It is important for all employers to implement changes to the National Minimum Wage and National Living Wage from April 2020. Easily forgotten though, there is something else to do. It’s time to check the salaries on your advertised vacancies and make any necessary changes.
Among other job boards, our customers post adverts to GOV Find a Job via CVMinder ATS. It is very important to update these adverts in line with changes to the National Minimum Wage and National Living Wage. Some job boards may exclude your adverts from their search results if you don’t. Thankfully, CVMinder ATS customers can update their adverts in just one system. CVMinder ATS will update each external advert for you with its one-click MultiPost feature.
When checking and changing salaries try to review 3 areas of your CVMinder ATS advert:
Salary range, expressed as the ‘from’ and ‘to’ fields
Salary description field
Advert body (all 3 sections)
Some employers like to state the salary and benefits within the main body of their adverts. We mention it because it’s easy to overlook this area when making changes.
Rates
The rates for the National Minimum Wage and National Living Wage are as follows:
Year
25 +
21 to 24
18 to 20
< 18
Apprentice
Apr 2019
£8.21
£7.70
£6.15
£4.35
£3.90
Apr 2020
£8.72
£8.20
£6.45
£4.55
£4.15
National Minimum Wage & National Living Wage Eligibility
Across the UK, workers must be at least 16 to qualify for the National Minimum Wage. Actually, 16 is a simplification of the school leaving age. This changes by UK region and month of birth. Check out more details on the GOV website; school leaving age.
A worker must be 25 or over to qualify for the National Living Wage.
‘Worker’ is a broad term and doesn’t cover areas like volunteering or the armed services. You should be aware that workers are entitled to the correct minimum wage, even if they are:
workers or homeworkers paid by the number of items they make
trainees or workers on probation
foreign workers
More about the National Minimum Wage and National Living Wage
CVMinder ATS makes recruiting easy for employers. Shed up to 90% of your recruitment administration and share everything securely in one system. CVMinder ATS takes you from vacancy advertising through candidate shortlisting and all the way through to on-boarding. It’s perfect for Care Providers and Education customers with great features to support compliant, fair recruiting practices.
Welcome to our series on making recruiting easy. We try to answer the most common questions from HR and internal recruiters. The series covers recruitment process, technology and regulation. Up next: free job posting sites for employers.
The great news is that free job posting sites / free job boards do exist. Employers can use them today, but the big question is whether free job advertising works. We take a look at which free job boards and job sites are best by comparing them.
We’ll be taking a look at the following free job posting sites and options:
Free job adverts are a great way to save money, just so long as jobseekers can find them and apply for your jobs. To compare free job advertising options fairly, we used the same criteria for each one:
Criteria
Measured As
Discovery
Appearance in job search results
Job types
Support for job types such as permanent, contract, etc.
Vacancies
The number of jobs advertised across the UK
Ease of use
Posting and application process
Unique features
Any that have merit
Discovery – finding a free job board in search results
Most jobseekers start with an in internet search, so that’s where we started. We tested whether each job board appeared in our search results.by using the same search terms on two popular search engines; Google and Bing. We checked the results to find out where each free job board appeared in the results. Our search terms included:
“Jobs”
“Recruiter jobs in London”
“HR Jobs”
“Care jobs”
During our tests, some job boards appeared only occasionally on page one of the results. That is because some were paying for visibility and clicks. For fairness we measured only natural search results and eliminated all paid results from our tests. That is because individual job board adverts may be short-lived or outcompeted over time.
GOV Find a Job
Universal JobMatch was updated in 2018 to become GOV Find a Job. It is one of the most widely used free job posting sites and it is used by employers and agents alike. GOV Find a Job is owned by the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP).
A great feature of Find a Job is that every employer is approved by the DWP before their jobs can be made available in search results. That’s good news for an industry that suffers from a good deal of spam advertising.
GOV Find a Job is easy to use, well governed and allows employers to redirect applicants to their own application forms. It also supports automatic upload from a supporting Applicant Tracking System. It fares quit well in search results and has a significant number of job postings.
Criteria
Result
Google Search
Fair
Bing Search
Excellent
Job Types
Fair
Vacancies
Good (200,000 +)
Ease of Use
Good
Uniques
Disability Confident employers get kitemark
Indeed
Indeed has remained one of the best free job posting sites for employers since it first came to market. It supports 2 types of job listing; organic and sponsored. The organic job postings are Indeed’s free option.
A free job posting on Indeed declines in search results more quickly than sponsored jobs postings. However, optimising adverts is a good way to gain quick wins from any free job posting. Employers get some great results and most have successfully recruited new employees using free adverts alone.
Indeed may be successful because it performs well in internet search results. Most jobseekers have heard of Indeed and many have used it for job searches.
Criteria
Result
Google Search
Excellent
Bing Search
Excellent
Job Types
Excellent
Vacancies
Excellent (700,000 +)
Ease of Use
Good
Uniques
None
Google for Jobs
Google for Jobs is the newer kid on the block. We have included it in this review even though it isn’t a traditional job board. Other job boards allow employers to post and manage their adverts, but Google for Jobs is different.
Google collects jobs from lots of websites and aggregates them all in one, convenient online space for jobseekers. Each job on Google for Jobs must therefore exist elsewhere and it must conform to a set of rules. Those rules include the addition of structured data to the job and the inclusion of an application form.
The best Applicant Tracking Systems notify Google when a new job is advertised. That shortens the time it takes to place a free advert on Google for Jobs.
Google for Jobs is an increasingly important option for employers. It remains high on search results for jobseekers and it is mobile friendly. Whilst Bing users may not find Google for jobs easily, there are more Googlers than Bingers.
