Hirescores Case Study

Background
HireScores.com is a unique online community, recruitment agency directory and information source for all things to do with recruitment and working which brings together candidates, employers and recruiters. Its main feature is that it collects and shares feedback on recruiters. It also facilitates 360 degree feedback in the recruitment area, and hosts a Forum.

Our Challenge
HireScores.com was initially developed on a domino platform and did not function effectively as a website and was non accessibility compliant and somewhat clunky. Web Hires Limited asked us to "sort it all out" and "build a site with all the current functionality and all the missing functions as well". Our challenge was therefore to develop a site design, architecture and database and content management system that would meet the detailed client specification. Ensuring SEO effectiveness was also critical since this would contribute to the high levels of traffic required to make the site a success. Speed of operation and functionality were two of the critical success factors defined by the client. Users were to have a consistently high quality experience, navigate around the site with ease and be able to carry out a huge range of tasks. Being a community site it was also important that it was fully compliant to the latest standards for accesability and search engine optimisation purposes

The Outcome
Working to a 35 page specification [plus some appendices and other information] we developed the site within 3 months including a comprehensive database and content management system. The site was developed using XHTML/CSS compliant code - SEO - JAVA - and PHP/ mysql database technology

Testimonial
Lisette Howlett, MD Web Hires Limited (who own the HireScores.com site) said "We were absolutely delighted and continue to be very glad that we picked Creospace to develop our site. This is a great example of true business partnership. Creospace are responsive, offer constructive suggestions, are flexible and customer focused but at the same time have the confidence to make counter proposals and suggestions for improvements. When developing a site, especially one as complex as HireScores.com, a bit of give and take is necessary; Creospace added in some features that were omitted from the brief because 'they made sense' checking first with me of course and in return we were delighted to simplify a couple of things which retained functionality but reduced coding complexity. We had a minimal number of snags after going live - remarkable given the size and complexity of the site - and these were dealt with very quickly and with no fuss - a real treat. One of the things I particularly value working with them (in addition to the normal stuff like high quality work, good design, strong architecture and database skills) is the no hassle approach - if something did not quite look right to me they were happy to keep at it until I was totally satisfied - demonstrating a real pride in their work and a great customer orientation. For non techies like me it is this attention to detail that makes the difference between an acceptable result and fantastic one. I really do love the site - and working on it (which I spend a lot of time doing) frequently get a sense of real joy - it just works so well, looks so nice, is so perfect. We are about to embark on the next phase of development - only a 34 page brief this time - and I am clearly looking forward to the outcome, but also the development journey"