Bayt.com

Site's statement

Jobboard Finder’s opinion

Summary: Bayt (which means “home”) was created by Rabea Ataya and is one of the leading aggregator job boards in the Middle East (which refers to: Egypt, Iran, Turkey, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Syria, the UAE, Israel, Jordan, Palestine, Lebanon, Oman, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Cyprus). Particularly active in Saudi Arabia, it is ranked 149th most active site and in the UAE, it's 32nd! It attracts 8.19 million views a month from all over the MENA area. In 2008, it also set out to make a name for itself in the North African countries but most of its success comes from Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, India and Qatar. How did Bayt become so successful? Other than the obvious reasons, Bayt invested in a large television advertising campaign at the start of their creation to attract users. Today, they have over 34 million CVs in their database, 15 regional offices with contact information for each one. You can follow them on different social media and they even advertise other job boards to make sure you find what you’re looking for. The site has followers on Facebook (1 478 395), on Twitter (98 900), on LinkedIn (162 328), on Youtube(15 521), on Instagram (9 721) and on Pinset (305). Nevertheless, like most aggregators, Bayt is more successful in some countries than others.

Design: To be honest, the house-like logo did remind me of a real-state website. That said, it is easy to use with an appealing design. You’ll find photos and shorts bios about the employees, testimonials from companies (and there are many of them! Sorted by country) and clear information about posting jobs. The jobs themselves are filtered by various categories (country, city, area, job role, specialty, industry, career level, employer type, gender, company type, company name, date modified; with the number of available jobs per category indicated in brackets). It’s a shame adverts appear among the job offers (there aren't that many though)

The job board objective: Bayt wants to be the biggest job shopping center.

Recruiter observations: The good news is you can post 2 jobs per month for free and you can preview CVs that you chose with keywords (including when the jobseekers were last active; expect to see many female profiles without photos). More good news: the costs are available on the website. For some countries, additional information is available regarding who has applied to the job presented in the form of charts (years of experience, top job title, Education major of applicants, career level of the applicants and the nationality). Some countries (like Germany and Canada, South Africa, Nigeria, Japan) don’t allow/provide this kind of information though.

Jobseeker observations: When you upload your CV, the job board then fills out a lot of your online form itself. Additional questions include: your visa status, your marital status, the notice period needed, the visa you would like and whether or not you have a driver’s license. You can also include recommendations, different membership to clubs and videos. Jobseekers can boost their visibility with offers which include who viewed the profile and getting to the top of the job application lists (among other things). Surprisingly though, you can’t upload your CV in Arabic.

The job offers: Currently 46 451​ jobs, and mostly in the field of technology/computing, engineering, marketing, public relations, accounting and sales. As can be expected, most of the job offers are in Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

Reactivity: A chat window makes it easy to contact Bayt. Also, they send automatic e-mails and a follow up on your needs with e-mails and phone calls. It might be useful to know that the people handling your file are not only local, but also work on commission so they have every reason to call you back.

Special features: The blog (not all 3 versions are updated); CV database preview access; CV and job offer analysis (to see if you fit the profile); packages for jobseekers; the Youtube videos; AfterHire; job alerts; the information on salaries within the company; 

Verdict: It's always a good thing to see transparency on a job board (photos of the team, articles on the founder and the history of the company). In the North African countries, Bayt is yet to surpass the big local job boards but they have really built up their database and list of partners. Plus, their presence in a number of the countries in the area means they have a hands-on idea of what’s available and what’s needed. If you need a job in the MENA; go shopping on Bayt first.

Written by Ali Neill

As the job board tester and blog editor for the Jobboard Finder, Ali works on job boards from all around the world and keeps a close eye on the recruitment trends thanks to a number of sources, including the website's social media pages.