Criteria
Result
Google Search
Excellent
Bing Search
Poor
Job Types
Good
Vacancies
Unknown
Ease of Use
Determined by destination URL
Uniques
Owned by Google
Adzuna
Adzuna lets you post job adverts and receive applications for free. It also supports sponsored advertising. If you do sponsor your job adverts, Adzuna claims to publish them to over 100 job sites.
In our experience, Adzuna is a useful free advertising option, but applicant numbers can be low if you don’t pay to sponsor them. To their credit, Adzuna doesn’t try to hide this in any way. The benefit of posting might be small, but a suitable Applicant Tracking System (ATS) should post your vacancies to Adzuna automatically. If you have an ATS that posts to Adzuna you should use it. It takes no effort with an ATS and your next great hire could potentially come from Adzuna.
One point to note with Adzuna is that it may choose to upload your vacancies to LinkedIn. Depending upon the type of vacancy, this can prove valuable in attracting more applicants.
Criteria
Result
Google Search
Fair
Bing Search
Fair
Job Types
Good
Vacancies
Unknown
Ease of Use
Easy
Uniques
Potential LinkedIn repost
LinkedIn
LinkedIn is owned by Microsoft. Keep that in mind as you review the search results for Bing, Microsoft’s search engine, versus Google.
The LinkedIn job posting section operates on a pay per click (PPC) basis. Post your job for free then set a budget to stay in control of overall spend. However, you can post a direct link to your job in company pages or discussion forums. Posting in this way might not achieve the visibility of a formal LinkedIn job, but it’s free.
Our measure of Bing and Google search results reflect the formal job postings on LinkedIn. Search results don’t recognise posts on discussion forums.
Criteria
Result
Google Search
Fair
Bing Search
Excellent
Job Types
Excellent
Vacancies
Excellent (700,000+)
Ease of Use
Easy
Uniques
None
talent.com
talent.com is a useful and increasingly popular free job board option for employers. With millions of unique monthly visitors and options for sponsored and free job postings, it’s one to watch.
Criteria
Result
Google Search
Poor
Bing Search
Poor
Job Types
Fair
Vacancies
Unknown
Ease of Use
Good
Uniques
None
Your Website
Our website is our shop window. Using Google Console and Bing Webmaster helps to identify who visits, how long they stay, the pages they read and so on. With most of our focus on selling our products and services, it’s easy to forget that our website is a key resource for attracting new candidates too.
We should all have a careers section on our website that is easy to identify and access. Try to make sure that every job is current and that each one reflects just a single vacancy. The advert title “Carers required” is less trusted than “Carer” among jobseekers. Allow people to apply for your vacancies online and with any device. All of this is easily achieved with an Applicant Tracking System.
Social Media
Using Social Media is free and can be effective if you have active followers. Try to make sure that new vacancies are published with #job, #jobs, #hiring or similar. Offer a few lines about your vacancy and a link to a page with the full advert and an application form. Again, a good Applicant Tracking System should help you with this.
Conclusion
Each of the free job boards we reviewed has genuine merit. The consistent top pick is Indeed. It is prominent in search results when looking for jobs and Indeed’s free job posting option delivers results.
Posting your job adverts to all of the available free job boards is a worthwhile strategy. The issue for most employers is time.
You should also include Google for Jobs. However, free job advertising here is most easily accessed via an ATS. That is because Google for Jobs does not support posting free job adverts by hand.
It is easy and fast to Post your jobs everywhere with a multipost solution. MultiPost allows you to write an advert once then automatically post it to a number of sites, including free job boards. After all, your next great employee could come from a free job posting on any site that can be discovered by applicants. You won’t want to miss out.
Want to know more?
Customers agree that CVMinder ATS is the best Applicant Tracking System for saving time and reducing recruiting fees. With multipost included, you can reach further to recruit faster and smarter than your competitors. If you want to know more about CVMinder ATS or any of the free advertising options in this article, contact us now.
To recruit more efficiently we must reduce recruiting costs and improve hiring results at the same time. To spend less and achieve more is difficult without some level of automation and an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) could be the perfect solution. However, a bewildering set of features can lead any regulated employer such as a Care Provider, School or College to easily overlook some of the options that matter the most. Here, we cover 3 ATS essentials that regulated employers are advised to consider before purchasing an Applicant Tracking System.
Find an ATS for employers
An Applicant Tracking System can be an great recruitment aid. It does lots of heavy lifting for you, but not every ATS is made to meet employer requirements. Most are built with recruitment companies in mind and very few are made for regulated employers.
A recruiter’s ATS helps to attract and deliver applicants to their customers for their consideration. However, employers distribute the correct details to the right staff members for shortlisting and manage the rest of the recruitment process through to start date.
Regulated employers disassemble then share only certain information with line managers. HR officers may try to implement fair and consistent shortlisting by removing disability, criminal conviction, ethnicity, age, name and other personal information, for instance.
Some employers like Care providers and Schools use application forms. Using a comprehensive application form can help employers avoid CV submissions altogether and stick to the details they need.
Some employers have gone further; they score applicants to protect against accidental prejudice or favouritism.
Comparing an ATS for recruitment companies with an ATS for employers reveals quite a few differences. So, let’s get into the 3 ATS essentials for regulated employers. They should help you to avoid purchasing the wrong type of Applicant Tracking System.
ATS Essentials 1: Application Forms
Application forms help regulated employers to request and receive all of the information they need to support a job application. That information can include:
Personal details
Working history with any gap explanations
Education history, including professional qualifications
Personal statement
Disability information to prepare any necessary adjustments
Declaration of any personal relationship with a staff member
Criminal conviction information
Referee contact details
Any questions that are specific to the advertised vacancy
Declarations and Consents for GDPR purposes
Receiving consistent information from all applicants makes recruitment fairer and safer. It is well known that CVs can highlight good points and omit the not so good. Regulators like Ofsted advise that application forms help to avoid selective omissions by the applicant.
