About JobAlchemist

Where it started

JobAlchemist started when Suhel's wife was made redundant.

She was spending four to five hours a day on her job search. Finding roles, assessing fit, tailoring applications in ChatGPT, tracking everything in spreadsheets. Exhausted, and not getting closer. That weekend, we built a prototype to take some of that weight off.

When we shared it with a few friends, every single one asked for access. So we kept going. The need was real, the existing options were too expensive or too slow, and we knew we could build something better, something that actually helps people apply with clarity, not just hope.

Why we built it this way

Suhel spent years as a Product Manager at Trade Me Jobs, building the ATS systems, candidate databases, and matching tools that sit on the other side of every application. He knows how candidates get filtered before a human reads a single word. That experience is built into how JobAlchemist works: honest fit assessment before any drafting, outputs you can understand and defend, nothing starting from zero each time.

Vanessa Thornton brings a strong engineering foundation to JobAlchemist. With a background in software engineering, AI-powered systems, and product architecture, she builds complex technology that turns messy, unstructured information into tools people can actually use. She believes good software should turn complexity into clarity and help people move forward with confidence. That belief is built into JobAlchemist: thoughtful under the hood, practical in use, and built to give job seekers real support where it counts.

What we believe

Most tools will write you a CV or cover letter without telling you whether you're competitive for the role. We think that's the wrong starting point, so we built something that gets that right first.

JobAlchemist is a structured workflow - it does the thinking so you don't have to.

Every application starts with real research: what the job ad is actually asking for, and what's going on with the company behind it. From there you get a clear fit assessment - where you're strong, where the gaps are, and whether the role is worth your time.

Then it generates tailored CV and cover letter drafts tied to your actual experience, with clear reasoning behind every change. Interview prep is included too - likely questions, guidance on how to structure your answers, and the questions you should be asking them.

You don't have to prompt any of it. The workflow collects what it needs and does the work - so instead of starting from scratch in a chat window each time, you apply with clarity and something worth sending.

We're not trying to help people send more applications. We're trying to help them send better ones.