Recruitment is something we take seriously at Grist Legal. Clients and candidates expect us to deliver a top class and speedy service, sometimes an almost instant service, and so we require a professional platform from which to shine. Whilst we invested in Voyager Professional in the late 90’s it was a time when email and the web was in its infancy – the world has changed, and we needed a world class software platform to support us for another 20 years in order to stay competitive.
Whilst Recruitment is simple in theory, a thorough job still needs to be done for us to deliver the thorough job our customers expect. Customer expectations are higher than ever in todays Recruitment world and whilst we’re clearly not a high volume business, being fast and efficient is why people rely on us to find their next critical hire – equally critical was finding our next Recruitment Software partner.
We recognised The Recruitment Software world has changed
As a niche contingency agency with a growing Headhunting division we had concerns about moving onto a new platform. We’d identified that our traditional processes and insightful market knowledge was a key differentiator amongst the competition, a new system needed to support that, more importantly share that knowledge amongst the team.
Traditionally staff had spent more and more of their time inside Linkedin, Outlook, Job-boards, Excel and multiple browsers. Whilst most in the information researched would be transferred into Voyager Professional, it was done manually and as an afterthought, KPI’s were slow and cumbersome to produce. We were working extremely hard to find the right people, but not working as smart as we could, or as fast.
In summary, whilst Voyager Professional had served us well, we were losing the edge when it came to speed and automation. Having been with Voyager for over 20 years we’d decided to move away and review the market for a fresh approach to CRM.
“Everyone found working with Voyager Professional very user friendly and practical, we’d had it for 20 years, but the Voyager team has excelled with Infinity – the product and migration service has exceeded all expectations.” Says Derek Pepperell
Infinity – why we chose the product
We’ve integrated Infinity to our core business tools – at no additional cost.
Infinity is integrated to our Outlook calendars for diary management, our Mobile phones for email, tasks and calendar along with the Voyager Phone App. Infinity Connect is hugely valuable – We can access key information from our phones when the consultants are out and about – Personally I think the integrated map on the apps is a fantastic tool, it means I’m prepared, onsite and on time for my meetings.
This new integrated way of working has saved us days of admin time per week. Infinity also integrates seamlessly with our job-posting partner Logic Melon – it’s a huge time saving that means we’re ahead of the pack when it comes to the competition. Vacancies added to Voyager are posted in real time to the very best job-boards on the market including our own website, and applicants and responses are imported, filtered and reviewed in seconds. Infinity even ranks the applications based on our values and pins them on a map.
We can format an original CV or LinkedIn Profile into our in-house style, attach the relevant supporting documents and have it on the client’s desk in less than a minute subject to the candidates authority. Infinity allows us to be five times faster when submitting CV’s than Voyager Professional.
Infinity – Server based or on the cloud?
Word of mouth and referrals are actually where we do best. Like many consultancies we use various online boards to source passive candidates, indeed a high proportion of CVs and profiles come to Grist from the web, typically via LinkedIn and job-boards. That said, we’re continually amazed at the high volume and poor quality of applicants. This vast volume fast became a problem.
Traditionally we’ve spent almost all our time on the web and so we figured we needed a platform that allowed us to live on the web, but continue to stick to our traditional recruitment principles, building a talent pool for the future – a central pool for the Resourcers, Consultants and Management team to share. Few industries are as fast moving as Recruitment and the pace of change is set to increase. We’re proud to have partnered with a software vendor that’s helped keep us ahead of the curve. Recruitment is all about who and what you know, Infinity allows us to fully utilise our data.
“I-Capture has changed our processes hugely, it’s light years ahead of where we were. CV’s in word and PDF are converted into in-house style candidate profiles in seconds. We’ve actually worked closely with the Voyager trainers to ensure our traditional processes are mirrored – it’s a key differentiator and we didn’t want Infinity to ‘change’ the way we work, but “support us in a smarter, more efficient way forward. Infinity has ensured we’re faster and more efficient than ever before.”
“We have secured our future with Voyager Infinity – I’d recommend Voyager to anyone serious about Recruitment.” Says Derek Pepperell
The future for Grist Legal
The implementation of Infinity will enable us to recruit a flexible workforce in the future, opening up a greater pool of talent for us to choose from.
The necessity for such large office space to incorporate consultant’s desks has gone! We can look to the future to reduce our fixed overhead cost and adopt a remote working culture.
We have been established in recruitment for over 20 years and our success is defined by the high level recruitment service we provide to clients and candidates alike. Infinity will enable us to continue to exceed our clients expectations by providing us with the most efficient and technologically advanced recruitment software system for our business, which will enable us to continue to adapt to our clients demands.
How did the migration go?
Having used Voyager Professional since the late 90’s it’s fair to say I was keen to ensure a smooth transition. Voyager Professional had served us extremely well, indeed we’d built Grist on Voyager, but Recruitment and Technology has changed, as have our clients and their requirements.
I can honestly say the migration has been superb. The project management, training and ongoing support has been exemplary, as was the data-migration services.
Top 8 Voyager features for Grist
- Infinity integrations are superb, we specifically love the social media feeds that populate candidate and client records. What better than to be presented with key fresh content and the point at which you need it?
- Office 365 Integration – All emails, sync automatically to the database for all to see, phones, outlook and Voyager are one database.
- Infinity Connect – Snapshot information on a super easy Phone App – perfect
- I-Research – Searching all job-boards and LinkedIn in one go is saving staff hours a week in admin time alone.
- I-Capture – All CV’s, Word, PDF and job applicants are automatically registered into the database.
- SaaS (Software as a Service) – We opted for the web-based deployment of Voyager Infinity. All our data is hosted in the super secure Microsoft Azure platform, no server costs, pain or downtime, always updated and back-up, always live.
- 0800 Support is as good as ever.
- The Voyager Staff Care – that’s a significant feature in today’s market (even the sales guy).
“Voyager Infinity feels like it’s been developed by a professional, full time recruiter.” Says Derek Pepperell
Our experience with Voyager
It’s clear that Voyager understands Recruitment.
Voyager reacts to the market noise, filters out the gimmicks and wizardry and have delivered us a handcrafted Recruitment CRM that engages with all staff on all devices and from any location with WiFi – it’s worth its weight in gold. Our clients are reaping the rewards of a faster, more thorough Recruitment service.
Grist Legal Recruitment was established in 2002. Our legal recruitment consultancy specialises in the placement of qualified Solicitors, up to and including Partners, Legal Executives, Paralegals, Legal Secretaries and support staff. This focus on legal recruitment, together with a comprehensive offering in the selection, recruitment and development processes enables us to provide a high-quality service to client and candidate alike.
By Derek Pepperell, Managing Director at Grist Legal
Voyager Infinity and Voyager Mid-Office are software solutions that make Recruiters’ lives easier. Voyager Infinity is a CRM used by thousands of recruiters globally to source, nurture and maintain the relationships with their clients and candidates, and Mid-Office manages the entire Pay and Bill process (IR35 ready).
