DUBAI: About 95 percent professionals in the Mena region believe that networking and maintaining relationships remain the crucial factors of a successful career, according to a latest survey by Bayt.com.
More than half of respondents (50.2 percent) have a career mentor, the recent poll titled The Secrets of Career Success in the Mena showed.
Almost nine out of ten professionals (88.8 percent) think that taking risks has been important in their career success; while, nearly one-third of respondents (29.1 percent) owe their career success mostly to hard work while far fewer chalk it up to intelligence (5.6 percent) or luck (3.6 percent), Emirates 24/7 quoted the survey.
When asked about the biggest career mistake that a professional can make, nearly one-fifth of respondents (17.9 percent) said that poor ethics and integrity are most detrimental to one’s career. Other responses included neglecting to network (11.9 percent), hiring poor performers (7.4 percent), and not maintaining relationships (5.3 percent), the report said.
Aside from important career habits and skills, other elements of career success for professionals have to do with their personal lives. The overwhelming majority of respondents (95.6 percent) say that their family has been important to their career success and nearly the same proportion (93.6 percent) say that exercise and physical fitness have also been important.
Education and learning, both prior to beginning a career as well as on the path to success, also seem to be important components. Nearly 9 in 10 (89.1 percent) of respondents think that their college education has been important to their career success and more than half continue to read books related to their career on either a daily basis (33.2 percent) or on a weekly basis (20.3 percent).
When asked about the best source of learning for career growth, responses were generally comparable. In order of importance, poll results cited university courses or professional programs (16.3 percent), online courses (10 percent), books (9.6 percent), career-specific internet sites (7.5 percent), internet forums and discussion groups (7.1 percent), industry conferences and forums (4.3 percent), and business magazines and journals (2.7 percent).
The largest proportion of respondents (34.9 percent) said that all of these sources are equally important in learning for career growth, reported Emirates 24/7.
