He went to job fairs, answered classified ads, posted his resume at online recruiting sites and filled in applications at the websites of every major enterprise in the Kingdom. Nothing worked. A Saudi, fluent in Arabic and English, with a first degree in engineering and an MBA, one might think that this young man would have no trouble at all getting a job. But six months after graduation he was still unemployed. There had been offers, but every one of them had a negative — low salary, remote area, dull work or unpleasant conditions. Essentially, they were typical starter jobs and my son refused to take one.

It was difficult to stay upbeat as the weeks became months. Friends asked if my son was too picky or unrealistic about his prospects. Eventually, the new year arrived, but a paycheck was still elusive. I almost broke one of the cardinal rules of parenting adult offspring and considered taking over the job search using my own connections. Fortunately, my son kept trying new strategies. One of them was making his resume publicly available on Facebook. He removed all the personally identifying information from the document, except for his name and an e-mail, and then asked all his Facebook connections to direct anyone who might be interested to consider his qualifications. It worked. He started his new job in Riyadh last month.

While the job search was ongoing, the manager of a Saudi company allowed me to sit with his human resources supervisor and take a gander at the content at Bayt.com, using their premium corporate subscription. Bayt.com is one of the most popular Middle East job sites. The plan was to see what the competition was like in the job market. It was an educational experience. The company with the premium subscription had online job postings. To one desirable job posting they received over 2,000 applicants. Even using filters to weed out candidates who were less than desirable, there were still hundreds of applications to consider.

Sifting through the resumes, in no time at all it became clear that there's a lot of silliness in the online job world. Candidates copied resumes off the Internet and forgot to change all the original information to match their own. People provided incorrect or incomplete e-mail addresses. In the space for nationality, applicants wrote “citizen.” Job candidates posted photos of themselves in t-shirts and jeans.

Falsifying work experience was common. Secretaries claimed to be office managers. Salesmen became business development managers and network administrators transformed into technical team leaders. It can be a revelation to check the resumes of a company's own employees who have their qualifications posted at Bayt.com. While people have the option to keep their personal information confidential, most don't.

Some resumes are quite well written and it's exciting to think that the perfect candidate has been found. But then the person can't answer simple e-mails or speak well in a phone conversation. Resume and cover letter writing services, many available through online job sites including Bayt.com, are getting potential recruits noticed, but they can't be there to help the candidate survive the hiring process.

Bayt.com was asked for an interview on the challenges companies face with online recruitment but they chose to issue a statement instead.

“At Bayt.com we are proud to have a community of over seven million jobseekers and 40,000 employers representative of every industry demographic and career level in the region,” wrote Lama Ataya, CMO of Bayt.com. “While the nature of the psychology of job search means that many jobseekers faced with an unhappy job situation or the specter of unemployment may perhaps sometimes apply to more jobs than they are completely and ideally qualified for, this applies in any medium whether online or traditional offline and is a function of the psychology of job search and the abundance of great talent seeking jobs in the region, not a function of online recruitment. The beauty of being part of the region's leading employer community at bayt.com, the Middle East's No. 1 jobsite, is that Bayt.com has taken several measures to ensure our consistently high levels of employer satisfaction are not diluted, and Middle East employers continue to consistently, easily, quickly and effectively find the very best top-caliber talent on bayt.com.” Her statement continued listing the features provided by Bayt.com for both employers and job seekers.

While Ataya, believes that Bayt.com is offering a superior recruitment product, services have sprung up that aim to help employers struggling to find the right staff, particularly for technical positions. Consider the proposal from Clarity Response. This Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) firm does resume screening and shortlisting across industries from junior positions to top management. Clarity Response finds candidates from multiple online jobsites for one price. The company screens the resumes for the employer to ensure that the candidates meet the job requirements. The RPO firm stated that they add value to a company's recruitment model by bringing down annual recruitment expenditure by at least 50 percent and they provided a list of Saudi companies already using their services.

It benefits any company to find good employees as quickly as possible. Sifting through hundreds of applications is tedious overhead. Interviewing dozens of candidates is worse. If a quick click to a recommended resume posted at Facebook leads to a new hire, then that's a very attractive option. Networking has always been a reliable way to find a job in Saudi Arabia. Facebook just takes that concept virtual.