ATS Buying Advice: Look out for an ATS that gives you electronic application forms to suit your recruitment model. Truly flexible systems will give you the option of using electronic application forms because they can be completed online using a PC, Apple Mac, tablet or smartphone, all without additional technology. Some Applicant Tracking Systems will also allow you to deliver Microsoft Word documents to applicants so that they can complete and return them online. A few support both approaches in combination.
ATS Essentials 2: Information Sharing
During candidate shortlisting, some personal details should remain unavailable to people who are taking hiring decisions. Some of that information may be sensitive or could lead to unconscious bias during the selection process. Such information may include:
Name
Age
Gender
Contact information, should HR feel that it is open to abuse
Criminal convictions
Disability
ATS Buying Advice: Look out for an employer ATS that gives you control over the information that remains visible to hiring managers during shortlisting.
ATS Essential 3: Shortlisting Approach
The NSPCC advises that shortlisting should be carried out by at least 2 people. Following this guidance helps employers to confidently comply with fair recruitment practices. More and more employers are trying to remove unconscious bias from their recruitment process. It seems that two people are less likely to demonstrate equal bias when shortlisting. Further, safeguarding is always a concern for employers like Schools and Care Providers. All applicants must be properly scrutinised and two sets of eyes are better than one. Check out the safer recruitment guidance from the NSPCC to find out more.
ATS Buying Advice: Look out for an employer ATS that supports shortlisting with one or more managers. It’s a good idea to consider the following:
Flexible shortlist criteria: So that the scheme or criteria can change from job to to job.
Scoring scheme: to show which candidates are more suitable.
Audit: So that completion and scores can be reviewed centrally to defend the final selection.
ATS Essentials: Summary
There are differences in the way recruitment companies and employers manage recruitment. Recruiters find jobseekers to present to employers. Employers must manage a robust selection process and that process must consider:
fair recruitment practices and selection
safer recruitment
Applicant Tracking Systems are purpose built for recruiters or for employers. Very few Applicant Tracking Systems are made for regulated employers.
Try to think about the way you recruit and consider which type of ATS you should be looking for. Check out our ATS Buyer’s Guide if you are considering purchasing an Applicant Tracking System
Want to now more?
CVMinder ATS is an Applicant Tracking System for employers. It has lots of features to support regulated organisations so it’s a great choice for Schools and Care Providers for instance.
Small care providers must compete with larger care providers when advertising their care vacancies. Bigger care providers have marketing muscle, HR departments, recruiting systems and advertising budgets. Some even have dedicated internal recruiters.
With fewer resources, less time and smaller budgets, how can a small care provider compete and recruit successfully?
This article offers a few important recruiting tips to help small care providers succeed on a budget.
Care Jobs
Care jobs are varied, rewarding and important, but salaries are low by national standards and care jobs can be misunderstood.
When advertising care vacancies, the basics really matter. Our recruiting tips for small care providers will help you to recruit more successfully and hire great people. We cover:
How to advertise
Where to advertise
How to respond to job applications
Recruiting Tips 1: How to Advertise
It’s time to make job advertising your personal battleground, because advertising is where you can win.
Jobseekers don’t read your job advert
Is your mailbox is full of irrelevant job applications? If so, it may be the case that:
jobseekers are applying without reading your advert,
your advert describes your company rather than the job, or
you’re making it too easy to apply for your vacancy.
Before reading you job advert in full, people want:
A short summary that confirms the job is the right type of job for them
An indication of where the job is located
The working hours and salary.
Make it easy to find this information. It is good practice to summarise what you are looking for in your first paragraph and confirm the job title in the first sentence.
Example first paragraph of a Care Worker job advert “We are looking for a Care Worker to support our elderly customers in their own homes within the Crawley area. Our customers have very individual care requirements and we like our Care Workers to get to know our customers well . You’ll be helping them to lead full and independent lives by assisting with meal preparation, taking medication and getting ready for bed, among many other duties. Shift patterns are flexible and we’ll give you all the training you need.”
Bring your job to life
Your next challenge is to describe the role in full and make it come to life for jobseekers. Help them to visualise their new role. Try to pack your job description with lost of detail:
Who will they be caring for?
What sort of activities will they be performing?
What will their own team be like and what are the unique challenges of the role?
Who will they report to and what is their manager’s ambition for the company and its services?
Make it easy to find the details they want
Use headings and bullet points to help jobseekers scan and qualify your vacancy in just a few seconds. Easy qualification increases the prospects of your advert being read in full by the right candidates. For a Support Worker job, your headings could include:
The Role of Support Worker
Education and Experience required to be our Support Worker
Support Worker Remuneration
Location and our Care Company
Our Recruitment Process
Use the singular
Try to use advert titles that are singular and not plural, like “Care Worker” rather than “Care Workers”. Advert titles like “Care Workers wanted” are less trusted than a plain job title. If that advert is on a long advertising cycle people might start to question whether you ever hire anyone.
Job boards also prefer the singular job title. Some job boards, like Indeed, might also ignore your advert in search results. That’s because forever open vacancies titled in the pleural appear to be fishing and less likely to be genuine.
Location with benefits
Care sector workers prefer jobs in their locale, but your specific site location might have benefits. Perhaps shops are nearby, you work in air-conditioned offices or you have on-site parking that makes it easy to drop in and out. If you can find a benefit, it’s a good idea to mention it.
Optimise, optimise
Optimise your job adverts to increase the number of people who can find them.
Let’s make sure that people can find your advert on any job board. Try repeating the job title a few times throughout your advert. For every 350 words, consider typing the job title 3 or 4 times. By doing this, job boards might push your advert further up their search results.
