The Right Place for Qualified Job Seekers

Not all areas of recruitment require the same approach. All too often job boards take a broad net-style approach, trying to give the impression that they can advertise radically different jobs alongside each other and believe that the right candidates will find them. In reality,  this doesn’t work. Instead, employers and candidates alike end up searching for a needle in a haystack.

Candidates only have limited resources for job-seeking – especially if they are in high demand. The best candidates are usually either currently employed or busy in academia. They also know that the best employers will be attracted to them. Employers too, only have limited bandwidth for seeking candidates. They may feel they need to cast the net wide, purely for numbers, but, they know that their best candidates are very few and far between. Therefore, we need to ensure that employers and candidates who are most suited to each other, congregate together.

That’s where a specialist job board is not just preferable, it’s necessary. This is particularly true for professional and qualified  job seekers, in many ways more so than any other niche. These candidates need to see only roles where their skills and qualifications are valid, and likewise for employers. The two sides need to find each other swiftly.

However, there’s also something else unique about this group of candidates which we don’t see at the same level in any other recruitment field. Recruitment of professionally and academically qualified job seekers need to pay little heed to borders. Instead, recruitment needs to be done at a truly international level where recruiters can distinguish talent above location.

That’s what you find with Qualified Place : it’s a job site hub of qualified professional job seekers with the employers they are interested in – no matter where in the world they may be.

Specialised fields and a unique job market

Whilst Qualified Place sees a plethora of employers and roles represented, we see some distinct ones on a more frequent basis. Predominantly, the specialised fields which require a specialist international job board are:  Medicine and healthcare,  Technology and IT,  Engineering, Nuclear Energy, Science, Oil and gas, and Design.

All of these fields require a high number of roles requiring not just demonstrable skill, but specific levels of qualification. These aren’t just professional roles, they are professional roles with a fundamentally asserted baseline easily determined in the shape of a qualification.

Whereas in other roles, qualification may be a by-product of skill, in these fields, qualification is a fundamental prerequisite. Skill follows the qualification, not vice versa.

Inherently, this shrinks the pool of candidates which can be problematic. However, what it does do is highlight how talent stretches across borders. To truly identify the best, these roles must draw from a candidate pool which places qualification above location. These individuals build international careers.

To truly understand the issue, we need to consider the current global state of the talent gap. Whilst there are of course differences between different industries, the common element is that the worst hit sectors are those requiring qualified and professional candidates.

By 2030 it is believed that financial and business services will be 10.7 million workers short globally, with only India experiencing a surplus of talent. Technology and related fields will be 4.3 million short of appropriately skilled and qualified talent – estimated to cost these industries $449.7 billion in unrealised revenue.

The problem of this specialist area of recruitment is particularly notable when we consider the impact it is already having. For example, those companies and organisations requiring STEM talent are already feeling forced to broaden the criteria of what they deem an acceptable standard for STEM roles. Employers are being strong-armed in to having to accept what they can find, rather than what they really want or need.

It is knowledge-intensive academically led industries which are going to experience the hardest times in terms of talent shortages and the impact on business endeavours over the coming years. It’s therefore vital that we pool our focus in terms of recruitment and tackle the problem at an international level.

What defines a professionally and academically qualified job seeker?

The traditional definition of a ‘professional’ is someone who works in the fee-earning scope of a profession. Traditionally these would encompass areas such as medicine, accountancy, banking, or engineering. Now the umbrella term needs to encompass those working at the coal face in a broader range of sectors including STEM, wider healthcare, oil and gas, technology, and IT.

Generally speaking, these roles require an academic baseline – qualifications obtained in an academic setting. Sometimes an undergraduate degree is sufficient. For example, in some areas of oil and gas, a BSc in geophysics is adequate. However, increasingly, there is a need for such candidates to have obtained specific academic qualifications at a higher level, including Masters and Doctorate levels.

Each sector which relies on professionally and academically qualified jo seekers will have their own unique understanding of what is the baseline for such candidates. For example, in nuclear energy an undergraduate degree is frequently not sufficient, and you’ll also need to have undertaken further education through a postgraduate scheme, such as nuclear graduates. In another example, this time IT, candidates may need to have completed certain globally recognised IT qualifications in their area of practice.

In addition, professional and academic job seekers may need to demonstrate a commitment to Continuous Professional Development (CPD) through, or in association with, a professional governing body. Whilst these governing bodies may vary internationally, professionals are usually expected to keep up with the requirements of their membership in their home country. For example, British doctors need to meet the criteria for revalidation through the GMC.

For the purposes of Qualified Finder Ltd, we recognise that the requirements for professionally and academically qualified job seekers vary according to sector and role. Therefore, employers can set their own recruitment criteria in line with their area of expertise.

Job and career opportunities for qualified seekers in the UK, Europe and internationally

As already explained, we need to lower the borders for recruiting for these positions to better face the talent gap.

