Jobsite awarded NHS e-recruitment contract

As the largest project of its kind to date Jobsite in partnership with Methods, a business and IT consultancy will deliver e-recruitment services for the Department of Health to all participating NHS employers in England, including hosting and support of a complete online recruitment website, provision of service helpdesk, employer training, and candidate attraction marketing support.

With over one million staff in England and general running costs of 50 billion a year, the NHS is expected to make much needed savings to its recruitment spend by offering the new online service - particularly cutting down on HR costs for advertising and administration.

The pilot phase for the project will be operating between December 2003 and February 2004, following customisation to NHS-specific requirements. It will be run in specific targeted areas to provide the best opportunity to match jobs advertised with potential candidates for the employers involved in the pilot.

The national rollout is scheduled for Spring 2004, following an evaluation of the pilot phase.

Keith Potts, Jobsite managing director, comments: ìThis is fantastic news for Jobsite and truly reinforces our market leading position. Everyone here is absolutely delighted and honoured to be part of the development team for this new service for the NHS.
ìThe combined experience of Jobsite together with Methods will be able to save an enormous amount of time, and money for the NHS.

ìThe savings will be significant in terms of advertising costs, HR administrative costs and general staffing costs for the recruitment of all grades and types of staff in the NHS over the coming years.î


The new national job site will complement the existing NHS Careers service and link to local NHS employersí sites ñ making it possible to recruit for local vacancies through national advertising campaigns.

The new e-recruitment service will develop alongside other NHS developments using electronic business processes, particularly NHS Professionals and NHSU. The service will ultimately link into the Electronic Staff Record as the national access point for electronic applications into the ESR system.

Centrally funded for the first five years, NHS employers who sign up to the service will be required to account for cash saved due to reduced temporary staffing, advertising and administration costs. Extra income generated by the service can be reallocated within the employersí local NHS organisation.

Benefits for employers include a greater choice of applicants, more resource-efficient recruitment and better information for managers enabling them to make well-informed decisions. Employers will be able to compose and place advertisements - with attached candidate information packs - directly on the web site, view and manage online applications, and record information on electronic recruitment activity.

Amongst the expected benefits to employees are a single ëshop windowí to access information about NHS jobs, a wider range of jobs to choose from, application tracking, daily e-mail alerts of new suitable vacancies, the use of a job search facility with multiple criteria and the possibility to complete a single application form for more than one job.