- Industry
- Recruitment
- Category
- Custom Software
- Status
- Phase 2 in progress
The Challenge
Placing IT professionals into government and regulated businesses meant handling sensitive candidate and compliance documents — but those documents were scattered across paper files and unstructured Office documents with no single source of truth. Teams couldn't share records without re-emailing and re-typing, internal systems had no way to access documents programmatically, and for government-facing work the firm couldn't demonstrate where regulated data lived or who controlled it.
Our Approach
We built a custom document management system rather than adopting an off-the-shelf DMS, because for compliance-sensitive, government-facing engagements the client needed to fully own their data with no third-party lock-in.
A flexible labeling model
Every document can be richly tagged and filtered across multiple dimensions, rather than forced into a rigid folder hierarchy.
An API-first document store
The whole store is exposed through a clean, documented API, so the firm's own systems — including their in-house ATS — can read and write documents programmatically.
Infrastructure the client controls
Delivered on a React, Express, and MongoDB stack running on the client's own AWS infrastructure, keeping data ownership firmly in their hands.
Outcome & Impact
- Replaced paper and siloed files with a single labeled document store — records now flow across recruitment, compliance, and delivery teams without manual re-entry.
- Cut document retrieval from minutes of manual searching to seconds through structured labeling and search.
- The compliance team can now demonstrate to government clients exactly where regulated data sits and who controls it — a requirement that previously relied on verbal assurances.
What Changed
| Feature | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Document storage | Scattered across paper, email, and individual Office documents | A single labeled document store — one source of truth |
| Cross-team access | Manual re-emailing and re-typing between teams | Every team works from the same record |
| Retrieval | Minutes of searching through folders and inboxes | Seconds, via structured labeling and search |
| System integration | No programmatic access — everything manual | Documented API for internal systems such as the ATS |
| Data ownership | Unclear — split across local storage, email, and third-party tools | Fully owned, on client-controlled AWS infrastructure |
| Labeling and filtering | Folder-based at best — rigid and hard to cross-reference | Flexible labels, filtered across multiple dimensions |
| Vendor dependency | Fragmented across whatever tool each team chose | Vendor-independent, with no third-party DMS lock-in |
Tech Used
- React
- Express
- MongoDB
- AWS
Status
Phase 1 delivered and in active use. We're currently engaged on Phase 2, expanding the platform with additional document management capabilities and a desktop application as adoption grows across teams.