally communicate their employer brand and corporate culture as well as to reach out to attract the broadest cross section of top talent via a rich and active online presence on a top relevant and fully dedicated careers platform. Moreover, the Bayt.com HIRE Rewards program is a supplementary program that recognizes, rewards, and distinguishes the region’s most active top employers based on their hiring patterns and volumes.

Prediction Five: Professionals expect detailed information about the job search at every junction

Knowledge is power, and on Bayt.com the jobseeker is empowered every step of the way.  The new Bayt.com state-of-the-art Jobseeker Workspace is nothing less than a dashboard dream for today’s jobseeker. They can use it to connect instantly with friends in companies they are targeting through Facebook Connect, as well as to keep minute track of their job applications on a live basis and access a slew of current and relevant career tools, guides and literature. Coupled with the Bayt.com Recommended Jobs alerts, the Bayt.com Career Digest dispatches, and the ability to set up even more customized Bayt.com Saved Searches, today’s Bayt.com jobseeker has never been more tuned into the recruitment marketplace or in control of their own recruitment and career destiny as they are today with the help of Bayt.com.

Prediction Six: Today’s on-the-go professional demands jobs on the go!

The future is mobile, and at Bayt.com we are a leap ahead of the curve. The free-to-download Bayt.com mobile applications not only offer professionals real-time connectivity to career opportunities in the job market, but also help job seekers access their Bayt.com Workspace and CV statistics and analytics. Smartphone users can download the Bayt.com mobile application from the Android App Store, BlackBerry Store, or iPhone App Store.

Prediction Seven: Networking for recruitment is the domain of the new job boards

The Bayt.com ‘Employee Retention in the MENA Workplace’ poll, February 2013, shows that 34.5% of professionals found their last jobs through their network of friends and family, closely seconded by 32.5% who found their last job online. Today on Bayt.com, traditional job board walls between employers and job seekers have been torn down and professionals can search for each other and leverage personal networks using powerful search tools as well as follow each other, connect with each other, endorse, rank and recommend each other and share and compare jobs, insights, and career information. Bayt.com’s latest innovation, People Search, is the latest testimony to the socialization of recruitment and a major step for Bayt.com in its journey to open up its platform and extend the reach and connectivity of its users.