← Frederik Smal

Case study · 2022–2025

Novorésumé AI should remove work, not judgement.

People built a résumé and left. I led discovery and delivery of the tools that kept them in the job search: Job Tracker, AI writing tools and Novocareer.

  1. RoleUX Designer, then Product Owner, then Head of Innovation
  2. Reported toThe CEO, as Head of Innovation
  3. Team8 engineers and 3 designers; one development team for Job Tracker, one for Novocareer
  4. ProductsJob Tracker, AI writing tools, Novocareer
Job Tracker: every application on one board, from To do to In progress.
The onboarding wizard: it creates a cover letter, an application email and the first job card.AI tools inside a job card. When a free account reaches its limit, Premium unlocks more.Interview preparation: a mock interview with an AI guide.Novocareer, courses for guided self-coaching, on a laptop and a phone.

1,000+ people used Job Tracker · 10% came back within 7 days · 1,000+ AI drafts a month

The question

Support the whole search, not only the documents.

Novorésumé was strong at creating documents, but people came and went. The real work of the search happened somewhere else, across job boards, emails, notes and deadlines. More than 30 interviews I ran with users around the world, and surveys sent to hundreds more, showed people juggling several roles at once.

Job Tracker

One board. One next step.

A board for every opportunity and its stage. I ran the research, wrote the requirements and information architecture, designed the interface, planned the release with engineering and iterated after launch, tracking use in Mixpanel.

DecisionStart with the workflow before automating the workflow. Mobile waited: the core work happened on desktop.

AI writing tools

Where effort repeats, AI drafts. People decide.

Cover letters, application and follow-up emails, thank-you notes, interview preparation and salary negotiation. Every draft asks for a review; nothing generated is presented as final. A free trial came before Premium, and usage limits followed the cost of each generation.

Novocareer

Good feedback, slow adoption.

Structured courses, progress tracking and later a personalised learning journey built with AI. I owned product direction, UX and delivery; a colleague owned the content. People liked it, but adoption grew more slowly than we wanted.

LearnedLaunch ownership and an adoption goal belong in the plan from day one.