Finding Talent in South Africa and the UAE

Found Next launches in South Africa and the UAE. They are not one market with two currencies — the way people move, the way pay is quoted and the way a hire is timed all differ — and a search that ignores the difference will quietly miss people.

Pay is quoted differently, and that is not a detail

South African profiles quote rands and UAE profiles quote dirhams, both monthly. The figures are not comparable by conversion alone: packages are structured differently, and what a number includes varies. Read a salary expectation as a statement about that market, not as a score.

Relocation is a stated preference, never an assumption

This is the part worth understanding properly, because it decides who you can see. A candidate appears in your search when they are already in your country, or when they said they would move and named your country or region themselves.

• Someone who said they would relocate but named nowhere is not offering to go anywhere. An empty list is an absence of consent, not consent to everywhere.
• “Maybe” counts as willing. It was chosen deliberately from three options, and reading it as a no would silently narrow what somebody actually said.
• Someone who has not said where they are is still shown to you. Hiding a person for an unfinished form would be punishing them for the wrong thing.

The practical consequence: if you are open to relocating someone, search your own market first, then widen. The people who named your market are the ones who already decided they would come.

What does not change

Everything else. The same profile model, the same skills, the same consent-based contact, the same verification before an employer can search. Both markets are covered by the same all-industry taxonomy — education, healthcare, technology, the trades, logistics and the rest — so the way you search does not change when you cross a border.

Start where you are hiring

Your organisation’s own country and region are the default on candidate search, because that is the answer nearly every time. Change it when it is wrong — a second site, a new market, or a role you are genuinely willing to move someone for.