Did you know that you can advertise Care Jobs for free? Your key
resources are:
Indeed
GOV Find a Job
Google for Jobs
Adzuna
Your website and Social Media
Your free job boards
According to our research, Indeed is the biggest provider of care job applications. The great news for you is that Indeed allows all UK employers to advertise their vacancies for free. They call their free job postings, organic job listings. Indeed also allows you to sponsor your adverts. By paying to sponsor your Indeed job adverts, they will stay higher in search results for longer.
GOV Find a Job was Universal JobMatch. You can post jobs for free and it’s very active for Care vacancies. If you want to see the numbers just follow the link.
Google for Jobs is free, but it’s not a job board in the conventional sense. If you follow the link you’ll see Google for Jobs at the top of the search results. Posting jobs manually is not possible. Instead google fetches your jobs from your website and presents them to jobseekers. You will need an Applicant Tracking System to do that for you or you can develop two key additions to your careers page:
The structured job data that Google requires and
An application form for your job.
Adzuna is a useful job board too. It might not be a go-to jobsite for care workers, but jobseekers could be attracted by Adzuna’s occasional re-posts on LinkedIn.
Advertise jobs on your website and social media
Your own website is a valuable advertising option, so keeping it updated with current vacancies is essential. Some people don’t trust job boards with their details because they know that their current employer or other recruiters might have access to it. Instead, some prefer to apply directly on your website, so try to offer an electronic application form. A good Applicant Tracking System for care providers can make posting jobs and receiving applicants really easy for you.
Social Media is free and easy to use. Place your job on twitter and other locations. You just never know who might see it. Again, jobseekers may benefit from a application form on your website. We all want to avoid losing people just as quickly as we find them.
Recruiting Tips 3: How to respond
Good people don’t hang around for long, so speeeeeed is name of the game. Our advice is to organise some standard messages so you can communicate quickly with your best applicants. If you do everything by email, Microsoft can help you with that. Create some templates on Outlook by following these steps:
Create
a new email by completing the subject and body
Select
File > Save As
For
‘Save as Type’, choose Outlook Template
Give
it a filename and save.
Try telling good applicants that you like their details just as quickly as you can. Politely declining all the applicants who you won’t interview will be appreciated (honest) and your brand is at stake if you don’t. You might also want some people to return in future when they have more experience or qualifications.
We do understand that when it gets busy, managing communication with lots of applicants can be overwhelming. So, when your recruitment admin grows, you might want to consider an online Applicant Tracking System (ATS) for Care. That will help you to post jobs everywhere, speed through shortlisting and communicate with everyone quickly. Imagine recruiting with 90% less effort.
Recruiting tips summary
Our essential recruiting tips for small care providers are all about the basics. That’s because getting the basics right will help you attract higher quality job applications and stay ahead of your competitors.
If time is short and you feel that you’re missing out on key candidates, try an Applicant Tracking System for Care. CVMinder ATS is low cost, manages the whole recruitment process and saves lots and lots of time.
You experiences, comments and suggestions
If you’re recruiting for a smaller care provider, why not tell us about your own experiences? We’d also love to hear from you if you have any other recruiting tips for smaller care providers.
Like our advice? Why not give it a thumbs up and share? Many thanks in advance for taking the time.
Welcome to Recruiting Made Easy. In this series, we answer the questions that HR and internal recruiters ask most often. The series covers recruiting processes, tech and regulation. Up next: What is Safeguarding and Safer Recruitment?
In this article we start with an overview of safeguarding. We learn that safeguarding affects employers that look after children or vulnerable adults. Because hiring trustworthy staff is fundamental to safeguarding success, we we pay particular attention to the subject of safer recruitment. These are processes to make safe all future hiring decisions. Requirements are quite strict, so we include a handy ‘safer recruitment’ checklist for HR Officers and internal recruiters.
What is Safeguarding?
Many organisations offer services for the education, support or welfare of children and / or vulnerable adults. For convenience, we’ll call children and vulnerable adults “service users”.
Organisations with a safeguarding responsibility are commonly regulated. Ofsted and the CQC are examples. But what is safeguarding?
Safeguarding overview
In basic terms, organisations are accountable for the safety and well-being of service users. That means an organisation must be a safe space, free of the threat of physical, sexual and emotional harm for children and vulnerable adults. It should also be free of discrimination and other harmful influences.
Safeguarding also considers the safety of service users in the outside world. That means that employers must remain diligent to any signs of abuse in a family setting, for instance.
Unnecessary or disproportionate acts for the control or restraint of an adult or child.
Acts that may be degrading to the adult or child.
Significant disregard for the needs of the adult or child for care or treatment.
Safeguarding Policies
Organisations with a safeguarding responsibility must have a clear and robust set of policies and procedures. Any staff member with unsupervised access to service users should be fully trained on these.
Inductions should include safeguarding training and it’s common practice to log completion for all new employees. Some employers also re-train staff members after any change to procedures which is excellent practice.
Safeguarding breaches
Safeguarding breaches are a big concern, so whistle blowing procedures should be clear and mandatory. In safeguarding courses, one quickly learns that whistle blowing is the potential Achilles heel of a safeguarding policy. Personal relationships between colleagues can, at worst, betray the service user in favour of the colleague. All safeguarding concerns must be reported so it is vital that people feel compelled and able to do so without fear of consequence.
Employers should maintain procedures for the investigation of all safeguarding issues. Concerns could be raised by staff members, the service users or an external party. Your procedures should also include action(s) to be taken in the event that an allegation proves true. Conclusions should be drawn by a panel and not by an individual so that personal relationships don’t interfere with outcomes.
Your remedial actions might include:
In the case of a child, contacting the children’s social care department of the local authority where the child lives.
In the case of a vulnerable adult, contacting the local authority adult services department.
