Accelerate Growth in the Gulf: The Power of AI Video Interviews for Rapid Talent Acquisition.

Accelerate Growth in the Gulf: Why Fast Hiring Matters More Than Ever

Fueling the Gulf’s Ambition with Recruitment SMART

The demand for skilled professionals is increasing at lightning speed in the Middle East to support its national goals of major technological transformation and diversification. Saudi, isn’t just planning for bold future developments but also flipping the present. 

But something that will definitely slow down this transformation is the old and outdated recruitment process, which is no longer capable of matching speed with precision. Talent acquisition is still stuck in the long cycles of sourcing profiles manually,  taking long hours to sift CVs individually, interview coordination, constant follow-ups, and, among all this work, losing the top talent to your competitor.

We looked at the entire hiring workflow and thought, what is that one thing that takes the largest chunk of the hiring cycle and “Interviews” was the answer. With an organisation having multiple rounds of interviews for a single position, it consumes a lot of time and energy towards the administration, which leads towards a slow hiring process and a disconnection with the vision. 

At Recruitment Smart, we built VScreen for teams in fast-moving regions like the Gulf. It’s a smarter way to run interviews,  quick to set up, easy to scale, and built for the kind of roles and timelines that matter here. No frills, no over-complication, just a better way to meet great candidates and make confident hiring decisions without slowing everything else down.

In this blog, we’ll show you how teams across Saudi Arabia and beyond are using AI-powered video interviews to hire faster, without cutting corners, and why it might be exactly what your growth plan needs next.

Let’s Talk About What Traditional Hiring Is Costing You

To break this down in simpler terms, when we have bigger national goals to achieve in this modern and fast-moving region like the Middle East, traditional methods, which are not just retro but also very expensive, in terms not limited to just monetary, but which extend to loss of time, top talent and missed opportunities.

And nowhere is that cost felt more than in a region like the Gulf, where the pace of growth is intense and the demand for skilled people is higher than it’s ever been. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, everyone’s racing toward big national goals. But if your hiring process still looks like it did ten years ago, you’re already behind.

Let us understand this more deeply. 

Time is leaking everywhere.
Look, in places like Saudi Arabia and across the Middle East, finding and keeping the best people is tough. And honestly, a lot of our HR team's time just gets eaten up by the small stuff. I'm talking about sifting through tons of resumes, playing endless 'calendar tag', trying to schedule interviews, constantly chasing people for feedback, or even dealing with candidates who just don't show up.

All this busywork actually slows us down. On average, it takes 30 days to fill a job in the UAE and 35 days in Saudi Arabia, which is quite a bit longer than the global average. In fact, some of our hiring processes here can even drag on for up to two months. This isn't just about wasting time; it costs us more money, gives candidates a bad experience, and frankly, makes us lose out on great talent to companies that are quicker. We need to fix this to build the strong team we need.

It shows the faults in the system – when, even after the constant follow-ups and long hiring cycles, your candidate just accepts another offer just because your competitor was faster than you. The problem is quite obvious: long scheduling cycles, finding a suitable time slot for the interview, and managing between the availability of the candidate and the interview panel. On average, it takes just 10 days for the top talent to go off the market, while we’re stuck trying to make scheduling magic happen, the best candidates are already off the market.

Then comes the quality issue.
Let’s be honest, the longer a role stays open, the more pressure there is to just fill it. That’s when we stop asking, Is this the right fit? and start asking, Can they start on Monday?

And when the goal is to turn an open position into a person sitting at their desk, in these cases, it’s very easy to lean on the CVs and rely on single interviews and miss the chance to hire the best fit because you could not find them in the first place in the haystack of job applications received. This is the case where bias subtly enters the room, unintentionally, but affects the decision. Nearly half of the hiring managers have accepted that. That doesn’t just hurt your chances of hiring the best person; it can damage your team’s dynamic, increase turnover, and cost you even more time down the road.

And flexibility? It’s missing entirely.
Traditional interviews are built around fixed schedules and set routines. That sounds fine until you try to hire someone in a different time zone. Or someone who works full-time and can only interview after hours. Or someone brilliant who simply can’t take five days off to travel for an in-person assessment.

