Cazar affirms focus on Asia through growth in Kuala Lumpur operations

Founded in 2003 and globally headquartered in Dubai, Cazar is looking to fulfil its expansion ambitions through growth in the Asia region.

An expert in recruitment process engineering, employer branding, and applicant tracking system, Cazar has been in Asia for many years, given that some of  its Middle East clients are multinationals operating in this region. Since 2015, its Asian headquarters have been in Kuala Lumpur.

Presently, Cazar has three offices, Dubai, Riyadh and Kuala Lumpur, with a majority of approximately 50 staff members based in Dubai, and four in the Malaysian operations, aiming to grow further in the next 12 months.

Powered by this team, Cazar services clients in 64 countries around the world and processes over 15,000 candidate applications per day.

Human Resources spoke to Victoria Creamer, regional director – Asia Pacific, Cazar to find out more about the expansion plans in Asia, and how they will impact clients.

Q. In your experience so far, how is the Malaysia market looking like?

Malaysia is an interesting market. The biggest observation is mobile usage and the competition for the best talent.  Everywhere you go everyone is on a mobile.  Organisations are very eager to get online recruitment right and are really open to trying new things – from mobile and social media marketing to innovative offline candidate campaigns. We are here to help transform that, enable recruiters to efficiently review and select candidates and applicants to apply whilst riding on the train if they want!

However, technology isn’t the only answer. Another challenge lies in operating, managing and measuring all these recruitment activities from one central place. They need a streamlined process, best practices and a flexible system to achieve this.

Q. What are the reasons for choosing KL as your Asia headquarters?

We had clients here already and it is really well-located to serve South East Asia in general so Kuala Lumpur was the ideal place for us. It is also a very dynamic market that is always looking to innovate, making it a perfect environment for growing businesses looking to recruit.

Q. What is your number one mandate for the Asia region in the coming year?

Our priority is to help employers achieve their recruitment objectives with an end-to-end solution. In the past year we have found that there are many recruitment tools in the Asian market, from applicant tracking systems to consulting services and branding agencies. As you know, there is no silver bullet when it comes to overcoming hiring challenges: these tools need to work together in order to deliver lasting results, unfortunately most of them are standalone solutions. Cazar’s offering is unique in the Asian market because it covers the entire recruitment spectrum.

Q. Do you have immediate hiring plans to grow the KL team?

We have just hired someone actually – but we will be looking at growing the team in the next 12 months.

One of our strengths is the fact that we have a great implementation team that is knowledgeable about recruitment as much as they are about technology. So we are always on the lookout for experienced project managers who have talent acquisition experience.

Q. Having been with Cazar since June 2012, first in the Middle East, and now in Asia, what are some operational differences you experienced so far?

Often, companies in the Middle East and Asia have similar needs but the reasons behind them are different. Let’s take employer branding, which is gaining a lot of traction in both regions. In Dubai, it is key because there is a huge need to hire expats, including doctors, professors, engineers and other specialists who are not necessarily looking for a job. In Malaysia on the other hand, most of the hiring is done locally but identifying and attracting the best Malaysians is tough – companies need a strong employer brand to stand out. Then there are places like Hong Kong, where unemployment is low and competition is fierce, so candidate attraction is nearly impossible without a strong employer image.

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