So, what is Safeguarding? It is a serious set of obligations for organisations, so that children and vulnerable adults remain safe in their care. Whistle blowing is key to its success. One of the best defences is to hire trustworthy people into all positions with unsupervised access to service users. That takes us neatly onto Safer Recruitment.
What is Safer Recruitment
The purpose of safer recruitment is to identify, deter and reject people who are at risk of abusing children or vulnerable adults; your service users. Safer recruitment forms part of your safeguarding policy.
In short, safer recruitment requires you to:
Highlight your safeguarding obligations.
Make clear the level of scrutiny you apply to job applicants.
Ensure that your selection and on-boarding process is rigorous.
Safer Recruitment Checklist
Our safer recruitment checklist is for any role involving unsupervised access to children or vulnerable adults. It covers:
advertising
selection & interviewing
offers
on-boarding
Safer Advertising Checklist
Use plain English to describe your role and your commitment to safeguarding so that you deter less appropriate jobseekers. If possible, attach your safeguarding policy document to adverts.
Include details of your organisation’s values and expected behaviours.
State that applying for your job is unlawful should someone be barred from working in regulated activity.
Make clear the level of criminal record check required and when a disclosure will be requested.
For roles that bring workers into unsupervised contact with children or vulnerable adults, applicants should:
Declare all spent and unspent offences. This should include cautions, convictions and reprimands in line with the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (ROA) 1974 and ROA Exceptions Order.
Explain any gaps in employment. Typically this would be for any period exceeding 28 days, so that you test any prior employment issues.
Safer Selection and Interview Checklist
Have at least two people shortlist each applicant using agreed criteria.
Develop a consistent interview structure so that you improve the discovery process.
Combine values with your competency-based recruiting methods. Review the attitudes of any applicant towards people requiring care and support.
Safer Offer Checklist
Make a conditional job offer. It should be subject to passing all employment checks and receiving adequate references.
Include your company handbook in your offer as it should include your safeguarding procedures.
Include a probationary period in your offer of employment.
Safer On-Boarding Checklist
Apply for the correct level of criminal record check so that you can be certain of someone’s history.
Use only original documents to check proof of ID, right to work and qualifications.
Request and review references for the applicants you shortlist. These should be professional references when possible and should include the most recent employer. Take a look an example reference request template for more details.
Check for gaps and inconsistencies by comparing the application with information provided by referees.
Telephone each referee on a landline number so you can check the provenance of their reference.
Should concerns arise from a criminal record check or an allegation, carry out a risk assessment. This should include any recommended safeguards to minimise risk.
Keep a risk assessment with a copy of the self-declaration and certificate, all subject to your data protection policies.
For employers with an Applicant Tracking System
Your Applicant Tracking System (ATS) may be able to assist you with safer recruitment, so that you can recruit to a process and reduce admin. Here are a few questions that should help to set things up:
Can you attach your safer recruitment policy to job adverts so that applicants can see your level of commitment?
Are appropriate prompts on your criminal conviction request so that you receive spent convictions too?
Does your ATS protect the distribution of criminal convictions so that you can remain compliant?
Are declarations highlighted to the right people in HR so that your organisation doesn’t miss them?
Will your ATS ask applicants for an explanation of any gaps in work history so that you can comply with safer recruitment more easily?
Can your ATS allow two or more people to shortlist each applicant so that you develop greater scrutiny and eliminate bias?
Does your ATS allow the addition of shortlisting criteria so that you can audit of who checked each applicant?
Are you able to upload applicant proofs into your ATS? Can you restrict access and manage the term of their availability so that you comply with your Data Protection policy?
Will your ATS help HR to request and receive references so that can monitor which are outstanding more easily?
Is your ATS able to record the observations you make during competency and values based interviews?
Can you send employment offers from your ATS so that you can standardise them?
Are employment checks and on-boarding checklists set up in your ATS so they reflect your data checking needs.
Keeping children safe in education, GOV.UK – Statutory guidance for schools and colleges on safeguarding children and safer recruitment.
Summary
Safeguarding and safer recruitment are serious obligations for schools, colleges, care providers and other employers. We hope you can draw on this article so that we can all assure young people and vulnerable adults genuine safety in the spaces we provide for them.
Please contact us if you spot errors or omissions in our article ‘What is Safeguarding and Safer Recruitment?’
Recruiting for Care Homes in the UK comes with challenges. You may be trying to reduce recruitment costs by recruiting for yourself. But, where should you advertise vacancies to get the best results for the lowest cost? One emerging option is CareHome. It is focused on the care industry, but is carehome.co.uk the best job board for Care vacancies?
What is carehome.co.uk?
carehome.co.uk is leading comparison site for care homes. Owned and managed by Tomorrow’s Guides, its sister boards are homecare.co.uk and daynurseries.co.uk.
CareHome lists approximately 18,000 individual care homes throughout the UK. Consumer and investor interest in care homes draws significant traffic with over 16 million hits each year. Now the site includes a jobs board for the sector and more care providers are advertising on it. At the time of writing it listed approximately 5,000 vacancies, including Carers, Nurses and Care Home Managers.
Is it the best job board for care vacancies?
There are a few ways to test whether carehome.co.uk is the best job board for care vacancies.
Does a Bing or Google search for “care jobs”, list carehome.co.uk on page 1 search results?
How does the number of care jobs on carehome.co.uk compare with other job boards.
Do care homes report success after advertising on carehome.co.uk?
What is the cost of adverting care vacancies.