The data backs this up: 42% of candidates have dropped out of a hiring process just because interviews were too hard to schedule (CareerPlug). That’s nearly half. Let that sink in.

The hidden admin burden is a real productivity killer.
While planning for our next quarter's talent resource planning, all of us talk about the hiring strategy, candidate experience that we need to improve and overcome the shortfalls and reach the targeted goal, but in reality, this vision gets blurred out when the hiring personnel are bogged down doing the admin work. Not a hiring strategy. Not candidate experience. Admin. It’s draining. And it’s pulling HR and TA teams away from the strategic work they’re actually supposed to be leading.

And on the other side of this? Candidates are waiting. And waiting. 81% of the candidates expect the process to wrap in under two weeks. If you take longer, they assume you’re not interested. Or worse, that the company itself moves slowly.

Here’s the bottom line:
Traditional hiring might feel familiar, but it’s not harmless. It slows you down. It blocks access to great talent. It creates space for bias. And it forces brilliant people, on both sides, to settle.

And in a market like the Gulf, where momentum is everything? That’s not just inconvenient. That’s a risk.

Let’s not pretend it’s working just because it’s what we’ve always done. There’s a better way to do this, and we’re ready to show you how. 

How VScreen Helps You Hire Faster — Without Cutting Corners

We’ve seen what traditional hiring looks like when things get busy: interviews pushed to next week, great candidates dropping off because of scheduling delays, and TA teams spending more time in their inbox than in actual interviews.

It doesn’t have to be that way.

VScreen was built with one goal in mind: to make hiring faster, fairer, and less painful for everyone involved, especially in fast-moving regions like the Gulf, where timing is everything.

Here’s how it works.

Interviews that happen on your candidate’s time - not just yours.

• With VScreen’s One-way video interview platform, candidates don’t need to block off an afternoon or wait for a calendar invite. They record their interviews when it works for them, after work, over the weekend, whenever they’ve got 15–20 minutes and a quiet space. That simple shift? It makes a huge difference. It opens the door to people who would’ve dropped out of a process simply because they couldn’t make a Tuesday at 2 pm work.
• And this flexibility isn’t just a nice-to-have. It directly affects how candidates feel about your company. According to the Report, 87% of people say a smooth, respectful interview experience can completely change how they view a role, even one they weren’t sure about at first.
• Another, biggest flex Recruitment SMART, truly is proud of our local cloud centres in KSA, which is the biggest factor for the PDPL compliance. We stand to adhere to the rules and regulations of Saudi. We protect our clients from the risk of hefty fines, which can go up to 5 million SAR, and reputational damage. 

Global reach. Local relevance. Zero timezone drama.
In the Gulf, your hiring pool is often a mix of local professionals, remote experts, and regional specialists, all in different time zones, working different hours. That makes scheduling live interviews a nightmare.  With VScreen’s asynchronous interviews, that problem disappears. Candidates can engage with your process no matter where they are or when they’re available.

You get the insights you need, how they communicate, how they think, how they present themselves, without asking them to jump through logistical hoops. And they get the chance to show you who they are, not just what’s on their CV.

Built-in flexibility, from start to finish.

Need to reschedule an interview? Want to share a recording with a colleague? Need to review later at night after back-to-back meetings? Done. VScreen makes it easy for everyone, recruiters, hiring managers, and candidates, to move through the process at their own pace, without losing momentum.

And it’s not just more convenient. It’s faster.
Way faster.

Our internal data shows companies using VScreen cut down interview scheduling time by up to 10x. And because candidates aren’t stuck waiting, satisfaction jumps by 60%. That means fewer drop-offs, stronger engagement, and a much better start to the hiring relationship.

Because here’s the truth:
A great CV doesn’t always tell the full story. But a well-answered question on video? That sticks.

VScreen gives your candidates the space to shine and gives your team the speed and scale it needs to actually keep up.

Smarter Questions, Sharper Shortlists: How VScreen Helps You Hire with Precision

Let’s face it,  generic interviews don’t tell you much. You end up asking the same questions across roles, and what you learn from candidates is often surface-level at best. That’s exactly what Recruitment SMART’s VScreen was designed to change.

