The Middle East is one of the fastest-growing markets in the world. Data suggests that the Middle East staffing and recruitment market size will reach US$86,072 million by 2028.
An increasing appetite for social media consumption, the influx of AI technology, and the entry of new sectors such as tourism, entertainment, technology, and renewable energy are reshaping the recruitment landscape.
In this guide, we’ll explore how you can master digital recruitment strategy in the Middle East, keeping the region’s demands, culture, and talent in mind. Let’s go!
Why the Middle East is Embracing Digital Recruitment And Moving Away from Traditional Recruitment
According to the WEF, the MENA region (Middle East and North Africa) currently captures 62% of its full human capital potential—compared to a global average of 65%. However, this number is higher in high-income Gulf countries such as Bahrain, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), ranging from 68 to 73%. Needless to say, recruiters have immense opportunities to find and hire high-quality talent.
But there’s a catch. Capitalising on human assets is all about timing, efficiency, and reach. This is where recruiting using digital tools pays off.
- Wider reach: Hiring managers can reach a wider pool of talent using different digital channels, such as social media, websites, online job boards, virtual job fairs, and so on. Keeping pace with the influx of talent is everything in the Middle East.
- Specific skill set: Thanks to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s ambitious Vision 2030, hiring managers can tap into a rising cohort of professionals adept in AI, data analytics, machine learning, and other related fields.
To get to the right candidate faster, recruiters can use tools like PeopleStrong’s AI-powered matchmaking feature. This functionality factors in hundreds of data points before recommending the top applicants to the recruiter for a specific job role:
- Greater efficiency: A recent PwC report claims that 62% of Emirati graduates believe it is harder to secure employment in the UAE private sector. Recruiters in the private space can drive up hiring efforts and embrace local talent in local communities such as Bayt.com, Naukrigulf, GulfTalent, etc.
PeopleStrong’s Recruit offers a useful integration feature where recruiters can push job requisitions to 3500+ external job portals, trigger off assessments to candidates, and more:
Improved candidate experience: The requirements of employees and potential candidates are always evolving. For instance, more and more people want a quicker and easier way to apply for jobs and keep track of the same in the Middle East today. This heightened need for greater flexibility and convenience is reflective of changing employee preferences.
To cater to the diverse workforce and tap into a global talent pool, using recruitment software is key. It helps deliver a seamless candidate experience and carves out invaluable time for recruiters.
PeopleStrong empowers recruiters and candidates with a modern, intuitive experience, allowing them to:
- Collaborate via their platform of choice—be it desktop, tablet, or mobile
- Use WhatsApp for job-specific communication, sensitive document sharing, etc.
- Schedule interviews on the preferred platform and get real-time feedback
How to Build a Digital Recruitment Strategy?
A recruitment process has multiple moving parts. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to create a foolproof recruitment strategy plan for organisations in the Middle East:
- Step 1 – Define Your Recruiting Goals: To start with, understand why you’re recruiting. Do you want to increase the number of local hires? Do you want more diversity within your workforce? Or are you looking for specific technological talent?
- Step 2 – Get a Pulse of Your Audience: Get into research mode and study the most-preferred job search platforms and social media channels used by candidates in the Middle East. Make sure to assess portals such as LinkedIn, Bayt, Dubizzle, GulfTalent, etc.
- Step 3 – Create a Hard-to-Miss Job Description: Go back to your job descriptions and assess – Is it going to appeal to candidates in the Middle East? Here’s a pro tip: Make sure to highlight benefits such as tax-free income, cultural experiences, and career advancement opportunities—all of which are important for emerging talent in the Middle East. Reportedly, 62% of candidates are willing to relocate anywhere to accelerate their career prospects, 51% prioritise basic salary for employee loyalty, and 31% choose job fit as the primary reason for sticking to a job.
- Step 4 – Use Social Media and Popular Job Portals: Leverage social media platforms popular in the Middle East, such as LinkedIn and Facebook, to promote your job openings. You must also engage with local communities and share relevant content on your website to attract high-performing candidates. According to data, 100% of the UAE’s population uses social media!:
- Step 5 – Optimise Your Careers Website: Ensure your Careers page is optimised for Arabic language support, as ADNOC’s website demonstrates below. Remember that many candidates in the Middle East prefer to search and apply for jobs in Arabic:
As a thumb rule, you must also post your job openings on:
- Local job portals like GulfTalent, Bayt, and Naukrigulf to reach a wider audience of job seekers in the Middle East
- Professional networks and groups to drive discussions, share insights, and connect with potential candidates
- Niche job boards that cater to specific sectors in the Middle East, such as oil and gas, technology, and finance
Step 6 – Implement SEO Strategies: Insert relevant keywords in Arabic and English that are commonly used by job seekers in the Middle East. Granted, this will take extra effort and work, but you will gain from increased visibility of your job postings within search engines.
