Radiography managers advertising posts on the NHS jobs website may be
inadvertently excluding graduates from applying, the SoR has revealed.
The search engine on the site does not currently allow final year students to begin seeking employment before they graduate.
The pre-application criteria is set so that students who have not yet
received their degrees and therefore are not yet eligible for
registration with the HPC are prevented from applying. There is no way
for applicants to identify themselves as a student that will be
graduating shortly, so they are unable to 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 indentified 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.
