Understanding NHS Jobs
Objective
This guide is intended to provide you with an overview of how NHS Jobs has been designed for you
to use as a recruitment team member. It will give you an overview of the scope of NHS Jobs,
introduce you to some of the concepts and terminology of the service and provide some useful hints
and tips.
Overview
The NHS Jobs service has been developed collaboratively with the NHS through requirements
gathering and validation through workshops and user testing. The service provides tools and
features dedicated to help you manage the recruitment process efficiently and securely within your
organisation. Many aspects of the system can be tailored locally by system administrators.
This guide will cover the following topics:
 The scope of NHS Jobs
 Logging in
 Navigating your NHS Jobs account
 Account security
 Switching account
 The ‘My Tasks’ area
 Users, roles and permissions
 General information and good
practice
The Scope of NHS Jobs
Fig 1. Scope of NHS Jobs
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The scope of NHS Jobs has expanded considerably in response to input from the NHS. Historically it
focused primarily on placing vacancies and managing applicants through the recruitment process.
None of these key functionalities have been lost. Additional capability includes:
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Optional vacancy approvals processes
Expanded options about how and in what manner you can advertise
Expanded application management options, including flexible sifting capability
New and extended shortlisting and pre-employment checking including capability to
undertake DBS checks through the service
A new and expanded MIS and reporting suite
Workflow that can be tailored to your organisational needs.
Logging in
As a member of staff involved in recruitment you will need to access NHS Jobs as part of your duties.
In order to do this you will need an NHS Jobs account. This consists of a registered email address, a
secure password and security code. If you do not have an account, or no longer have access to the
email account for your registered email address, please contact a system administrator for further
assistance. The system administrator is a member of staff in your organisation, usually a member of
the recruitment team.
To log into NHS Jobs as a recruiter, you need to visit www.jobs.nhs.uk/employers. You will be
required to enter your registered email address, account password, and your four digit security
code.
If you have forgotten either your account password or your security code you will be able to request
a reset using the relevant links on the login page. Please note – if you forget both your account
password and your security code, you must contact a system administrator from your recruitment
team who will be able to reset your login for you.
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Navigating your NHS Jobs account
In the header of every page the system identifies:
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The employer/organisation currently logged into
Ability to change the organisation you are logged into (if your account has access to more
than one)
The user account currently in use
Information on the last login to this user account
Once logged into your account you will be presented with the NHS Jobs home page. From the home
page you are able to access all the functions associated with your role. This is done primarily via the
navigation menu buttons located down the left hand side of the pages. Wherever you are on the
site, you will be able to get back to the home page by clicking the ‘house’ image at the top of the
navigation menu.
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The primary navigation options available to you are:
‘My tasks’
Lists the tasks that you have (see below for more information)
‘Vacancies’
Lists the vacancies that you have access to and from each vacancy to the
applications submitted for it
‘Interviews’
Lists the interview events that you have access to
‘Messages’
Lists any messages sent to or received from applicants
‘Applicant finder’
Search for an applicant to your organisation using their name, email address,
application reference or other identifying terms
‘Talent pool’
Search for a previous applicant that has been identified in the talent pool for
consideration in any further recruitment
‘My preferences’
Identifies your access permissions, change defaults for your account and
change your name or password
The Vacancies page below highlights some key concepts of the design to be aware of:
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Actions buttons in lists: these buttons are green and are used
to access any of the relevant actions that can be performed on
that item at the time.
Primary actions buttons: these buttons are green and are used
to perform the primary action on a page or easily access a key
activity from a page.
Secondary actions buttons: these buttons are grey and are
used to perform actions within a page that assist you in
working on that area.
Links: these are highlighted and underlined in blue. These will
link you through to the relevant information, for example an
application form or vacancy advert.
Filter panels: where the contents of a list of items can be
filtered, you will have access to a filter panel on the right hand
side of the page.
Sort panels: where the order of the contents of a list of items
can be sorted, you will have access to a sort panel on the right
hand side of the page.
The ‘My tasks’ area
The ‘My tasks’ area will provide you with a list of any vacancies or applications where you have tasks
to take action on. Once you have completed your task it will be removed from your tasks list.
However, you can use the other navigation tools to access these vacancies and applications and
associated actions.