Step 7 – Don’t Forget About Your Recruitment Efforts: The biggest benefit of going digital with your recruiting is unlimited access to invaluable data, whether it’s related to:
- Candidate performance
- Efficiency of the hiring process
- Source of hire
- Application rate
- Time-to-fill job role
And so on. They say, predictive analytics is the best big thing in HR—and the Middle Eastern landscape is no exception. The more you optimise your strategy with data, the more holistic the benefits across your recruitment funnel.
Suggested Read: Detailed Middle East Recruitment Process Guide for HRs
5 Tips for Building a Digital Recruitment Strategy in the Middle East
Let’s deep-dive into how to build winning online recruitment strategies for the Middle Eastern talent market:
Tip 1: Amplify Your Search With Meaningful, Relevant Digital Content
Meaningful and contextual digital content serves as a tipping point for engaging genuinely interested candidates.
There are multiple digital channels at your disposal to spread the good word. For instance:
- Add weekly blogs to your websites on topics of interest to your candidates, like must-have skills in 2024
- Create a fan-following with value-add social media posts like short videos offering tips on how to ace interviews
- Write descriptive job posts on relevant online job boards, as Google demonstrates below:
You can use PeopleStrong’s templates that offer skills-based suggestions to write a relevant job description:
The template allows you to create jobs for open positions with accurate skill suggestions needed for a particular role and job title. Plus, the platform enables you to integrate your job listings across social media platforms, internal portals, and 3500+ job boards in one click!
Tip 2: Revisit Your Recruitment Metrics and Get a Reality Check
They say you can’t succeed at what you don’t measure—and your digital recruitment strategies should be on top of that list.
So, start by revisiting your recruitment process. Look for blind spots and gaps within the process to identify what areas to improve and, by extension, what metrics to track:
If this seems overwhelming, turn to recruitment software, which will help you:
- Calculate the selection ratio
- Track manager and candidate job satisfaction levels
- Assess the quality of hires
PeopleStrong offers insights into key recruitment metrics via in-depth reports and analytics, from requisition to onboarding:
Using this tool, you can:
- Analyse and monitor assessments, sourcing channels, etc., and optimise your hiring efforts
- Drive informed data-backed decisions with real-time candidate analysis
- Monitor hiring metrics regularly and eliminate issues on the go
Tip 3: Work on Your Employer Brand and Reputation
A strong employer brand is a glue that will keep high-quality talent within the organisation and attract top candidates.
A digitised recruitment process can improve the employee experience—as it did for Pacific Healthcare.
Challenges faced:
- Inability to offer local language support such as Thai, Bahasa, Khymer Cambodia, and Vietnamese languages
- Unresolved overtime scenarios
- Lack of integration of the Career portal with local language job boards
- Poor customisation
The strategy: The brand leveragedPeopleStrong’s digital recruitment software and mobile app to provide a seamless integration between local job boards and the career portal. This further ensured a smooth experience for candidates and new employees.
The impact:
- 74% increase in mobile adoption
- 700+ HRIS transactions in three months
- 100% automation in leave and attendance module
- 1300+ leaves processed in 3 months
Tip 4: Optimise the Online Candidate Experience
Supercharging your candidate experience starts at their fingertips, quite literally. A mobile-optimised recruiting experience allows candidates to apply for jobs on the go!
Users can get instant answers to their queries thanks to an AI-powered voice-enabled virtual assistant, Jinie. She is trained to answer wide-ranging employee queries, from leave balance to payroll and course suggestions:
A mobile app also drives collaboration between teams, employees, and managers. Hiring professionals can:
- Form workgroups based on function, grade, or location
- Share information with threaded conversations, documents, and media sharing on the fly
- Engage employees with interesting polls, posts of appreciation, and wall of fame
Tip 5: Use a Pre-employment Assessment Tool to Your Advantage
A pre-employment assessment tool helps fast-track the recruitment process instead of letting hiring managers drown in a pool of resumes. You can use it to:
- Validate the candidates’ skills and ensure they meet the requirements for the job
- Assess the candidate’s cultural fit and see if they will be able to align with your company’s values
- Automate the initial screening process and save time as well as effort, a boon given that nearly one-quarter of a hiring manager’s time is spent screening applications
Suggested Read: A Complete Guide to the Recruitment Screening Process
Ready to take your recruiting online?
There you go. As the hiring scene in the Middle East becomes increasingly digital in 2024, hiring managers can accelerate the process and deliver a stellar candidate experience.
Recruitment trends are constantly evolving in regions like Saudi Arabia (KSA) and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Automating repetitive parts of your hiring process is key to remaining agile.
PeopleStrong Recruit is the best recruitment software trusted by top companies in the Middle East as it streamlines the hiring process and makes it easier to find quality talent, all with a few clicks!
Ready to navigate the complexities of today’s job market and keep the best talent in line using intuition, strategy, and digitisation? We thought so!
