QLU World: Building the Recruiter’s Agentic Ecosystem

QLU World is a first-of-its-kind virtual workplace that unites all of QLU's proprietary apps through agentic AI. The goal is to move beyond standalone tools and create a connected ecosystem that helps recruiters work faster, think smarter, and expand their reach.

As Head of Design, I led QLU World from concept to launch by aligning founders, product, and engineering teams around a shared vision for growth. I defined product positioning, established visual design direction, and personally contributed to creating the virtual environment and AI interactions. Managing three designers within our 15-person design team, I orchestrated workflows, strategy, beta testing, and feedback loops that boosted adoption throughout QLU and among external partners.

After launching 10+ recruitment tools and capturing a significant share of the executive search market with industry leader Spencer Stuart as a flagship client, QLU leadership set a bolder vision: Become the undisputed market leader and own the end-to-end recruiter ecosystem.

Their solution: QLU World, a platform that seamlessly integrates collaboration, automation, and AI agency into a single, intuitive environment.

Leveraging modern spatial interaction principles, we developed the QLU World collaboration layer in just 5 months, creating an intuitive virtual workspace that transformed how teams interact.

Meeting recording and playback for transparency

Calendar Integration & screenshare during meeting

Our entire company communication migrated to QLU World

4 external beta IT companies onboarded for stress‑testing and UX refinement

Rapid discovery and resolution of usability gaps

Cultural shift from fragmented tools to a single shared workspace

The goal: merge QLU’s entire app suite into recruiters’ virtual offices and supercharge them with AI agents to automate core workflows.

🟦 Bella — The Recruiter’s Personal AI Assistant

Handles:

Task and calendar management

Meeting prep and agenda design

In‑meeting support (timekeeping, prompts, summaries)

Post‑meeting follow‑through

Handles:

Initiating search projects independently

Running QLU2, our flagship search and matching engine

Candidate outreach, scheduling, and progress tracking

Live “screen sharing” for recruiter oversight

Candidate evaluation reports to aid decision‑making

Ryan supports the full lifecycle, from first outreach to candidate evaluation and sending offer letters with recruiters able to jump in at any stage.

Expand agent roster to cover all recruiter workflows (research, onboarding, client management)

Complete the end‑to‑end agentic ecosystem

Position QLU World as the flagship asset in Series A fundraising

Moves QLU from “tool provider” to ecosystem owner

Bridges human expertise and AI autonomy for maximum recruiter leverage

Creates defensible market moat through integrated, sticky workflows

Series A narrative anchored in a category‑defining vision

QLU World isn’t just a platform. It’s a strategic market play. By bringing collaboration, intelligent automation, and recruiter‑specific tooling under one roof, we set out to transform executive search at scale.

This was one of our most complex projects. We spent long days and late nights working with teams to unpack technical constraints, map intricate user journeys and edge cases, and iterate until every piece fit.

👉 Ready to level up your product design? Hire me on Contra or connect on LinkedIn.