Instead of using a fixed list of interview questions, VScreen uses Generative AI to create ones that are actually built around your job description. You upload the JD, and the platform automatically generates interview questions that speak directly to what the role needs. It’s quick, accurate, and removes all the guesswork, especially when you’re hiring at scale.

And if you’d rather start from a template, or tweak things yourself? You can do that too. It all happens in one clean workspace, no switching tools or tabs.

Then, once the interviews are recorded, our built-in AI Co-pilot reviews the responses. It doesn’t just pick up on keywords or tone; it actually helps you assess skills, behaviours, and relevance to the role. You get a breakdown that shows who matches the job and why, not based on gut feeling, but on real signals from the conversation.

This is the way to move fast without adjusting to the standards. The early stages of hiring, which usually are the most time-consuming, with the AI video interview platform - VScreen, are not just structured but also smooth.

Some real numbers behind it:

• Interviews scheduled at 10x rate.
• 35% reduction in the candidate evaluation period is reported.
• More than 20 hours per week is saved per hire, which is an impressive statistic 0 if you hire hundreds or thousands of candidates every month.
  
  

With this saved time per week, it can be invested into strategising hiring, providing better candidate experience or getting to the final stages faster, which is a must in regions like Gulf, where talent demand is at all times high and AI investments are increasing every quarter - the right tool like VScreen - offers speed & precision backed by XAI, which makes the real difference.

Hiring is better when it is performed without unnecessary stress, with VScreen – hiring is not just faster but better and smarter.

Plug, Play, and Hire: How VScreen Works With (or Without) Your ATS

When HR teams try to adopt new technology, but it does not align with their pre-existing system, that becomes a hassle. This is a situation faced by many Gulf companies, the organisation already have ATS in place. Vscreen is built differently so as not to disrupt the systems but to blend seamlessly.

So, as someone who has already been in this industry for the longest time, we knew what the bottlenecks could be and hence, we came up with all our solutions and especially VScreen, to cater for this problem, where organisations have their Applicant Tracking System (ATS), in place – we provide solution which connects seamlessly with your current hiring stack, so your workflows stay intact and your the flow of data remains interrupted. No room exists for any sought of downtime, and no training is required to adapt to the new system. Just a faster and smoother layer added without any effort into your current systems. 

And if you don’t have an ATS in place, or if your system is completely customised, it barely resembles the original software; that’s fine. Recruitment SMART provides you with the option to build a custom ATS setup around your needs. You get exactly what fits your recruitment style, without being forced into a standard mould.

It’s this flexibility that makes all the difference. Whether you’re running one system across multiple regions or managing fragmented setups in different markets, we adapt to you,  not the other way around.

And the payoff? Real results.

• This layer addition increases productivity by 50% as reported by VScreen users.
• Another impressive result that is derived is a 35% increase in candidate assessments.

So no matter where you are in your digital journey, VScreen gets you moving faster, without the usual technical drama.

So, no matter where you stand in the hiring cycle, all our solutions, SniperAI, JeevesAI and VScreen, allow you to plug and play easily. 

Interview Your Way: One-Way or Live, Always AI-Powered

Not every role or every candidate needs the same kind of conversation. That’s why VScreen gives you the flexibility to use both one-way and two-way interviews, depending on where you are in the hiring process.

Start with a one-way video interview platform when you're dealing with volume, whether it’s graduate intakes, frontline roles, or simply a flood of applications. Candidates record responses on their own time, no scheduling back-and-forth, and you get to evaluate beyond what a CV can tell you. It's fast, fair, and incredibly useful when you're trying to spot potential that might otherwise get missed.

Then, when you’re ready for a deeper look, move to two-way live interviews. Here’s where VScreen gets even smarter. Even during a real-time conversation, our AI works in the background analysing behavioural signals, scoring competencies, and presenting clear, structured insights as you talk. The hiring panel can see all this in real time, so the discussion stays focused on what matters.

What’s key is that both formats are built into the same platform. You don’t have to switch tools or juggle logins. You control how you want to run interviews, and the system adapts to you, not the other way around.

