Considering a Senior Role in Saudi Arabia? Start With How You Position Your Experience

I have noticed a clear shift over the past couple of years. More professionals based in Qatar, the UAE, and further afield are seriously exploring opportunities in Saudi Arabia, particularly in Riyadh and Jeddah. The scale of what is being built there, the variety of organisations now hiring at senior level, and the compensation packages on offer have made it a genuinely compelling market for experienced leaders.

The question I find myself asking, when I look at the profiles people are bringing to that market, is a simple one:

If someone in Saudi Arabia looked at your profile today, would they understand where you could add value?

Often, the honest answer is: not clearly enough.

Please don't put Vision 2030 everywhere

I want to address something directly, because it comes up repeatedly.

There is a version of Saudi-targeted CV writing that involves inserting the phrase "Vision 2030" as frequently as possible, in the hope that this signals alignment with the Kingdom's transformation agenda.

It does not work that way. A senior hiring manager in Riyadh has read that phrase thousands of times. What they are actually looking for is evidence that your specific experience — your track record, your commercial outcomes, your organisational scale — is genuinely relevant to what they are trying to build.

That is demonstrated through the substance of your achievements, not through keyword insertion. If your background genuinely includes experience in digital transformation, healthcare delivery, infrastructure development, tourism, or the specific sectors where major programmes are underway, that should be present in your CV through what you have actually led and delivered. The phrase is not the evidence. The evidence is the evidence.

Saudi Arabia is not one homogeneous job market

Riyadh and Jeddah serve different functions in the Kingdom's economy, and they attract different profiles of employer and opportunity.

Riyadh is the administrative and commercial capital, home to most of the major government ministries, sovereign wealth vehicles, large semi-government entities, and headquarters operations of national and international firms. If you are targeting roles in government-affiliated organisations, major national institutions, or the headquarters functions of large Saudi-headquartered businesses, Riyadh is likely the primary focus.

Jeddah has historically been Saudi Arabia's commercial and trading gateway, with a different mix of private sector employers, more developed hospitality and retail sectors, and a different cultural character. For certain sectors — fast-moving consumer goods, logistics, retail, certain professional services — Jeddah can be the more relevant market.

This is not a rigid distinction, and many senior professionals operate across both. But if you are targeting a specific city, it is worth understanding which organisations are headquartered there and whether your positioning aligns with that cluster.

The kinds of experience that read well

When I think about what tends to carry genuine weight in a Saudi-targeted executive profile, a few things come to mind consistently.

Organisational scale. Saudi Arabia is home to some very large organisations across both the public and private sectors. A background that demonstrates experience managing at real scale — large teams, significant budgets, multi-site or multi-entity operations — tends to be credible in that context in a way that a background at much smaller scale may not be, at least for senior mandates.

Major programme leadership. Experience leading major transformation programmes, large capital projects, digital change, or strategic restructuring reads well. The specifics matter: what did you actually lead, how large was it, and what was the outcome?

Cross-functional and senior stakeholder experience. For many roles within large Saudi organisations, particularly government-linked entities, the ability to work effectively across functions, manage complex internal relationships, and engage at board or senior executive level is genuinely relevant. If your background includes this kind of exposure, make it explicit.

Regional experience. Having worked elsewhere in the GCC, or in markets with comparable regulatory or governmental complexity, adds credibility. It does not need its own section — it sits naturally as context within the roles where it is relevant.

Different types of organisation require different positioning

The Saudi job market includes a genuinely wide range of employer types at senior level: large Saudi family-owned conglomerates, government ministries and agencies, sovereign wealth entities, joint ventures, and the regional or headquarters operations of international firms. Each of these has somewhat different priorities in terms of what they value in an executive hire.

A government-linked entity may weight governance experience, stakeholder management, and national programme alignment more heavily. A privately-owned conglomerate may be more focused on commercial performance, P&L discipline, and operational transformation. An international firm's KSA operations may look for the kind of cross-market executive who can operate within both the global framework and the local context simultaneously.

The positioning you develop should, where possible, reflect the specific type of organisation you are targeting — not attempt to speak equally to all of them at once, which tends to mean speaking convincingly to none.

The profile question before the application question

My honest suggestion for anyone seriously considering a senior move into Saudi Arabia is to spend time on the profile question before spending too much time on the application question.

Which specific organisations are you targeting? What level of role? What does the hiring committee for that kind of role actually need to understand about you — and does your current CV communicate it?

These questions shape a more effective approach than sending a general profile broadly and waiting to see what comes back. Saudi Arabia has real opportunities for senior leaders with the right experience. The profiles that tend to attract the right attention are the ones that have been built around a clear understanding of what that means in a specific context, rather than those that have simply updated the "preferred location" field.

Key Takeaways

• Alignment with national transformation priorities should be demonstrated through relevant experience, not through inserting the phrase "Vision 2030" repeatedly.
• Riyadh and Jeddah serve different functions in the Saudi economy. If you are targeting a specific city, understand which organisations are there and position accordingly.
• Organisational scale, major programme leadership, and senior stakeholder experience tend to read well in Saudi-targeted profiles.
• Saudi Arabia includes a wide variety of employer types. Positioning should reflect the specific kind of organisation you are targeting.
• Spend time on the profile question before the application question. Who are you targeting, and does your CV currently communicate what they need to understand about you?

Related Insights

Considering a move into Saudi Arabia?

If you would like to talk through how your experience could be positioned for the Saudi market, you can start a conversation with Executive Narrative GCC.