EP #185 From Fredericksburg Graphic Design To A Smarter Job Search App

Job searches get messy fast: tabs everywhere, email alerts piling up, and no clean way to remember which resume you sent to which role. We sit down with Brett Bearce of Brettrospective to talk about a solution he built for himself: Jobodex, a job search management app that helps you save listings, track applications through the full lifecycle, and stay organized with tailored resumes, cover letters, and interview prep. If you’re applying on LinkedIn, Indeed, or anywhere else online, you’ll recognize the chaos he’s trying to fix.

Brett also shares what Brettrospective does for Fredericksburg-area small businesses and nonprofits, from graphic design and web design to brand identity and communications that look elevated without big-agency pricing. We get into the real value of professional design, why “I have a nephew who can do this” misses the point, and how consistent visuals help people trust what they see before they ever click, call, or walk in the door.

Then we go head-on into AI in design and development. Brett’s take is clear: AI can be powerful, but it’s still a tool, and you need enough skill and context to validate the output. He also pulls back the curtain on what it takes to launch an app beyond coding, including marketing, support, and navigating the Apple App Store process.

If you enjoy hearing how local builders spot a need and ship something real, subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review so more neighbors can find the show. What’s the hardest part of your job search right now?

Jobodex:jobodex.app
Brettrospective: brettrospective.com
Jobodex is JobodexApp on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok.

Brett Bearce

Brettrospective

brett@brettrospective.com

Transcript

Welcome To FXBG Neighbors

Speaker 0:01

This is the Fredericksburg Neighbors Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Dori Stewart.

Speaker 1 0:13

Welcome back to another episode of the FXBG Neighbors Podcast, where we share the stories of our favorite local brands. I'm excited to introduce you to my guest today. We've got Brett Bearce joining us, and he is with Brettrospective. Brett, welcome to the podcast.

Speaker 2 0:30

Thank you. I'm so glad to be here. It's exciting.

Speaker 1 0:32

Yeah, I'm excited

What Brettrospective Actually Does

Speaker 1 0:34

too. I'm excited to learn about you and your business. So, what is Brettrospective?

Speaker 2 0:41

So it is a media design company, basically graphic design, web design, identity management, general communications. I started it uh in 2005 as kind of a side hustle. Um, so that uh I was doing similar work uh for the federal government at the time. Um and I wanted a color palette beyond red, white, and blue. Um so uh I started as a side hustle to be able to flex my design muscle in some different directions.

Speaker 1 1:12

Amazing. So talk to me a little bit about the services within that. Are there is there a specific type of business that you work with? Walk me through a little bit more in depth of the services.

Speaker 2 1:25

Sure. I so I primarily work with small businesses or nonprofits, um, and even occasionally just you know uh uh a family who wants something captured for whatever reason. I've done um uh one of my favorite projects was I did the wedding visual identity for a very good friend and um the invitations and signage and everything, and it was a lot of fun to put that together.

Speaker 1 1:52

That's exciting. So it's both uh digital and um print.

Speaker 2 1:57

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 1 1:58

Yeah. Nice.

Jobodex And The Job Search Mess

Speaker 1 2:00

And I understand that you also have an app that you've been working on. Tell us about that.

Speaker 2 2:05

It's true. So um the app is called Jobodex. It is an app to help you manage your job search. I retired from the federal government after 30 years in late 2025. Uh I still need to work. Um, and as I sat down to manage my job search to start it, which I hadn't done in quite some time, um, I couldn't find anything that I really liked to help me manage it. Like I, you know, was going to a bunch of different uh job websites like LinkedIn and Indeed and whatnot, um, and couldn't keep track of the jobs that interested me, the resumes that I'd submitted, what I'd applied to, things like that. So um I decided to build an app. And that's what Jobodex does, is it helps you save jobs that you're interested in and track those jobs through their life cycle. So uh you save it to the app, uh, it pulls in the job description, salary information, the company, um, right, a whole bunch of information uh if it can pull it. And then you're able to, uh, using the app, create a custom cover letter and a custom resume based on um sort of a baseline resume and cover letter that you might build uh to apply for the jobs. And then you'll be able to know what resumes you what resume you used to apply for a specific job and whether you've done it or not, it has an interview component where you can prepare for interviews. It's a pretty I'm it's a pretty fulsome app, I think.

Speaker 1 3:32

That's interesting. So instead of logging into LinkedIn and logging into Indeed and going to all these different places, you do it all from the app.

Speaker 2 3:42

So right now you still have to do a little bit of the work. You have to go um go to the different job board websites. And uh at least in my case, uh I would get a lot of email every night from LinkedIn and Indeed because I'd set up searches on those sites. And then every morning I would go through and click through the jobs that interested me and then save them to the app. Um and then go back and do a deeper dive into okay, am I really interested in this job? Um, and it was just a place where all of those different, like there's um governmentjobs.com. Basically, if there is a job listing on the internet, you can save it to Jobodex um uh to help you keep it all in one spot. And uh the app is in the Apple ecosystem, so it works on iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Um fully functional on all of all of those platforms. Um and everything syncs up automatically for you.

Speaker 1 4:38

Interesting. Interesting. I love that you saw a need and you were struggling with something yourself and you thought there's a better way. A lot of people think there's a better way and talk about it and complain about it, but you decided I'm actually gonna do something about it, and you created an app. So that's pretty cool. Congratulations on that.

Speaker 2 5:00

Thank you. It was I, you know, um, it was a bucket list item of mine. Like uh I've been an Apple fan for well, a Mac fan since there's been a Mac. I'm I'm dating myself, but um uh and so I've always wanted to build an app. So it was basically I certainly at the time, um, I had never done it before. Uh it has been a very humbling experience. Um I I most a lot of my career was doing website development. So I have coding experience, but application development and website development, while similar, are very different beasts. And so um it has been a labor of love. But I use I use the app every day.

