UAE Hiring Update. Is Summer the Best Time to Land a Job?

**Tim Elliott** (0:01)
The Morning Drive is hiring, slowing for the summer, or are employers actively recruiting? Here to talk hiring trends, what job seekers should do next, and to take a look at what's really happening in the job market is Zachary Beckett. He's a talent partner at Professional Pyramid. Zach, good morning.

**Zachary Beckett** (0:21)
Thank you for having me back, good morning.

**Tim Elliott** (0:22)
You're very welcome. You've been here a few times now.
So a dab hand, I suppose. Every year, we hear a variation on this theme. It's summer, the market slows down. Wait until September, right? So if we can today, what I want to do is try and balance the seasonal narrative, if you like, with the reality of where we are in the economic landscape. So is the job market really slowing down in the summer?

**Zachary Beckett** (0:51)
So I'll try not to answer this with the entire interview, right, because of course I could dive into this so much, Jeff.

**Tim Elliott** (0:58)
I bet you could.

**Zachary Beckett** (0:59)
I will kind of summarize this. Hiring does typically see some sort of pullback in the summer.

**Tim Elliott** (1:06)
Yes.

**Zachary Beckett** (1:07)
It's not necessarily because organizations stop hiring. Some of them may pause hiring during this period, but especially large organizations, there are back fills, there are people leaving, there are dynamic things happening. Organizations are always hiring. Will companies fill all of their critical hires into Q3? Probably not.
However, to say that hiring slows down to the point where it becomes very difficult to land a job isn't accurate. There is a pullback, but it's not to the point where this is now detrimental or making it really difficult for you to secure a role. With that said, this year, we are seeing much less of a drawback, which is extremely positive.

**Tim Elliott** (1:47)
Okay. So let's get past the headlines and get some real kind of actionable job hunting advice. Companies are still actively hiring right now.

**Zachary Beckett** (1:57)
Yes, unbelievably. So we just come off the back of our busiest month.
June is typically not a slow month, but it isn't a hectic month. It isn't a very busy month. This is typically when I say organizations do start winding back a bit. People start going on holiday. Kids are coming out of school. Things are slowing down a little bit due to external factors. We are not seeing that right now.

**Tim Elliott** (2:18)
Okay. So it is a good time to apply now.

**Zachary Beckett** (2:22)
It is a very good time. It's always a good time. It's a good time if you make it a good time. But now is, if we are talking about market conditions, even when the market is terrible, you can still land a job.
Market conditions now are ripe for you to apply.

**Tim Elliott** (2:36)
Okay. Why do you say that? What makes you say market conditions?

**Zachary Beckett** (2:39)
So if we are strictly looking at, so there is two elements to it. There is data and anecdotal. So looking at data from our internal data, we are seeing more companies reaching out, increases in jobs compared to this time last year. We are seeing a drastic increase. I don't have the exact percentages to mind, but there are drastic increases from last year. So the hiring activity now is more than what it was last year before anything occurred.

**Tim Elliott** (3:05)
Okay. Well, I was going to ask you that. That was a question in my head I had planned. So if you are a person like me and you kind of missed ahead in sand, is it a good time to apply now? It's not kind of, oh, I'll wait till after the summer.

**Zachary Beckett** (3:21)
No, if you wait till after the summer.

**Tim Elliott** (3:23)
So you're too late. Yeah.

**Zachary Beckett** (3:25)
So it's not necessarily that you're too late. It's that there are opportunities on the table for you right now. If you want to land a job now, land one now. There's so much opportunity on the table. There are so many transformations, so many changes, so many shifts that have occurred. When these things happen, they open opportunity. It's not like, oh, AI has taken over everything. There are no more jobs anymore. That's not the case, right? Even when companies are going heavy on tech and whatnot, it just creates more opportunity. It's just that the opportunity is slightly different.

**Tim Elliott** (3:52)
Okay, so which sectors are seeing the strongest demand?

**Zachary Beckett** (3:55)
So, that's not something I can really provide too much insight on. And the reason I say that is because we see huge demand in certain sectors, but for positions that aren't necessarily native to that sector. So, for example, there could be a supply chain company or logistics company, take DP World, for example, that's looking for a sales director or an IT director, and that can kind of skew the vision a little bit, because do we say that that's a tech job, or do we say that that's a procurement or a logistics job? It can kind of skew the bands a little bit. So, but yeah, there's huge demand across the board, whether or not it's finance, whether or not it's tech, whether it's supply chain, whatever it might be, there's huge demand across the board.