And yes, it moves the needle in a real way:

• Organisations using this mixed-mode strategy have cut time-to-hire by up to 50%
  
  
• And they’ve done it while improving consistency, fairness, and speed across the board.
  
  

If you want to move faster without losing depth, this is how you do it: flexible interviews, backed by AI, built for every stage of recruitment.

Read which one is the best fit for you: Asynchronous vs Synchronous.

Recruitment That Goes Beyond Speed — Built for Long-Term Success in the Gulf

Speed is great, and yes, VScreen helps you cut time-to-hire in half. But in the Gulf, where hiring is closely tied to national transformation goals and rising competition for top talent, recruitment needs to deliver more than just quick wins.

Let’s start with the candidate experience. In a market where good candidates are in short supply, how you treat them during hiring matters. Long waits, unclear steps, or clunky processes can quietly damage your reputation. VScreen solves for that by making the journey smooth, transparent, and respectful of candidates’ time, even at scale. This isn’t just a “nice to have” anymore. IBM 2024 Talent report shows that 82% of candidates base their job decision on how the hiring process feels. In Saudi Arabia, especially, where employer brand is becoming a real differentiator, this kind of experience can make or break your ability to attract and keep the best people.

There’s also the matter of better decisions. Every company wants to hire the right person, but doing that consistently is hard without reliable insight. With VScreen, your team gets AI-backed scoring, behaviour signals, and fit predictions that go far beyond CVs or interviews alone. The result? You’re no longer hiring reactively. You’re making measured, forward-looking decisions that directly support your business goals. For companies working toward Vision 2030, this means you’re building capability intentionally, not by chance. No surprise then that 74% of hiring managers now trust AI to evaluate candidate-job alignment. It’s fast becoming a non-negotiable.

Future-Proofing HR Starts with Smarter Choices Today

The way recruitment was perceived earlier has been changed completely, now it is not treated just as another business function but a core competency, with big companies in regions like GCC, investing massive amounts into their personnel, which is their human assets – now recruitment is not mere another function but a strategic one which need the right tools to match the speed.

GCC HR teams need something more legit, which gives them the flexibility, insights and automation, which they need to stay competitive, which is leading towards a very rapid transformation  - whether that transformation is technological, new national policies and changing workforce demographics or fast-moving business targets, the hiring team needs to be ready with a full resource force. 

And the market reflects that urgency. The global HR technology market size was valued at USD 40.45 billion in 2024 and is projected to grow to USD 81.84 billion by 2032, exhibiting a CAGR of 9.2% during the forecast period (2024-2032). In just the first quarter of 2025, 72% of HR teams reported using AI tools to support hiring decisions. Meanwhile, more than 4 in 5 large enterprises say they’re investing in advanced HR analytics platforms this year.

Many tech trends come and go but what we just discussed isn’t a trend but a shift in how business builds teams around the world, VScreen is not just another interview platform, but it is an AI video interview platform, which helps you not just align the interview structure but let you create a future-ready recruitment function that’s equipped to scale, evolve, and lead.

Growth in the Gulf Starts with Hiring That Can Keep Up

In a region moving as fast as the Gulf, where national visions like Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 are already reshaping economies, hiring can’t afford to be slow. When talent is the engine behind every project, every investment, and every new direction, recruitment needs to work smarter, not harder.

That’s exactly why we built VScreen.

Recruitment SMART’s Vscreen approach is designed to take the pressure off your hiring teams and bring speed, clarity, and structure to every step,  especially in high-growth environments like KSA. No more wasting hours on manual tasks. No more missing out on great candidates because of scheduling delays. Just faster, fairer, more focused hiring, built for today’s pace.

Want to see how it works in practice?
Download our whitepaper:
Talent Acquisition: Elevating Recruitment with VScreen — packed with insights, examples, and strategies to help you hire faster and smarter across the Middle East.
And while you’re at it, think about this:

What’s the one shift in hiring you think will have the biggest impact on your organisation’s growth in the Gulf?
If you are an HR team in the Middle East, focusing on one solution that does it all for you and gives you results that bring impact like no other in the market – connect today!