Speaker 1 5:41

Well, and it's a skill that you now have learned, and you're now better for it in terms of helping your clients as well, I imagine.

Speaker 2 5:51

It's true, it's true. I don't um because I've only built well, I built one and a half apps. I started with um the other one I haven't launched and probably never will. Uh, it was something to just help me understand the process. Um, because beyond just actually coding an app, there's you, there's you have to do uh you have to build a website, which means to have, you know, a marketing angle to it, a support angle to it. Uh, you need to do all the social medias. Um and uh then just the process of submitting it to the app store, um, whatever app store, you know, be a Google Play or the Apple App Store, uh, there's a there's a lot you still have to do. It's not just I built an app and you upload it and they review it and then hopefully publish it. There's marketing stuff that you have to do for them as well. Um so it has been uh it's been an adventure. And yeah, I I think eventually I might add it to my um slate of services for retrospective, but uh at least right now, um well, I never want to say no.

Speaker 1 7:02

You're open, you're open to it.

Design Myths And AI Reality

Speaker 1 7:06

Do you find that there are any myths or misconceptions about what you do?

Speaker 2 7:13

Uh in as far as uh the design work that I do, um, I think people think that it's easy. Um I, you know, since uh I'm uh especially with websites and I think especially with social media, everyone, you know, the the famous funny line is well, I have a nephew that can do this. Um, you know, I'm absolutely sure that people have very talented nephews who can do it, but there is still, it does take skill. Um, the the landscape is definitely changing with AI. Um, it is uh, you know, AI can write hundreds of lines of code in matters of seconds, and it's very good code. Um, and that is a benefit, but it is also going to change the nature of the field I work in.

Speaker 1 8:00

Yeah, yeah. It's interesting. Um I hope that there are plenty of businesses still using people like you because you look on social media and you see all these AI graphics everywhere, and they're kind of an eyesore and they all start to look the same. And I think that the more people use them, the more people just kind of scroll past them and don't really pay attention because everything starts to look the same. So I hope that uh you're getting uh a lot of appreciation for what you do.

Speaker 2 8:36

Well, thank you. I you know, I think um there's a place for AI in the creative space. Um, it's a tool, it's not an answer. Um I will say from my perspective, AI was created by humans, so it is valuable and it kind of needs to be monitored in the sense that you can ask it to create something, um, be it words or an image or code, but you still have to uh you have to know enough to validate it. It's kind of like learning math, so you can use a calculator. Calculators save time, but if you don't know the the rules behind math, then you don't know if the answer the calculator is giving you is correct.

Speaker 1 9:20

Right. That's a good analogy. I like that. I like that.

The Side Hustle Origin Story

Speaker 1 9:25

So you touched a little bit on your background, but tell me a little bit more, let's dive deeper. What led you to starting your business?

Speaker 2 9:34

Um, so again, I uh I was uh again, I was at the time I worked on Capitol Hill. Um I helped uh my job was um I managed a small team that managed the technical side of Senate.gov, um had a great partnership with another team and another uh organization in the Senate that managed the content for it. I was working part-time at an Apple retail store. Like I said, I love Apple. Um and uh was not enjoying the retail aspect of it. So I was retail's hard. Um, I have a lot of respect for people that wake up every day and go do it. Um and so I was on my way out. I wanted to take advantage of my employee discount. Um, and like I said, I also wanted to flex my design muscle a little more beyond a very standard red, white, and blue color palette, which in the US Senate makes sense. Um so I started a business um so I could do those things, so I could buy some equipment, write it off as a business expense, um, and ended up uh being fairly successful successful. It was it was a part-time thing. Um uh it will probably stay a part-time thing, which is fine. Um uh, but I really enjoyed it. And the the clients that I've worked with have been uh just marvelous people to work with.

Speaker 1 11:01

Yeah, that's great. So, what is something that you wish the listeners knew about retrospective?

Speaker 2 11:09

Basically, I'm gonna do the best job I can for you. You're gonna get some great products. I think after working for 30 years in government, but I look at things at a very elevated level and really want everything I produce for any client to be as elevated as it can be. I want it to look like something that, you know, a Madison Avenue organization might develop, but it's gonna be from some guy down the street, that's me, um, with you know, uh uh more reasonable, hopefully small town prices, certainly certainly not Madison Avenue prices.

Speaker 1 11:45

Yeah, I love it.

Where To Find Brett Online

Speaker 1 11:47

So if the listeners are inspired and want to connect with you, if they want to work with you, where can they find you?

Speaker 2 11:55

Uh so they can go to my website, um brettrospective.com. It's a difficult thing to spell, so you can just go to Brettro.com, br-e-t-t-r-o.com. Uh, or if you're more interested in the app, jobodex.app, um also available on the Apple app store. Um, that is primarily where my focus has been um over the past year. Um you can see some of my social media work through the job the Jobodex social medias in April. I uh every business day in April, I did a you need a job series where it's me doing like you need a job, so do I, but you're pulling weeds, you're mowing the lawn, you're like it was always some element aspect of your life. But if you use this app, you can continue to manage your life and find a job, was kind of the shtick. Um so it's about 20-something really short videos of me doing some uh everyday things and an occasional really ridiculous thing. Um so those are fun.

Speaker 1 12:56

Nice. I can't wait to check it out.

Speaker 2 12:58

Yeah.

Speaker 1 12:58

Brett, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today and sharing both Brettrospective and Jobodex with us.

Speaker 2 13:07

Thank you so much for having me. This was really fun.

Speaker 13:11

Thank you for listening to the Fredericksburg Neighbors Podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to FXBG NeighborsPodcast.com.