However, certain areas of the world offer greater or fewer opportunities for such candidates. Again, this differs enormously from industry to industry. In the UK, if you are qualified and looking jobs that match your qualifications, start by looking for jobs in London.  Let’s look at the main industry areas again:

·   Medicine and healthcare:

Professional roles within healthcare extend from qualified doctors at Registrar level and above, to specialist niches such as radiology. Globally, areas particularly seeking international candidates include Australia, US, New Zealand, and Ireland.  According to The Independent newspaper, in 2018  the situation of jobs in UK in relation to medicine and health care shows that "one in 11 posts across NHS hospital, ambulance and mental health trusts are vacant”

·   Technology and IT:

Technology and IT is a hugely broad umbrella term encompassing a mammoth number of roles from developers to system analysts. Predominantly such roles are prevalent in the US, both within Silicon Valley and beyond. Technology roles are also in high demand in London and south-east Asia.  In the UK, the most in demand tech vacancies include IT support professionals, data scientists, Business Intelligence (BI) Analyst, IT Marketing, Cloud Engineer, Machine Learning Engineer, App Developer, and Blockchain Engineers. Looking for jobs in London in the most effective way to hired in these unfilled job vacancies. There are many job vacancies in London. In 2020, it was estimated that there were over 3,600 unfilled jobs in London.

 

Engineering:

Engineering has always been recognised as an international profession. However, again engineering is a broad definition. We see hubs of recruitment needs varying between aeronautical engineers and the broader civil or mechanical engineer for example. At the current time there are a plethora of international engineering roles in the UAE, Australia, Europe and US. However, specifically engineers can build careers within NGOs which will be in specific geographical pockets depending on current need.

·   Nuclear Energy:

Professional roles in nuclear energy have a global spread. However, due to regulation, there are particular areas of interest. For example, if working under the IAEA you are likely to find positions in Vienna, Toronto or Tokyo.

·   Science:

Science based roles are extremely wide-reaching encompassing everything from the astrophysicist who will find jobs in places such as California, Hawaii and Chile to the oceanographer or marine biologist who is more likely to find themselves located off the Eastern Seaboard of the US. However, the largest employers of scientists are pharmaceutical companies who are generally to be found in the UK, Europe and North America.

·   Oil and Gas

Professionals in oil and gas require a truly international outlook. There are some oil companies HQs in the UK, as well as seismic data processing centres. These are typically located in the Gatwick and west M25 area, as well as Aberdeen. However, professionals will also likely need to seek out roles in global industry hotspots such as Houston in the US and Perth in Australia. Such professionals may also need to consider careers which see them spending time working offshore, or in the field.

 

Business sectors and employers requiring qualified and professional job seekers.

Whilst professional and qualified candidates will always be needed across most business sectors, there are some which stand particularly dominant. Within these areas, we see larger employers dominating the recruitment market. This isn’t to say that roles aren’t more diversely available, simply that given the nature of these roles they are largely needed by notably large employers.

Engineers are always in particularly high demand from employers such as the Airbus Group in the Netherlands, Novartis, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Volvo, NGOs and government departments around the world. Obviously this compares starkly with the largest employers in medicine and healthcare where we see the UK NHS and American UnitedHealthcare dominating the sector.

The medical field links closely to the largest employers of scientists. Here we see huge demand for professional and qualified staff in many of the large pharmaceutical companies such as Pfizer, Roche and Johnson & Johnson.

In technology the biggest players are Apple, Hewlett Packard, IBM, Amazon, Microsoft, Google and Intel.

In the nuclear science industry qualified staff will predominantly work in industry for companies such as the Urenco Group and Horizon Nuclear Power. However, a very large proportion of qualified nuclear candidates work in government departments and academia.

Lastly, in the oil and gas sector the largest employers are the oil companies themselves such as ExxonMobil, Esso and BP.

 

The balance of qualifications and skills

Whilst it is easy to quantify and judge qualifications ‘on paper’ it doesn’t always tell the full story. Employers will also need to recruit looking for demonstration of their core needed skills.

However, at the graduate level, employers in these sectors will typically look predominantly at qualifications in the first instance. Given the nature of the skills gaps which are becoming increasingly pressured over time, many employers are seeking to recruit good baseline graduates who have the basic qualifications and training them up in house. Internal graduate schemes allow the required skills to be developed in addition to the initial qualifications.

Nonetheless, employers shouldn’t be ignoring the skills and aptitudes of candidates when seeking to fill such roles. In doing so there is the danger of employing someone technically great who isn’t actually such a good fit for your team. Therefore, employers should consider not only the baseline qualifications they require, but also the aptitude and demonstrable skills of the candidates in question.

This shouldn’t be neglected at the graduate level either. Whilst employers have had to develop training schemes themselves to help tackle the skills shortages, they need to choose the candidates for these schemes carefully. It is important to also look at soft skills such as leadership, communication, and negotiation as well.

 

Why choose Qualified Place

For employers, we bring you a valuable talent pool which is well-populated despite the skills shortages in your field. We offer the flexibility you need to achieve success with those hard to fill roles.

Unlike other job boards we do things differently. We focus solely on being a job portal for qualified and professional roles and job seekers only. We take a truly international approach, realising that your best candidates will be secured by lowering the borders and not allowing them to be barriers.

For candidates we offer an international job board where you can seek out roles which recognise your achievements and standing. We enable you to develop your career on an international level. We ensure you’re never wading through irrelevant jobs which you are over-qualified for.

Qualified Place Ltd brings together candidates and employers who need to focus on qualifications, professionalism, and skills. We make it easy to connect.

For qualified recruitment, come to Qualified Place.