The Levant News publishes voices from around the word from a wide variety of people with different political and social backgrounds. After stories from the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Italy and the United States today Emile Fakhoury writes from Dubai. He is a Project Manager Professional working in oil, gas and power generation industries. He publishes regularly on corporate matters.

From my recent review of Harvard Business Review article, I found a fascinating conclusion boosting the moral in the current situation and wanted to explore it:

“In 2021, there is a chance to build a better economy. Companies will seek people to hire with hard-to-find skills — and many hidden workers are willing, able, and available to fill those positions right in their corporate backyard. They simply have to widen their perspective to see the talent that is waiting in plain sight to get to work.”

First, I believe that the responsibility is shared between companies and individuals to help improve the economy and the employment situation.

Individuals actively seeking new employment need to have a plan in place to achieve their goals.
This plan must include structured steps starting from working hard and practicing by learning and using online tools widely and publicly available. Using all available methods is essential to keep the plan alive and to achieve the goals.

Asking for help and connecting with people in your industry help keeping you on the track and close to the industry dynamics. Always do your best and never waste efforts and learn from others who succeeded, this will keep reminding you of your goals and motivating you.

Review constantly your mistakes and apply your lesson learned, but most essentially build upon your strengths not only your weaknesses as this will be your differentiator and will develop your hard-to-find-skills all the way in your search.

Never give up on yourself and on your plan, keep the spirit high by constantly developing your skills and improving your search and exploring new ways and widening your professional networks.

Companies typically seek the perfect candidate to fulfill the organization requirements.
I have seen examples searching only profiles satisfying the perfect match or the perfect candidate, hence the use of the ATS (applicant tracking system) to drive this strategy.

I believe this is a good practice but not enough to capture the hidden candidates who could boost the performance of the organization if a fair chance is provided.

Companies could revisit their practices to not just filter for the perfect candidate, but to focus on skills-based hiring (i.e. candidates who are willing to learn fast by doing and can integrate the company organization smoothly).

It is obvious that both parties, companies and individuals, need to widen their vision to benefit from each other as both share same interest to prosper and grow together in partnership.