Cornell University

Background

Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations (ILR) founded the Criminal Justice and Employment Initiative (CJEI) to provide training and support to job seekers who were involved in the criminal legal system, help employers rethink hiring practices, and influence criminal justice reform. Their belief in the power of technology to mitigate exclusionary hiring practices led to the creation of Restorative Record, a digital hiring tool to help justice-impacted candidates highlight rehabilitative efforts in job applications.

Using Cornell as its pilot case meant Restorative Record would need to be embedded within preexisting systems and developed to immediately scale to the hiring needs of Cornell’s seven schools. CJEI’s existing team did not have the expertise in technical architecture or the development resources needed to build and integrate an enterprise-grade application within their limited time and budget.

Gigster's Approach

CJEI came to Gigster to develop Restorative Record and integrate it with Cornell’s existing systems. Gigster provided:

• Technical Architecture: Gigster built an enterprise-grade plan and technical architecture documenting everything necessary to gain support from Cornell’s various departments and vendors.
• Enterprise Expertise: Gigster’s team brought expertise in developing enterprise applications at scale. 
• Accelerated Development: An elastic development team was assembled in days and weekly sprints planned to meet CJEI’s tight deadlines.

“The expertise was there, we were able to assemble a team with the exact requirements that we needed, and we were able to build an enterprise-grade application that our other partners were not up to the task.” - Jodi Anderson Jr., Director of Technological Innovation at CJEI

Results

• Gigster delivered a completed beta version of Restorative Record in two months and embedded the tool within preexisting hiring systems like Workday
• CJEI’s new hiring tool helps employers see applicant’s rehabilitation efforts such as community service, education, and micro-credentials to help improve fair-chance hiring
• Restorative Record’s beta stage is currently open to justice-impacted candidates and fair-chance employees and is collecting feedback for further features and improvements

"Here we are building something truly innovative, and the pace of development is matching that."  - Jodi Anderson Jr., Director of Technological Innovation at CJEI