Leading Gulf financial institution chooses smart hiring solution to gain competitive edge

Totally committed to retaining its market leadership position by creating a dynamic structure that offers its regional clients leading-edge financial opportunities allied to the highest standards of customer service, the bank regards the adoption of industry-leading best practices as a key element in achieving its regional growth objectives.

The highly competitive nature of the banking industry and the on-going search for competitive advantages means that the recruitment and retention of high quality staff is top of mind with the major players.

However, for financial institutions, who are looking for very specific skills and knowledge, the number of suitable candidates is increasingly limited, particularly when recruiting for positions such as Relationship and Investment Managers.

Recognising this, Ahli United Bank selected Sniperhire, the Dubai-based hiring solutions company, to implement a cutting edge recruitment system that would give them an advantage in recruiting new staff whilst at the same time recognising, motivating and retaining existing quality staff.

After thorough consultation and in-depth analysis of Ahli United Bank’s strategic objectives, Sniperhire provided a best of breed solution, creating a portal through which every candidate is now encouraged to apply online. Once the candidate’s details are in the system, HR Users take over, processing their applications online via the ATS (Applicant Tracking System).

A key advantage of the Sniperhire solution is its global capability, which ideally suits it to support Ahli United Bank's successful on-going expansion through a concerted programme of mergers and acquisitions. Making it cost and time-effective to recruit on a global basis clearly expands the pool of talent that is available.

'Our major success in the last year has been in maintaining the balance between targeted corporate expansion in the Gulf region and the development of organic growth, as reflected by the 45% increase the bank achieved in net profits,' said Fahad Al-Rajaan, Chairman of Ahli United Bank.

‘We recently completed the acquisition of a 40% stake in Al-Ahli Bank of Qatar through 100% participation in its recent capital increase - this will increase the Qatari bank's capital base from US$88 million to US $239 million, making it one of the largest banks in terms of capitalisation and positions it to benefit from the growth potential in Qatar’, he added.

Ismail Younis, Human Resources Manager, Ahli United Bank, commented, ‘This level of growth, and the expanded range of specialist services on offer, clearly requires us to have a recruitment process that is fast, efficient and cost effective – the competition for quality staff has never been greater, and as an organisation, we know that this will intensify as our competitors also implement their expansion programmes. It was, therefore essential in our view that we became an employer of choice. The Sniperhire solution exposes our vacancies to a much greater number of candidates. As a result, ease and time-to-hire has been improved dramatically’.

“The implementation of the hiring solution within Ahli United Bank ran very smoothly, and the bank are now making great use of the web to reach out to specialist skills and banking talent on a global basis” said Ben Fawcett, Managing Director of Sniperhire. “Together, we have revamped the external recruiting process, from being purely traditional to one that has strong synergy with Internet Banking and 24/7 self-service. With Ahli United Bank’s ambitious expansion plans we have already seen some exciting results and have future phases of the project to look forward to”.

Sniperhire, as Fawcett explained, is also highly beneficial when applied to existing staff. “Internal mobility encourages promotion and transfers, leading to greater retention of talented staff. It also improves motivation and development, giving employees the opportunity to progress their careers through other roles across the world and have long-term personal growth potential within the organisation. Today, such quality initiatives are pre-requisites for employers of choice such as Ahli United Bank”.