Hiring in Malaysia operates across urban tech hubs—Kuala Lumpur, Petaling Jaya, George Town—and sprawling manufacturing and services sectors. Supply is fragmented. Top talent clusters around software development, finance, and engineering; mid-market gaps emerge in specialized roles. Hiring managers face friction: candidate pools skew toward either junior or senior; mid-career professionals often leave the country for regional opportunities in Singapore or Australia; work-permit complexity deters some employers from expanding headcount. Raffi, an agentic AI recruiter, handles the intake piece: once a job is posted, Raffi interviews every applicant in real time, assesses fit, and routes qualified candidates to your inbox. In Malaysia, Raffi operates in both English and Malay, anchors salary bands in MYR, and respects employment frameworks under the Employment Act 1955 and Immigration Act 1959. No back-and-forth scheduling delays, no screening bottleneck. You publish a role; Raffi vets applicants immediately. Results land in Workable or your calendar in Google Calendar. For hiring managers in Malaysia managing technical, commercial, or hybrid roles, this eliminates the first three weeks of recruiting friction. Ready to move faster? Post a job and let Raffi start interviewing.
3
Cities supported
30+
Candidate interview languages
<24 hrs
Application to first contact
Raffi calls every applicant for a 10-15 min structured interview. Not just the top 5 résumés — every one. Result: nobody good slips through.
Conversational AI interview, rubric-anchored scoring, transcripts you can read. You get a top 3-5 shortlist while competitors are still scheduling first-rounds.
SaaS pricing from $199/mo. No 15-25% of first-year salary, no per-hire kickback. Cancel anytime.
Malaysia's labor market shows clear directional splits. Tech and digital services—cloud, fintech, software—are absorbing talent at above-trend rates; major cities see wage pressure in these roles. Manufacturing and logistics remain steady employers but face automation reshuffling. White-collar professional services (accounting, legal, consulting) remain competitive but tied to regional hubs. Blue-collar and semi-skilled trades see cyclical demand tied to construction and export-oriented manufacturing. Outbound migration of mid-career professionals toward Singapore, Australia, and the UK remains a headwind; employers often must either pay regional-competitive wages or accept junior applicant pools. Work permits for non-Malaysians are tightly controlled; most employers hire domestically. Public sector and GLC roles remain attractive for stability but move slower. Across sectors, hiring velocity is moderate—not supply-constrained like Singapore, but not loose either.
Malaysia requires attention to work-permit rules: non-Malaysian hires need sponsorship under the Immigration Act, and quotas favor Malaysian citizens. English proficiency is widespread in white-collar roles, but Malay fluency is often expected or preferred, especially in management and customer-facing positions. Major job boards are LinkedIn, JobStreet (the regional leader), and Indeed. Salary transparency is lower than Western markets; bands are typically negotiated per candidate. The Employment Act 1955 governs notice periods, leave entitlements, and termination, so employment contracts must reflect statutory minimums. Cultural practice favors relationship-building and face-to-face interaction; recruiters who skip personal rapport often see higher drop-off. Pay cycles are monthly; bonus structures (often tied to year-end and Hari Raya) are common.
Raffi's structured interview format and rubric-based scoring is designed to meet anti-discrimination standards in Malaysia. AI use is disclosed to every candidate, and human review of every hire decision is built in.
Candidate transcripts and recordings are stored with consent, candidate-accessible, and removable on request. Per-country data residency available on Growth plan.
Yes. Raffi operates in 30+ languages and supports candidate calls in any timezone via self-booking — there's no per-country integration. If you can post a role from Malaysia, you can run Raffi from Malaysia.
Raffi is calibrated against the major AI-in-hiring frameworks (EU AI Act + NYC Local Law 144) and discloses AI use to every candidate before the call. For Malaysia-specific work permits and right-to-work checks, those happen outside Raffi — we screen, you verify eligibility before extending an offer.
Yes. Non-Malaysian citizens require employment passes under the Immigration Act 1959. Your employer license and the applicant's qualifications must meet specified criteria. Processing typically takes 4–8 weeks. Most employers in Malaysia hire domestically to avoid this timeline and cost.
English is standard for tech, finance, and multinational roles. Malay (Bahasa Malaysia) is expected for management, customer-facing, and government-adjacent roles. Bilingual postings often yield wider pools. Raffi supports both languages, so applicants can interview in their stronger language.
Yes. The Employment Act 1955 mandates annual leave (minimum 8 days for first year, scaling with tenure), sick leave, and public holidays. Termination requires notice periods (typically 4 weeks). Ensure contracts comply; non-compliance invites labor department scrutiny.
Agentic recruiting is recruiting done by an AI agent that takes action on your behalf — not a chatbot or résumé summarizer. Raffi calls every applicant for a structured 10-15 minute interview, scores them against your rubric, and hands you a ranked top 3-5. The work happens autonomously.
Most agencies charge 15-25% of first-year salary as a placement fee — a $90k hire runs $13-22k. Raffi is SaaS at $199-599/mo plus per-action credits, typically landing under $10k/year for a team hiring 12 people. Same shortlist quality, no placement contract.
About 25 minutes to onboard, post your first role, and have Raffi ready to interview applicants. No engineering work, no integration project. Connect your work email, paste a JD, you're live.
Free $25 starter credit. No credit card. Screening live by tonight.