Saudi Arabia Keen to Attract More Talented Expats – How Companies Can Make the Most of It

Recently, Saudi Arabia announced they would welcome more talented and skilled expats to join the country’s workforce. 

The decision was taken as part of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 initiative, which aims to bring structural reforms to the economy. The initiative seeks to empower the private sectors and SMEs and strengthen the kingdom’s economy.

In fact, 80% of Saudi employers plan to expand their workforce in 2022, especially in technology and management. Business development directors, digital transformation specialists, and senior legal professionals are considered the most sought-after roles in the country.

To make the most out of the recent announcements, companies should start hiring fast and leverage the skills and knowledge of expats to grow. But there are quite a few challenges ranging from finding suitable candidates from a global talent pool to expediting the hiring process to prevent them from joining the competitors. 

That’s where advanced technological interventions such as those powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI) can help. 

How To Leverage AI To Hire Faster and Better?

Hire at Scale

Companies must fill positions quickly to achieve the Vision 2030 goal. They will have to move from using traditional recruiting methods that are time-consuming and labour-intensive and embrace modern technologies to fill the gaps. 

That said, AI can enable companies to hire at scale. It allows the recruiters to sift through thousands of CVs from different sources and narrow down the suitable candidates. 

Take X0PA’s AI Recruiter, for instance. Recruiters can automate the entire recruitment process workflow, from scheduling the interview with the candidate to sending them the offer. This allows the recruiters to spend more time finishing critical tasks such as interviewing candidates and creating a memorable HR experience for them. 

Seamlessly Source the Candidates

Typically, recruiters post job vacancies on their website, social media platforms, job portals, etc., to find the candidates. However, they sometimes have difficulty shortlisting the candidates even if they receive many resumes. For one, they miss out on valuable candidates while sourcing their profiles from different sources. 

As it stands, AI can help alleviate such challenges by:

• Consolidating all the profile and application-related information in one place
• Scoring candidates’ profiles based on CV relevance, loyalty, and performance and ranking them 

As a matter of fact, X0PA’s AI Recruiter provides recruiters access to more than 750 million profiles across 40 platforms. It brings objectivity to the process and ensures that no inherent bias or errors percolate into the process. More so, it allows recruiters to cut through the large data volume and find what they want. 

The benefits don’t end here. Such AI-powered interventions can also help recruiters reach out to passive candidates who might be the right fit through profile matching and retargeting past applicants. 

As Saudi Arabia opens the door for skilled expats, this could be the right time to target the passive candidates living in other countries. 

Screen For the Best-fit

According to LinkedIn’s 2015 study on Saudi Arabia’s talent gap, 72% of employers said they had a tough time finding a candidate with all the skills required to fill a position. The problems have only gotten worse, with Korn Ferry estimating $206 billion in “unrealized revenue” by 2030 for Saudi Arabia, owing to the talent shortage.

Therefore, with the recent decision to attract talented expats, companies must go the extra mile to choose the right candidate from a large talent pool. However, finding the right candidate can be an excruciating and time-consuming task. Apart from skills, companies also need to determine if the candidate can adapt to Saudi Arabia’s culture and align themselves with the company values. 

Favourably, the X0PA AI can help companies match candidates based on soft skills, domain knowledge, education, location, etc. It can also work beyond exact or similar word matches and enable companies to search for candidates based on intent. 

For example, AI can analyze thousands of data points to understand the skill proficiency required for a particular job and discover the candidate. Periodically, it can also recommend candidates who don’t have the exact skillsets but can still be a good fit for the job with minimal training. 

Naturally, such a solution places the company in an excellent place to sustain hiring efficiency and quality. 

Summing Up

Saudi Arabia has been experiencing a significant reshuffle since the pandemic. The number of Saudi citizens who quit their jobs in the third quarter of 2021 increased by 95% compared to the same period in 2020. 

It indicates that companies are on the lookout for new candidates. The recent announcement of hiring expats provides more opportunities for companies to expand their search for the right talent. 

In that light, this is the right time to reimagine HR processes and use AI tools to hire talent quickly. 

X0PA’s AI Recruiter, a SaaS platform, helps with just that by:

• Improving the efficiency of hiring by automating the workflows
• Rediscovering candidates from the existing talent pool with AI-powered retargeting
• Integrating with third-party providers to get access to a wide pool of talent from 40 platforms
• Reducing up to 80% of biases through blind hiring
• Customizing the platform according to then company’s specifications to achieve the hiring requirement

To get a trial of X0PA’s patented AI Recruiter, contact us.