August 2023
Case
HBS Case Collection

Kariyer.net: Recruiting AI

By: Shunyuan Zhang, Fares Khrais and Namrata Arora

Format:Print
| Language:English
| Pages:34

Abstract

In 2017, Fatih Uysal (AMP 2021) became CEO of Kariyer.net. By then, the business was already the industry leading online job board in Turkey. However, faced with stalling growth, a turbulent macroenvironment, and growing competition from international players, Uysal kicked off a transformation of the business from an online job board to a horizontally diversified recruitment company, powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI). The case chronicles the transformation, highlighting new AI-driven tools built both for internal use and as products to be sold. The case also describes two new business lines (employer branding services/ virtual job fairs, and an online tech-talent job board coupled with training services) that showed potential to become new core products. By 2023, Uysal and his team were targeting doubling revenue and growing the contribution of non-job ad revenues from 30% to 50% of the total over the next three years. Uysal and his team were constantly balancing exploring promising new products and verticals against doubling down on those generating revenue today. In order to reach their financial targets, Uysal and his team were debating not only which product(s) to pursue but how to do so efficiently.