KUWAIT: A newpoll conducted by Bayt.com - the Middle East's largest Job Site - reveals thatmore than four in five (83 percent) professionals have considered"changing their career path completely," with nearly two thirds (64.2percent) saying that it is "very easy" to change jobs in the region.

Shifting to a newjob (or choosing a totally different career) isn't always about the salary.When asked why professionals may change their careers entirely, "to findtheir real passion" was the most common reason (57.7 percent), followed by"better compensation" (18.1 percent), opportunities to "learnand challenge themselves" (14.2 percent) and entering industries with ahigher hiring activity (8.1 percent).

"Changingcareers is a big step but if the job seeker has thought it through, they canset themselves up for a future that aligns with their personal goals andfinancial expectations. Professionals switch jobs all the time - often theswitch is to something related, and other times the career path swerves in acompletely different direction. Currently, Bayt.com features more than 20,000jobs to highlight the diverse range of opportunities available in a job marketthat is evolving and growing continuously," said Suhail Masri, VP ofEmployer Solutions at Bayt.com. "We also work with over 34,000,000professionals regularly to help them embark on new career opportunities."

When peopleswitch jobs, it seems only natural that they would look to do somethingrelated. After all, skills or experience in one area can carry over to another.According to Bayt.com survey, the biggest challenge associated with changingcareers is "transferring skills and relevant experience" (76.4percent), "finding relevant jobs" (9.5 percent), "understandinga new industry or job role" (2.8 percent), "recreating CV and coverletter" (1.3 percent) and all of the aforementioned factors (8 percent).

While manyprofessionals change employers, they tend to remain in the same (or verysimilar) occupations. More than half (54.6 percent) of the respondents deem itnecessary to work in the same field as their educational background but 43percent are open to working in different fields.

A majority of therespondents (63.8 percent) believe that it is not necessary to obtainadditional education/training before changing careers, 20.3 percent believe itis important in some cases and 14.5 percent believe that it is always importantto gain new skills before switching jobs. However, when professionals have theskills that are vital for businesses to succeed, making big career shiftsbecomes a more manageable task.

Today's workforcemay be more mobile but they still are strategic and thorough about the processof switching careers. Nearly half of respondents (47.1 percent) believe thatthey should stay in their current role for at least a year before they switchto another one, 10 percent believe they should stay between one and two years,19.1 percent think they stay between two and three years before making thechange, while 18.8 percent say "it doesn't matter" how long you stayin one job.

That said,professionals in the Middle East typically switch careers in the early stagesof their work life - 70.2 percent in the first five years, 19.2 percent betweenfive and ten years, while people in senior management are least likely toswitch careers entirely with only 7 percent doing it after ten years in thesame field.

Conducting thePerfect Job Search

Switching careersrequires certain tools and preparation to help the professional in thetransition process. Whilst looking for a new role, most jobseekers agree thatthey need to "rewrite their CV" (85.5 percent). Respondents alsostate that in order to change careers successfully, they mostly need help inprofessional CV writing (53 percent), identifying new career opportunities (19percent), and market /industry knowledge and research (4 percent).

The initial stepsin successfully switching careers are to create a new CV for the targetindustry (81.4 percent), learning missing key skills (6.4 percent), assessingwhether the switch is a practical option given past experience (4.5 percent)and researching the market trends and opportunities (5.3 percent).

According to thepoll respondents, the role of online job sites in providing support asprofessionals begin a new career switch are diverse and include "findingnew jobs", "learning new skills", "learning aboutindustries" ,and providing "professional CV writing."

Data for theBayt.com's survey about switching careers in the Middle East and North Africawas collected online from September 23 to November 21, 2018. Results are basedon a sample of 8,380 respondents. Countries assessed include UAE, KSA, Kuwait,Oman, Bahrain, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Egypt, Morocco, Libya, Iraq, Algeria andTunisia, and others.