Client
VOYLegal
Industry
Legal
Features
Custom CRM
Communication Tracking
Intuitive Dashboard
Advanced Search & Filtering
Templating & Workflows
CakePHP (Legacy)
Laravel
Vue
MySQL
AWS
VOYlegal is a leading legal recruiting firm in the United States, with offices in major cities stretching from Boston to Los Angeles. However, when Founder and Principal Sandeep Rao came to Net Solutions, VOYlegal was nothing more than an idea. He envisioned a recruiting firm that used state-of-the-art technology to match top attorneys with respected companies, and he needed a tech partner to help make that idea a reality.
Sandeep, who holds a law degree from Columbia University, had worked for years in legal recruiting, and he saw a significant gap in the industry. Until then, most firms were living in the past—with entrenched, legacy players working contacts based on existing relationships with major law firms. Some used Client Relationship Management (CRM) tools, but that was the extent of their tech savviness.
There is always a concern at the back of your mind when working with offshore teams, especially when they are completely around the globe in India. However, for me, it has never felt like I was offshoring. The team has consistently been very easy to work with, super flexible and super professional. Both Project Managers I’ve worked with put in the time to understand our business and environment, and I have found them to be insightful when discussing requirements and solutions.
Sandeep believed that technology could take the recruiting game to a new level, attracting top legal talent as well as the industry’s most skilled recruiters. He created detailed wireframes for a system that placed equal emphasis on data management and data-enabled processes. All he needed now was a tech partner that could bring the concept to life.
When Sandeep conducted his search for a tech partner, he heard from companies around the world that offered their services at a range of price points. Given the complexity of his mission—creating a system that accounted for all the intricate demands of a specialized field—he knew he needed to work with a team that was willing to dig deep and ask the right questions. And those qualities, curiosity and the tenacity to dive deep, is what made Net Solutions stand out.
While most of the proposals he received were nearly identical and made the same promises, Net Solutions stood out based on the questions they asked. It became clear that they were interested in diving into the details to fully understand the project, giving Sandeep complete confidence in the team. Net Solutions was not the cheapest proposal, and they were headquartered on the opposite side of the world. Nevertheless, Sandeep had a good feeling about them, and he moved forward with confidence.
Net Solutions’ team of designers and engineers combed through the details of Sandeep’s wireframes, rolled up their sleeves, and got to work. The User Interface (UI) team created a compelling, modern design for the marketing website that helped VOYlegal stand out in an established field to gain a foothold in the industry.
Simultaneously, they developed the backend system, equipping it with capabilities that impressed experienced recruiters and encouraged them to join the fledgling startup. At the center of those backend features was a core CRM, and the team began by focusing on recruitment workflow solutions that imported job listings and job requirements from existing sources.
In order for the CRM to create true value for Sandeep and his team, it needed to parse profile data from a wide range of sources in a variety of formats—a test the new system passed with flying colors. This helped VOYlegal’s recruiters hit the ground running, since the new system was able to:
Once the core features of the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) were in place that empowered recruiters to do their jobs, Net Solutions worked diligently to implement the following features—those that would give the new startup a powerful advantage in their industry.
Conversation Tracking: Effectively tracking conversations between recruiters and candidates was a key component of the new system. Net Solutions updated the system to log all forms of communication with candidates and tie those notes to relevant records. This allowed anyone in the system to get a clear picture of a candidate’s strengths and drives, picking up where the previous recruiter left off and delivering seamless service.
Advanced Search: The search feature in the MVP was very basic, and it took time to search through the vast database. To improve the system, Net Solutions created a Phoenix-based search tool that was quick and powerful.
Beyond that, they improved and expanded the search capabilities, allowing recruiters to conduct:
This meant that a recruiter could search for a candidate based on highly specific criteria. If there were no matches, the recruiter could expand the criteria bit-by-bit, viewing a larger pool of profiles until they found the right mix of candidates.
Powerful Templating System: Net Solutions designed and built a versatile email templating system that would trigger custom emails, targeted to different recipients, based on specific events. This allowed VOYlegal to communicate efficiently and effectively with its customers and candidates while adhering to its branding guidelines.
Market Research: The system tapped into a massive database of job openings, candidates, and related data to create a market research tool that analyzed and presented key metrics in an intuitive manner. VOYlegal now offers market research reports, built from this tool, as a service to their clients.
Candidate Job Search: Net Solutions updated the website to allow candidates to directly search for job listings available through VOYlegal. Not only did this help existing candidates find job opportunities—it attracted new legal professionals to join VOYlegal’s database, increasing their pool of exceptional candidates.
System Maintenance and Upgrades: VOYlegal relied on Net Solutions to perform PHP updates and security fixes. Over time, however, maintaining and building further on the legacy CakePHP implementation began to impact the system’s speed and increase the cost of running it. Based on Net Solutions’ advice, Sandeep decided to update the Laravel & PHP 7 combo with a corresponding update to the MySQL database.
The tech stack update improved the site’s performance, provided additional capabilities thanks to Laravel, and provided the opportunity to update the search from Phoenix to Elastic search as well. This greatly improved the search capabilities and response times of backend searches.
The elastic search tool also allowed for fuzzy matching (i.e., matching based on keywords that are similar to a search criteria, the way Google includes search results for similar words or words with slightly different spellings).
Net Solutions’ quality of work has been most impressive. They have consistently gone way above and beyond without being asked to. We play in a space that has many large, deeply entrenched legacy businesses. We have had instances where our website has given us the edge. As a new and small company, it is always a challenge for us to hire talented and experienced recruiters. We were able to get many top recruiters to join us after we impressed them with our back-end system.
Over the years, VOYlegal has grown from a scrappy startup to a nationwide powerhouse, with offices in major cities, throughout every region of the United States: New York, Washington, D.C., Miami, Chicago, Denver, Seattle, San Francisco, Austin, and more.
From the beginning, VOYlegal’s chief differentiator was its use of technology to match stellar candidates with top companies and law firms, and this approach allowed them to disrupt an industry and achieve success.
VOYLegal is now an established name in legal recruiting, and other legal recruiting firms have followed their lead to build IT-based recruiting systems.
Net Solutions is clearly a software development company that is focused on its customers. They have shown they always put the interests of their clients first. I have frequently recommended them to many of my friends who were looking for a development partner and shall continue to do so.
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