KARE × LinkedIn — Major Project Process Book
Reimagining how job seekers find their perfect match — an AI-powered platform built on LinkedIn, named after the Arabic word for "choice" (خيار).
KARE empowers job seekers and makes them believe they can find a job in which they'll be the top candidate, simply by simplifying and making it all transparent.
The current job market poses significant challenges for individuals, companies, and the broader economy. Job seekers deal with considerable stress due to the uncertainty of securing employment, which can lead to serious mental health issues. Companies struggle to maintain reputation and attract top talent, especially post-downsizing, while adapting to remote work as the new standard.
The economy suffers as high unemployment rates hinder recovery, leading to increased social costs including greater need for healthcare to address mental health concerns. Youth unemployment (ages 15–24) was 3× higher than the adult rate, at approximately 13.6%.
Effective support for job seekers, encouragement for new entrepreneurs, and adaptable strategies for companies are crucial in navigating economic changes and mitigating the widespread impacts of job market challenges.
A wide-ranging survey was conducted targeting a diverse pool of individuals across backgrounds and industries to understand satisfaction with the current job-seeking process. The survey focused on usability of job search platforms, effectiveness of networking tools, and clarity of job postings.
Research into hiring decisions revealed a nuanced interplay between automated tools and human judgment. While job testing and analytics enhance candidate evaluation accuracy, they can also introduce biases and inaccuracies — leading to high turnover and suboptimal employee performance.
An experiment assessed the impact of structured, constructive feedback on job search strategies of recent college graduates — examining shifts in application strategies, LinkedIn engagement, and overall perception of the job search process.
The process began by tracing the evolution of recruitment technology over three decades — mapping how the job-seeking landscape transformed from simple classified ads to today's AI-powered matching algorithms. This signals analysis revealed key inflection points that shaped how candidates and employers connect.
Understanding the history of recruitment innovation was critical to identifying where the next breakthrough could come — and why LinkedIn's platform is uniquely positioned to deliver it.
This evolution revealed a clear trajectory: each wave of innovation made recruitment more data-driven but also more impersonal. The challenge became finding a way to combine algorithmic precision with human empathy — a gap that KARE was designed to fill.
LinkedIn was identified as the ideal partner for this innovation. With over 800 million members worldwide, LinkedIn is the world's largest professional network and an active labor market connecting job seekers and employers alike. Its resources span from big data to detailed user profiles mapping career histories, educational backgrounds, skills, and endorsements — enabling cutting-edge matching algorithms to pair candidates with appropriate opportunities.
LinkedIn's mission — "to connect the world's professionals to make them more productive and successful" — aligns perfectly with KARE's goal of empowering job seekers through intelligent, transparent, and supportive job matching.
Strategic analysis of the partnership identified four key value dimensions that KARE would bring to the LinkedIn ecosystem:
KARE is a novel platform that boosts the capabilities of LinkedIn and completely changes the way people seek jobs. Named after the Arabic word for "choice" (خيار), KARE gives users a matched list of job opportunities based on their skill and experience profile — all powered by advanced algorithms.
The platform is not just more effective at finding jobs — it also seeks to reduce negative mental health outcomes associated with the job search process. KARE empowers job seekers and makes them believe they can find a job in which they'll be the top candidate, simply by simplifying everything and making it transparent.
KARE represents a shift from passive job searching to active, intelligent career navigation — where the platform works for you, not the other way around. By combining AI precision with human empathy, it creates a job-seeking experience that is both more effective and more humane.