Offers & employment

Deaneries/UoAs can begin making post offers within a specialty once they have finished interviewing all of the applicants to that specialty. However, please be aware that some deaneries/UoAs carry out interviews over a number of days, and also that there may be a delay between the last interview being completed and the first offer going out.

The offer of a post will be made via email and your candidate portal, so please check your email account and portal regularly. Any emails sent to you from the application system will automatically go into the 'My Messages' section of the system, and so can be viewed via that portal. Emails sent by recruiters outwith the recruitment system will not go into your portal automatically.

You are required to respond to any offer you receive within 48 hours of its receipt.

There will be three options available to you upon receipt of an offer - 'accept', 'decline' and 'hold'. 'Accept' and 'decline' are fairly self-explanatory; to accept or decline a post, click the relevant button, and then click 'Submit'.

Please note that if you accept an offer, you must withdraw from the process, and relinquish any held offers (see below).

Up until the holding deadline, you will be given the option to 'hold' an offer you have received beyond the standard 48-hour limit. All offers received before the deadline will have this option in your candidate portal where you make decisions on offers; you will also be asked to select the specialty for which you are holding. However, please be aware that to hold an offer, you will still need to inform the offering deanery/UoA of your intention to hold the offer within 48 hours (again including weekends/bank holidays) of receiving it.

Unlike previous years, in 2012 the holding process applies across all bodies participating in the current recruitment round - not just specialties/deaneries within the RCP-coordinated process. So if you receive an offer from within the RCP process, you can elect to hold that offer while awaiting the outcome of an application made outside of the RCP process (eg a non-RCP hosted medical specialty), or vice versa. This still applies if you have made two applications to different deaneries/UoAs in the same specialty, or if you have applied to two specialties within the same deanery/UoA.

A further point is that only one offer can be held at once. Not only is it against DH rules to continue to hold more than one offer of a post at one time; more importantly, it is depriving someone else - who may already be a colleague of yours - of a timely post offer.

Lastly - please note that all candidates must accept or reject any and all offers they have received by the overall offers holding deadline; if you are still holding an offer at the deadline it may be withdrawn. See the timeline page of our website for details of the holding deadline.

All offers made to candidates must be accepted or rejected by offer-holding deadline of Thursday 31 May 2012 (1pm, UK time).

Any offers received after the holding deadline will still have the 48-hour response deadline, but the long term holding option is not available.

This holding deadline is set nationally by DH, and so will apply across all ST3 specialties.

Following acceptance of a post offer, prospective employers will run criminal records and other checks, and approach your referees for references, if they have not already done so.

Provided these requirements are all satisfied, employers will then issue contracts of employment (start dates will vary between posts). Employers will also confirm salary details, pay banding, rotas, induction arrangements, etc.