Searching for care jobs with Google or Bing
Many jobseekers start their job search by using their favourite internet search engine. We used 3 popular ones to check whether carehome.co.uk appears on page 1 results. This test was conducted on 10th November 2019.
carehome.co.uk features on page 1 results of the most common search engines. It also appears in the natural search results, not by paid advertising. That’s good news because it is more likely to remain on page 1. Whilst carehome.co.uk didn’t appear at the top in our tests, it did add the jobseeker’s current location. That makes the listing more relevant and perhaps more enticing to jobseekers.
carehome.co.uk listing on page 1 search results using Google
The number of jobs on carehome.co.uk
These results were compiled on 10th November 2019. We looked at the total search results for “Carer”, “Care Assistant” and “Care Support Worker”. Admittedly carehome.co.uk is more focused on jobs in a care home setting. However, jobseekers like choice and listing a wider selection of local jobs is an obvious advantage.
Job Board
Number of Care Vacancies
Indeed
60,000 +
TotalJobs
27,000 +
GOV Find a Job
26,000 +
CVLibrary
20,000 +
carehome.co.uk
1,969
KentJobs
500 +
These results don’t favour carehome.co.uk. We question whether a tight industry focus might limit its audience. But, why not try some of your own research with local and other national job boards? That could help you determine the best job board for Care vacancies in your area.
Do care homes report success with carehome.co.uk?
Some of our care customers have used carehome.co.uk, but feedback is very patchy. Application source can be tracked with a good Applicant Tracking System, but there are issues here.
carehome.co.uk forces jobseekers to create an account before applying for any care job and that can be an application barrier. This barrier triggers some jobseekers to search for the individual Care Home website so that they can apply directly. Skipping to an employer’s website is becoming more commonplace but automated tracking of of the applicant source is disrupted. The source appears to be the employer’s website and not the job board.
Reasons for the leap include a worry that current employers might find jobseeker details after creating an account. This is particularly true of job boards with a CV search option and carehome.co.uk offers that.
What does it cost to advertise care jobs on carehome.co.uk?
Advertising costs are a big concern for Care Homes, so it’s good to find that carehome.co.uk prices reflect this. A single job advert can cost as little as £10.
You can also get up to 10 free job adverts if you buy a sponsored listing for your care home. These would otherwise cost at least £100. The annual cost of a sponsored listing is currently £300 + VAT per annum, so free job adverts make this a very attractive option.
Conclusion
carehome.co.uk is visible to jobseekers and focused on the Care Home sector. It’s also good value and buying a sponsored listing seems like the best option to start with. Use your free adverts to find out whether it works for you.
One key worry is that other job boards list more care vacancies than carehome.co.uk Boards like Indeed and TotalJobs also appear higher in internet search results. We would also like to see carehome.co.uk remove an application barrier by making shorter its up-front information request to new jobseekers.
This said, we think carehome.co.uk should be included in the mix of advertising options for care jobs. It is focused and there are few industry focused alternatives for Care Homes. But, the success of any job advert isn’t solely down to your choice of job board. Check out how to write job adverts that get more job applications.
Other Job Advertising Options for Care
Thankfully, alternatives are freely available for care homes. Indeed offers free advertising options for employers. It also offers the greatest number of care vacancies when compared with the other job boards we tested, so it has jobseeker appeal. You can also sponsor adverts. That keeps them in Indeed’s search results for longer and that’s great for your hard to fill vacancies. If you do sponsor adverts, you can be sure that people will see it them. Using Indeed is a no brainer.
GOV Find a Job is a free job board too. This is managed by the DWP and it advertises almost as many care jobs as TotalJobs. With so many care jobs listed, it’s hard to ignore. GOV Find a Job costs nothing and has jobseeker appeal, so its an obvious choice for Care Homes.
Google for Jobs isn’t technically a job board. But, it can be used without charge to display your latest jobs and more applicants are discovering it all the time. You can’t post your jobs by hand on Google for Jobs, but an ATS get them there for you.
The truth is that we don’t know where viable jobseekers will find your next vacancy. The best approach is to advertise in several places. But, that requires more time to advertise and more time to review the less relevant applications that accompany more relevant ones. Care homes are time strapped and on a budget, so, how can we square that circle?
Advertise care jobs in less time, without big budgets
Ideally, Care Homes should advertise on multiple job sites and receive more appropriate applications without effort. Doing this at low cost sounds like an impossible request, but the option is available.
You’ll need an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) and one that can distribute your jobs to the right job boards automatically. The best ATS will publish your jobs on your own website, on free job boards like Indeed and on your subscription job boards like carehome.co.uk Your applicants should arrive in one place, having provided all the information you need to make safe, fair shortlisting decisions. By making applicants complete details beforehand, you’ll spend less time reviewing job applications from hapless, 1-click appliers.
An ATS for care doesn’t have to be expensive. It should easily pay for itself by helping you avoid recruitment fees, excessive job board charges and all the admin. In fact, an ATS should save you money.
Universal Jobmatch was replaced by Find a Job during 2018. It is easier to use and could become one of the largest free job search services in the UK. Find a Job is delivered by the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) and operated by Adzuna.
Since the first edition of this post, the service has been extended to include apprenticeship vacancies. It’s a great supplement to the GOV Recruit and Apprentice service.
In addition, GOV Find a Job (Universal JobMatch) job posts have been extended. If you are a Disability Confident Employer, your adverts prominently display the scheme’s kitemark. That helps to set you apart from other employers who aren’t Disability Confident.
Job Posting Statistics
When we first published this post on 1st August 2018, there were a total of 179,498 live jobs on GOV Find a Job. On 3rd November 2019, there were 157,003 jobs.
Presently there is plenty of industry talk about recruiting plans being delayed across many industries. This could related to Brexit. However, changes could highlight a natural difference in recruitment cycles between August and November.
To present some posting statistics, we’ve chosen jobs in the education, care and hospitality sectors. Sales and Project Manager jobs are included for comparison because they are common roles in other industries. The following table shows the number of live job postings on 2 dates, 15 months apart. Jobs marked in bold are showing an increase in the number of advertised vacancies.
