Students can't apply for jobs through NHS site
Final year students are prevented from applying for jobs through NHS website.
Advertising on the NHS jobs website may be inadvertently excluding graduates from applying, the SoR has revealed. The site’s search engine does not currently allow final year students to seek employment before they graduate.
Pre-application criteria is set so that students who have not yet received their degrees, and therefore not yet eligible for registration with the HPC, are prevented from applying. Potential applicants are unable to identify themselves as students about to graduate, so cannot proceed further.
Richard Evans, SoR CEO explains: “Final year students often seek employment months ahead of graduating and equally many managers will be hoping to attract them for vacancies. As it stands the NHS system prevents this, so everyone loses out.”
The SoR has proposed that NHS Employers change the application criteria so students can be identified and submit applications for junior roles, but NHS Employers says its hands are tied. Spokesperson Foluke Ajayi said: “I am not sure that implementing the changes suggested is going to make much of a difference as employers ultimately decide which answers will enable applicants to proceed to complete the application form. That said, the NHS Jobs team will follow through and test the suggestion with employers.
“Another consideration is for SoR to work with their members on this. Given that most (if not all) radiography managers will be involved in the recruitment process into roles suitable for receiving applications from ‘nearly qualified’ students, then they should be advising on pre- application criteria required.”
Richard Evans agrees that managers should be made aware of the problem, but says more should be done: “The fact that the system does not allow final year students to apply for jobs is outrageous. “Managers that continue to use the NHS Jobs site should bear these points in mind when they set the application criteria if they hope to attract graduates. Of course, it is possible to avoid the difficulties entirely by advertising on the SoR recruitment site.”
Have you experienced problems when advertising with NHS Employers online? The SoR is collecting feedback to help build a case for changing the system.
Posted: 29/02/2008
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