Award-winning law firm TLT needed to power up their recruitment tech to meet the demands of their future growth ambitions. They also wanted to provide a candidate-centric

experience that aligned with their EVP and company culture.

Improving the hiring process for recruiters and candidates? Heck, this was our kind of gig.

Time for an upgrade 

TLT’s internal recruitment team have a lot to do, hiring across permanent, partner, graduate/early careers and contractor candidates. And their current tech was no longer cutting it for their rapidly growing business. Yes, they had an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) and Contractor Management System (CMS) but both came with limited capabilities, couldn’t be integrated and lacked the flex to be configured as TLT scaled. Add to that too much time-consuming manual work – and the data control headache that comes with it – and it was time for a serious tech upgrade. 

Customisation with care

What TLT needed was a beautifully built single centralised system. A fully integrated, secure platform that would keep all things recruitment in one place for everyone to use, while also giving the candidates a great onboarding experience And by George, we gave it to them. But not before we spent considerable time getting to know TLT’s recruitment process and their unique needs as a legal firm. Because understanding the client’s challenges and business goals is the key to a project’s success. 

Go big or go home (we went big)

When it comes to custom builds, we don’t mess around. TLT needed us to pack a lot into their new super-duper platform – and we were happy to oblige. Here’s what we created:

• a new ATS with customised vacancy approval
• a built-from scratch Contractor Management System (CMS)
• a bespoke Applicant Onboarding System (AOS)
• a custom Candidate Relationship Management (CRM) system 
• a Hiring Manager portal
• a PSL portal
• new Search & Apply pages for the careers site

Our secret CRM vault 

TLT has a team of recruiters dedicated to partner hires. It’s obviously an area of business that requires extreme confidentiality.

That’s where HARBOUR came in.

We built a Candidate Relationship (CRM) system that allowed details on high-potential hires to be uploaded, searched and stored in a secret area for permitted users only. And by defining and determining user permissions, we ensured only partner recruiters could access information on partner candidates within the ATS itself.

For the first time, TLT now have all their market insight from searches, market mapping and referrals in one place. As for administrative tasks – with all-new automation, their recruiters can spend time on value-added work.

A new way of onboarding

As a legal firm, TLT had a particular onboarding challenge. Candidates might arrive through their vacation scheme, be offered a training contract then a few years down the line be given a full time offer of employment. Effectively, TLT’s future hires were coming to onboarding multiple times at different stages and being onboarded over an extended period of time.

So, how could that be managed?

Well, we created a holding hub to nurture candidates as they progressed through TLT’s recruitment pathway. Within the hub we established individual work flows for each point of entry, with customised content and relevant templated contracts. 

Candidates can now be kept warm with regular communication and blog posts keeping them up to date with the latest TLT news while they go through post-grad education, and TLT’s recruiters can breathe a sigh of relief that everything’s automated, trackable and reportable.

Does automation save time? YES!

By integrating Harbour’s ATS with TLT’s payroll system, we’ve reduced manual payroll re-keying work by 100%!

Portal power 

We’ve built Hiring Manager portals before, but it was a totally new concept for TLT. We don’t think it’s overstating things to say, they are very happy with their new system! 

Hiring managers have direct access to raise vacancies, view candidate CVs and can arrange interviews and track vacancy progress, all at the touch of a button. And to make life even better, we created a separate but interlinked system so managers can also keep on top of contractor hires.

It's a win...

• Over 300 managers with new personalised hiring portals
• Over 8,000 candidate applications handled with  recruiters and managers able to shortlist or decline through the system
• Over 2500 contractor timesheets submitted online

  A rather chuffed client...

‘Working with HARBOUR meant we could tailor each process and workflow more than any other supplier would’ve allowed us to do. This wasn’t a bog-standard out-of-the-box solution with limited scope for modifications. The project team did a huge amount of bespoke work to either build something from scratch or to amend and adapt existing functionality. What we ended up with was something totally unique in legal recruitment.’

Pam Hasson, head of recruitment at TLT