for startups · pre-seed to series b
Hyring gives UAE and GCC startups on-demand access to vetted freelance recruiters and human capital specialists, at a fraction of agency cost, with your money back if we do not deliver. Engage a specialist for a day a week, one project or a hiring surge, and pay only for the slice you use. Every brief is matched by the platform and checked by one of our people before it reaches you, and the recruiter you choose owns your shortlist from there.
No app download for companies. If we do not deliver, you get your money back. Abu Dhabi, Dubai and across the GCC.
what founders actually say
The four sentences we hear most from founders in the UAE, and what happens when a specialist takes them off your plate.
I need a VP Engineering, a CFO and two senior devs in 60 days. I do not have time to build a recruiter relationship from scratch.
The fix: one brief covers all four roles. You are matched to specialists by discipline, often more than one, working in parallel rather than sequentially.
A bad hire at this stage does not just cost money. It can end the company.
The fix: startup-savvy recruiters who have hired at your stage before, and who know how to close candidates on vision and equity rather than base salary alone.
I cannot justify a full-time talent hire, but I am spending a third of my week on recruiting.
The fix: fractional engagement. A senior recruiter for one or two days a week, scaling up during a hiring push and back down when it is done.
We have no employer brand. Good candidates have never heard of us.
The fix: specialists who sell early-stage companies for a living, plus human capital partners who can build the value proposition and onboarding that makes the hire stick.
the cost maths
Worked on a typical UAE senior salary of AED 350,000. Agency percentages are the standard market range, not a strawman.
| Three senior hires at AED 350,000 | Recruitment agency | Permanent in-house recruiter | Hyring |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fee structure | 20 to 30% of first-year salary, per hire | Fixed annual salary plus benefits and end of service | Day rate, fractional window or success fee agreed per brief. No percentage of salary |
| Cost for three hires | AED 210,000 to AED 315,000 | AED 250,000 to AED 400,000 per year, whether you hire three or thirty | You pay for the days worked, not a share of the salary |
| What happens in a quiet quarter | Nothing, but you pay full rate again next time | You carry the salary anyway | You scale to zero, then back up when you need to |
| If the search fails | What you paid up front usually stays paid | You still paid the salary | Your money back in full |
| Beyond filling roles | Recruitment only | Whatever one person can cover | Add an HR partner, ER specialist or fractional CHRO to the same bench |
Agency figures are the commonly quoted UAE market range of 20 to 30 percent of first-year salary. source needed Cite a published salary guide before this goes live. In-house range reflects typical mid to senior talent acquisition salaries in the UAE. verify Your Hyring rate is agreed per brief with the specialist, so compare against your actual quote rather than a list price.
three ways to engage
A senior recruiter or people leader for one or two days a week. Enough to run your pipeline properly without a permanent salary.
Best when hiring is constant but light, or you need senior judgement more than volume.A specialist works inside your team, on your systems and your employer brand, for a fixed period. They are your recruiter for the duration.
Best for a funded hiring push: several roles at once, over three to six months.One brief, one specialist, one outcome. A search for a single critical hire, or a defined piece of people work.
Best for a first key hire, a niche role, or testing the model before scaling it.proof · proptech scale-up, uae
Freshly funded and scaling quickly, this UAE PropTech did not want the cost of a permanent talent leader. Hyring embedded a senior freelance recruiter from day one. Five key hires were made and a twelve-month talent plan was built, without adding permanent headcount.
how it works
Five minutes on this site. No download, no account setup, no sales gate before you can describe what you need.
The platform matches your brief against the bench. One of our people checks that match before it reaches you.
A short list of genuinely relevant specialists with verified track records, not a long list to work through yourself.
Agree the model and rate. Milestone tracking and protected payments in the portal. Scale up or down as your runway dictates.
startup hiring questions
The lowest-cost route that still produces quality hires is engaging a freelance recruiter directly rather than a recruitment agency. Agencies charge 20 to 30 percent of first-year salary per hire, which on an AED 350,000 salary is AED 70,000 to AED 105,000 for a single role. A vetted freelance specialist engaged through Hyring is paid an agreed day rate, project fee or success fee with no percentage of salary, and can work fractionally so you are not paying for a full-time resource you do not need.
Yes, and it is the most common model on Hyring for pre-seed to Series B companies. It is called a fractional or embedded engagement: you engage a vetted recruiter for a day or two a week, or for a fixed project, and pay only for that slice of time. You get senior recruiting capability without a permanent salary, benefits or end-of-service accrual.
A permanent in-house recruiter usually becomes economical at sustained volume of roughly 20 to 25 hires per year. Below that, a fractional or embedded specialist is cheaper and more flexible, because you carry no fixed salary through hiring troughs and can swap in different sector specialists as your roles change. Plenty of our clients run both: a permanent generalist plus embedded specialists for the roles they cannot cover.
Yes. Recruitment is one slice of the bench. The same marketplace gives you human capital partners for org design, onboarding and policy, employee relations specialists for conflict and compliance, and fractional CHROs for board-level people strategy. Many founders start with one recruiter and add an HR partner once the hires land.
Briefs are typically matched within days rather than weeks, because we are selecting from a bench whose current availability we already know. Speed depends on how niche the requirement is: a fintech recruiter in Dubai moves faster than a defence sector specialist in a new market, and we will tell you which you are dealing with at the point of matching.
You stop. Engagements are structured on day rates or milestones rather than a single committed fee, so you can stand an assignment down at short notice without redundancy exposure or a contractual exit. This is the main practical advantage of the model for a company whose funding position can change in a quarter.
keep reading
What an embedded recruiter is, how the model works, and when it beats an agency or an RPO contract.
read moreAn honest side-by-side on cost, speed, risk and who actually does the work.
compareThe version of this story for established firms: capacity, not capability.
read moreready when you are
Five minutes on the web. A person checks the match and comes back with two or three specialists who fit.