VG Charles & Co: From Job Board to Legal Recruitment Platform

The brief

VG Charles works on the relationships between lawyers and law firms: qualified recruitment, retained search, and practice mergers and acquisitions. The website had to carry that reputation, and it had three practical jobs to do.

• Look the part. The old site was built from a general-purpose job-board theme and a page builder. The firm wanted something that felt like a specialist search practice, with its black-and-red brand and its people at the front.
• Keep vacancies in step with the CRM. Live roles are managed in the firm's recruitment CRM, so the website needed to follow it without anyone re-typing a job.
• Give candidates a reason to return. A candidate who applies for one role is often right for the next. The new site needed accounts, stored CVs, job alerts and a way to follow an application.

What we built

The project became three things on one platform: the public website, an admin where staff run the content, jobs, applications and candidates, and a portal where candidates manage their own CVs, alerts and applications.

• A job feed that runs itself. The CRM uploads its export and the website catches up on its own. New roles go live, filled roles close and relisted roles reopen. An export that would close more than half of the live roles is held back for a person to check.
• Job alerts candidates control. Candidates choose practice areas, locations and keywords, and how often they hear from the firm. Every new role reaches the people most likely to want it, without anyone sending a mailshot.
• Applications that reach the right consultant. The consultant named on a CRM vacancy is matched to their profile, so applications go straight to them. The whole team works from one pipeline instead of an inbox.
• A candidate portal. Candidates can store up to five CVs, save jobs and follow their applications. CVs are never public, and deleting an account erases the candidate's data.
• Content the team runs themselves. Staff edit the home page, service pages, articles and team profiles without waiting on a developer. Roles for admins, editors and recruiters mean each person sees only what they need.

Moving the domain without starting again

The switch to the new site was a change of address, not a fresh start. We moved the WordPress pages, articles, team profiles and images across, then checked the old site's addresses against the public web archive. 75 addresses that no longer existed now redirect to their closest new page, so old links and bookmarks still lead somewhere sensible.

Website emails are sent from vgcharles.com and pass SPF, DKIM and DMARC checks, with no change to the firm's Microsoft 365 mail.

What the firm has now

• A website that looks like a specialist legal search firm, with its people and practice areas at the centre
• Vacancies that keep themselves up to date from the CRM
• Every application routed to the right consultant and tracked through one pipeline
• A candidate portal with stored CVs, job alerts and application tracking
• A site the team edits themselves
• A domain move that kept the old site's links working

Could this work for your business?

The same approach fits any business whose website has to stay in step with a system it doesn't control. If your CRM, ERP or stock system can export a file, it can keep your website current. Enquiries can go straight to the person responsible, and saved searches and alerts can turn one visit into a relationship.