Search Term
Care NHS Nurse Cleaner Teacher Care Assistant Support Worker Apprentice Chef Cook Hotel Teaching Assistant Physiotherapist Home Manager Lecturer Teacher of English
The number of care jobs advertised on Find a Job has grown significantly. That bucks the trend for other industries. One explanation could be that care providers suffer big funding pressures and free job advertising is an increasingly attractive option.
Whatever the reason, perhaps other industries should follow suit. We can find no good argument to avoid free job advertising on GOV Find a Job.
Opening your GOV Find a Job account
Before you open an account, check whether your organisation is currently publishing vacancies on GOV Find a Job. Just type the name of your organisation in the search bar at https://findajob.dwp.gov.uk/
Opening an account with Find a Job is straightforward, but account activation can only begin after publishing your first vacancy. This can up to a couple of days to complete. The DWP must check that you are a valid employer and this check is good for the jobs market. Your vacancy will be available to jobseekers only after successful validation.
Make free job posting easy with an ATS
There are a number of websites and resources on which employers can post job adverts for free. GOV Find Job seems like a great choice, particularly for Care Providers.
Also consider Indeed, the most widely used Job Board, Google for Jobs, Adzuna and others. However, the time required to post jobs quickly mounts up.
An Applicant Tracking system with a MultiPost feature can post jobs for you to multiple job boards and other resources automatically. It can also make sure everyone follows the same process.
One of the past concerns when using Universal JobMatch was its reputation for poor candidate quality. An ATS redirects applicants to your application form and that dissuades those who are less motivated to apply.
Want to know more?
CVMinder ATS is a low cost Applicant Tracking System. It includes a MultiPost feature so you can post you jobs for free on GOV Find a Job and other job boards automatically. Benefit from more relevant job applications and faster, easier processing from advertising, thru shortlisting, interview, offer and on-boarding.
Care Providers get great benefits and reduce their recruitment costs with CVMinder ATS.
The Kent Autistic Trust
“Amazing product and service”
Canterbury Oast Trust
“Brilliant ATS”
Strode Park Foundation
“Everything we expected and more”
One Healthcare
“Extraordinary support”
Contact us to find out more or request a free demonstration.
Welcome to Recruiting Made Easy. In this series, we review some frequently asked recruitment questions. We cover recruiting processes, technology and regulation. First in the series: What is an Applicant Tracking System?
If you work in HR or Internal Recruitment, you may have heard of or used an Applicant Tracking System (ATS). But what does an ATS do and why is having one so important to recruiting success? Read on for the basics or check out the free ATS Buyer Guide if you are selecting an applicant tracking system.
So, What is an Applicant Tracking System?
An ATS helps any employer to manage and automate the recruitment process. It provides a secure, central repository for candidate data, including their CVs and applications. It should help you at every stage in the recruiting process, including advertising, shortlisting, interviews, employment offers and on-boarding. An Applicant Tracking System makes recruiting more efficient and more successful.
Who should use an ATS?
Everyone! A good Applicant Tracking System upgrades your entire recruiting operation so it becomes more productive, profitable and efficient. It doesn’t matter whether your organisation is big or small. Benefits vary, but employers using an ATS often mention the following:
Automated access to free advertising options
An easier, more inclusive application process for jobseekers
Higher percentage of relevant job applications
Savings of up to 90% on administration time
More efficient, more transparent on-boarding
Easy recruiting compliance and reducing confidential waste
Employers using an ATS report more placements in less time and at lower cost than employers without one.
Is an ATS the right choice for recruitment companies?
Recruitment companies recruit for their clients so they need a Customer Relationship Management system (CRM). A CRM helps to manage prospects and customer communications, including new job orders.
Recruiting software for recruitment companies combines some ATS and some CRM functions. So, employers should find an ATS made for employers rather than one for recruitment companies. An employer ATS is more focused on internal recruiting requirements, including:
Flexible options for applicant data capture including criminal convictions, disability, existing relationship with current staff member, etc.
Flexible distribution of Manager vs HR responsibilities.
Shortlisting options to support compliance and fair recruitment.
Stronger team reporting and management options.
In HR and internal recruitment, you don’t need CRM features, so always choose an ATS for employers.
Find the best Applicant Tracking System for you
Let’s help you work out how you recruit today. Then you’ll be in a better position to choose the best ATS for your organisation.
How do you recruit now? Record each recruiting step.
How often do you perform each recruiting step?
Identify the steps that take most time.
Note down what you do well and want to preserve.
Think about what you what you would like to do better.
Summarise what you want others to do better.
Note any critical recruiting or compliance issues to resolve.
Your notes form the basis of an ATS wish list. That puts you in a better position to start looking for the best ATS to meet your requirements.
Does the ATS make recruiting easy?
Here are some questions you should ask before you select your ATS:
Does the ATS specialise with organisations just like yours? Applicant Tracking System providers specialising in your market understand recruiting scenarios that you haven’t yet thought of.
Is the applicant tracking system genuinely easy to use? Getting full value from an ATS means using it. So, the easier it is, the more you’ll get from it. Try to avoid systems that require training for infrequent users like some line managers.
Can the ATS post vacancies onto job boards that candidates use? Look for MultiPost functions that include free-to-post resources like Indeed, Google for Jobs, GOV Find a Job and Adzuna. Check out other national, local and specialist job board connections too.
Can candidates apply for jobs easily? You want people to apply for jobs easily, so they require easy access from any device. Applicants can come from job boards, your website, social media and other places, so check out all the routes.
Is the system quick and easy to implement? Look for an ATS that is simple to implement. Try to avoid an ATS that requires service or system fees when you alter the way you work.
