The iTalent way of managing the growth in job applications(5 min read)

The ratio of job applications to job advertisements in the Middle East has grown exponentially over the last few years leaving recruitment consultants like the team at iTtalent with thousands of applications to manage and process for our clients in the UAE and Saudi Arabia.

In the Middle East unemployment rates are largely responsible for this growth in numbers of applicants applying for particular positions advertised due to economic reasons, as more and more professionals have found themselves out of work due to the ongoing pandemic caused by COVID-19 which has spread across the world.  However, in addition to the growing number of Middle Eastern job seekers actively seeking work, the number of vacancies & job advertisements in places like Dubai and Abu Dhabi has also decreased which has caused a rush for all jobs that become available.

The focus for recruitment consultants like ourselves at iTalent has been to minimise the need for job board advertising and focus on direct network to deliver the results we require and our clients require.

We put together a few top tips to help you with the glut of applications you may receive when advertising available job positions in the UAE and Saudi markets.

Build and post in social pages & groups

Building and utilising social media groups, or pages, can be a great way of finding local Middle Eastern job applicants and creating a talent pool of reliable job candidates for future hirings.

For example, if you have an engineering & construction client in Dubai who you regularly supply with Design and Construction Engineers, you could set up a Duabi Design Engineers group and invite all the design engineers in your agency’s network to join. Here you can post directly and discreetly without overwhelming your CRM contacts or wider network, with email after email, or post after post.

Try to utilise your personal network before advertising jobs

Perhaps the most obvious way to recruit is  to avoid excessive job applications is to avoid posting job adverts all together. While this might sound like an impossibility, there is a method to the madness that we are suggesting.

Let’s take the example of social media. Rather than using LinkedIn as another job board, you should focus on building, not any connections, but relationships with the candidates in your area of expertise that you are looking for. These candidates might not be the ones looking for jobs when you reach out, but when their time comes you want to be showing them the position they would want to fill. What’s more, who is more likely to know skilled candidates than the people who work alongside them?

In this sense, having a strong personal network can help eradicate the need for job board advertisements.

Hold candidate screening days/Zoom

Dedicate days solely to candidate screening. Getting to know candidates before they make a job application or attend an interview is part and parcel of being a recruitment consultant. However, with many interviews now taking place virtually, you need to consider the effects this could have on your candidates.

Job applications have changed so ensure your candidates are fully prepared for the new way of interviewing/working by holding virtual candidate screening and interview preparation days.

Use keyboard shortcuts to browse CV’s

If you usually include key skills in a job advert, you can easily browse a candidate’s job application or CV for those same terms, using the keyboard shortcut Command/Ctrl + f. Doing this opens a ‘find in document’ feature in your Computer/Mac where you can type your skill or keyword and quickly scan the page or document for those words. If the word appears in the document it will be highlighted and easy to find.

Bear in mind that not all CV’s will be written the same and some might not highlight a certain software name or specific skill. To combat this try to broaden your search to overarching keywords.

There is also the possibility that each candidate might choose to highlight different skills in their CV’s and omit others. In this situation you can always search for several skills to be sure.

Filter applications with screening questions

Adding screening questions to your job adverts can help decrease the number of irrelevant job applications from candidates who don’t have the desired skill sets.

Most job boards, including LinkedIn, will give job posters the opportunity to add a handful of screening questions such as the examples below.

While this can help to filter out certain candidates, it’s worth considering the complexity of your criteria as you don’t want to lose out on candidates that could still be relevant in other ways! Candidates could have equivalent qualifications for example, or transferable experience in using a similar software to the one desired.

And finally, if you do find yourself in the position of having to post a job advert still, try making cover letters compulsory. By insisting on cover letters, you are likely to filter out any candidates that aren’t potentially as serious about the job vacancy advertised.

Discover more about iTalent and our recruitment offerings for the UAE, Saudi Arabia and broader Middle Eastern markets.

italent was founded in 2012 in the United Arab Emirates born in a challenging market, one key reason for our success is we have unparalleled commitment and determination to deliver the highest levels of recruitment and executive search.

These fundamentals allowed us to build a reputation and gain the trust and respect of some of the biggest clients and most Senior candidates in the Region. Our team is all seasoned professionals, and with over 100 years of recruitment experience in our office, we are a key part of our clients’ Talent Acquisition Strategies.

You can contact us by using our contact form or call us on +971 (0)4 421 3490 or email us at info@italent-me.com and we will be happy to help.

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