For ease of use, the tasks are identified with a colour coded icon based on a traffic light system as
follows:
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Tasks that are within the locally defined KPI deadline will be green.
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Those that are approaching the KPI deadline will be amber, and
Those that have passed the KPI deadline will be red.
The ‘My tasks’ page below (tasks for a recruiting manager) lists tasks to record the outcome of an
interview for the Community Staff Nurse and to review the applications for the Staff Nurse vacancy.
Switching organisation
As part of your duties you may have access to more than one organisation on NHS Jobs or may have
access to ‘secondary organisations’ that are set up under the umbrella of an existing NHS
organisation. It is not necessary to have individual logins to access each account. You follow the
steps below:
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Login with your registered email address, password and security code, and
Select which account you need to work in
Click on the ‘Switch organisation’ link in the page header, and
Select which account you need to work in and click the ‘Proceed’ button to complete the
switch to the selected account
Your permissions within each account may be different and will change automatically
depending on which account you select to work in.
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Account security
We hope that you recognise your responsibility for the security of your own and others information.
There are practical and simple things you can do to protect this, including:
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Not sharing your account details with anyone, even members of your own team
Logging out of the NHS Jobs system if you are not using it, or are leaving your desk
Not writing login details down
Keeping material you print from the system secure when not being used.
As far as the system is concerned, there are some proactive, automated features that will help in this
effort. These include:
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A rigorous user authentication system requiring password and security code
Password renewal: you will be required to change your password every six months
Automated password resets or security code reminders if you have forgotten either of these
Automated logout: after 60 minutes of inactivity, you will be logged out of your NHS Jobs
account. Inactivity means that you have not interacted with any of the navigation, links,
actions or save functions.
Users, roles and permissions
Users are the individuals within your organisation that will be using NHS Jobs to carry out one or
more recruitment activities. Most users will need to have a user account in order to be able to
access the service and carry out their tasks.
So that the system knows what each user should have access to see or do, they are assigned a ‘role’.
Roles are either pre-defined roles available to all organisations or locally created roles set up by
system administrators to support your organisation’s requirements.
Permissions define the access to each feature or sets of features that are allowed. Groups of
permissions make up a role. Additional individual permissions can be allocated to users to ‘modify’
the role they’ve been assigned.
If you do not have access to something you expect to be able to access, please contact a system
administrator for your organisation who will be able to check your role and permissions for you.
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General information and good practice
Attractive adverts
Adverts placed on NHS Jobs are often the first contact someone has with your organisation. This is
an opportunity for you to market the role and the benefits of working for you.
When a jobseeker performs a search the results displayed include a few lines of text from the advert
(three to five lines). This is your first opportunity to attract them. We would recommend you ensure
the first few lines encourage the candidate to click through to find out more about the vacancy.
There are a number of tools at your disposal to encourage job-seekers to apply. These include:
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Having informative and attractive narrative describing the role, the organisation and other
information e.g. cultural philosophy, memberships (IIP, two ticks etc.)
Attractive text, formatted and laid out in a manner that is easy to navigate
Ability to attach core additional material e.g. Job Description/Person Specification
Ability to attach other information about your organisation e.g. ‘Working for us’ literature
Ability to include links to other information sources such as your own website
Selecting the best
One of the challenges facing recruiters is finding the right candidate for the role. For any given role
many applications may be submitted. This can seem an overwhelming scenario and actions to limit
the number of applications suddenly seem very attractive. We would advise against this as you may
miss out on the best candidate. NHS Jobs offers tools to help you easily identify the best
applications for your positions. Becoming familiar with these tools will give you greater confidence
that you can add further value to your organisation by not only finding a suitable candidate, but an
excellent candidate.
Terms of use and legal obligations
Your use of the NHS Jobs service is bound by the Acceptable Use Policy for NHS Jobs, which can be
found under the ‘Terms’ link from any page of the site. If there are any changes to the terms of use,
when you login to your account you will be prompted to read and accept the revised terms, before
continuing to your home page.
It is important to remember that you are obliged to ensure all vacancies you publish through NHS
Jobs comply with UK and European Community law, including anti-discrimination legislation, and
local policies and procedures instituted by your organisation.
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