Recruiting functions, compliance and reporting
Here are some of the more complex questions you should ask before you select your ATS:
Does the applicant tracking system help with repetitive communication? Writing the same response each time takes too much time. Look for an ATS with flexible templates to personalise candidate communication at every recruitment step.
Is the ATS application form flexible enough to meet your requirements? You may work with just a candidate CV. You require much more information to meet regulatory requirements like safer recruitment. Make sure an ATS can capture what you need from applicants.
Will the system help you with fair recruitment and remaining lawful? Can the ATS capture and manage protected characteristics to ensure that your organisation can defend against discrimination.
Will the ATS provide useful management information? You’ll want to know where your candidates have seen your vacancies, how long your shortlisting takes and other information that helps you make better recruiting choices.
Do you want to go a little deeper into the applicant tracking subject? Check out the free ATS Buyer Guide before choosing the best ATS for your organisation.
Our free ATS Buyer Guide is available for download at the bottom of this page. It is written for employers who are trying to make recruiting more successful. It’s perfect if you are an HR Lead or internal recruiter and you’re trying to find the best Applicant Tracking System for the job. With so many choices, basic guidance is hard to come by. We believe that our ATS Buyer Guide can help you make case for an ATS. It also helps you compare options and select the best Applicant Tracking System to meet your own requirements.
What’s in our ATS Buyer Guide?
You know the author of this ATS Buyer Guide is a vendor. We know that you don’t want an ATS sales brochure dressed up as a guide. So, you’ll get some useful tips on building a case and deciding what you need. Your free ATS Buyer Guide is part of our Recruiting Made Easy Series and guide sections include:
ATS Basics
Do you need an ATS?
Building a case
Calculating your budget
Key ATS features
Hidden costs
We hope this ATS Buyer Guide helps all employers, big and small. Larger employers should easily justify the purchase of an Applicant Tracking System. The administration savings alone make a compelling case. But, smaller employers also benefit from using an ATS. They too can make big savings and enjoy the same advantages as their bigger competitors.
Just in case, what is an ATS?
An Applicant Tracking System (ATS) is a recruitment software system. It helps you to advertise, shortlist, interview, offer and on-board new starters. An ATS can save as much as 90% of administration time and helps you to recruit more successfully at lower cost:
ATS checklist in handy sections
Reach more potential candidates more easily.
Improve your applicant experience.
Share and process applicants faster.
Reduce administration time by up to 90%
Ease compliance with industry regulations including safeguarding and safer recruitment.
Remain lawful and adhere to data protection regulations.
Download your free ATS Buyer Guide
Your free ATS Buyer Guide will download automatically after completing the form below. If it doesn’t appear at the foot of your web browser, please check your downloads for the ATS Buyer Guide .
We hope you you find the guide useful and please feel free to offer your suggestions for future improvements.
Want to know more?
This guide forms part of our recruiting advice for HR and internal recruiters.
CVMinder ATS is an award winning Applicant Tracking System and all enhancements are guided by its Ambassador customers. They and we ensure that it always manages real world recruitment requirements. According to Care customers, it’s the best Applicant Tracking System for Care Providers. According to Schools and Colleges, it’s the best ATS for Education.
CVMinder ATS is low on price and BIG on function. Contact us now to find out more.
Managing employment reference requests is one of the most time-consuming jobs for any HR Department. For those with safeguarding obligations, new employees cannot start work until all checks are complete. So, delays in collecting employment reference requests can affect an employee start date.
Finding new staff members is hard enough, so getting them into work quickly is a priority. Your ATS should help you as much as possible.
In this blog, we’ll take a look at the key features an ATS should offer.
Creating Your Own Referee Record
It’s important for employers in Care, Education and some other sectors to keep an accurate record of each referee in addition to returned references. If there are future disciplinary issues, you may need to return to them.
Your ATS should help you copy a referee directly from a jobseeker’s application. You can complete any outstanding information, correct a typo in an email address and so on.
Applicants sometimes provide referee details later in the recruitment cycle. They can arrive by email, phone or post. Your ATS should allow you to create referee record from these sources.
Employment Reference Request Templates
Your ATS should send personalised reference requests quickly and conveniently. It should let you build reference request templates and include merge fields. Merge fields populate the applicant name, referee details, job details and other information automatically when sending the request. Here you can find an example employment reference request template with merge fields.
Reference Documents
When preparing your reference request, you may wish to attach some standard documents. These could include a confidentiality statement, your data protection policy, or safeguarding statement. If you do, your ATS should offer a secure place to store them for easy access. Click-attaching documents is more convenient and more accurate than searching for them in a local directory structure.
Send Your Employment Reference Request
Once sent, reviewing the ongoing status of your employment reference requests should be easy. Your ATS should help you track these. It should know when reference requests were sent, because most should be sent via your ATS. But, there will always be cases where reference requests were made outside of your ATS. It should help you track these too. As references are returned, you’ll want to uptick the status to show that they have been received and reviewed. Only once a reference has been reviewed should you close it for any further action.
Where is an Employment Reference Returned?
Most HR teams monitor a central email address such as hr@yourcompany.com. It shouldn’t matter who makes the request. Your ATS should make sure that replies go to that inbox.
Employment Checks
Employment reference requests may be just one of your jobs when completing employment checks. If you manage a number of checks, your ATS should bring everything together in one area of the system. Completing all checks and uploading supporting evidence should be convenient and audit ready. A good Applicant Tracking System should leave you feeling totally secure by highlighting any outstanding checks on approach to start date.
Want to know more?
CVMinder ATS helps employers recruit for themselves. It manages advertising, applications, selection, interviews, offers, employment checks and more. It’s a low cost, award winning Applicant Tracking System and it’s developed in the UK. To recruit like the professionals and reduces your annual recruitment costs, contact us now to find out more.
