Experience

Firstly, you will need to state whether you are currently employed in a medical post - this is a 'Yes'/'No' answer field to begin with.

Should you select 'No', you will be asked to give some information on your current employment status, ie what you are doing currently. After this - or if you selected 'Yes' to the original question - you will then move on to adding details on your post experience.

You will be asked if you are scheduled to begin any posts between 'now' (the point where you are completing your application) and August 2012 - if 'Yes', a number of 'Next post' fields will arise that you can complete.

If you have more than one future post planned, when you have completed the fields the first time, click 'Add future post' to bring up a new set of empty fields, where details can be added as necessary.

As the title suggests, here you will be asked to give information on the post in which you are currently working - or if you are not working at that time, the post in which you worked most recently.

Once you have added any future and current/most recent post details, you will need to add information on all posts you have been in since graduation. As above, once you have added the details for the first post, click 'Add previous post', and further blank fields will appear allowing you to add further post details.

When adding your previous posts, please add the most recent first, then next most recent, and so on.

For each post you add to your application(s), you will also need to add a post grade. This is a mandatory field, and refers to the broad level of specialty training to which the post equates.

Some examples are as below:

Foundation Year 1 (F1) post = N/A

Foundation Year 2 (F2) post = N/A

CT1, ST1, FTSTA1, LAS, LAT, Trust posts undertaken during your first year after F2 (or equivalent) = 1

CT2, ST2, FTSTA2, LAS, LAT, Trust posts undertaken during your secondyear after F2 (or equivalent) = 2

ST4 GP post = 4

(and so on...)

If you did not undertake an FY2 post, but instead did a first-year SHO post after a House Officer/FY1 post (or equivalent), this first-year SHO post could be equated to an FY2 post, so a subsequent SHO post in the following year would equate to the current CT1-level.

Do not be too concerned over this area! The main purpose here is to allow recruiters and interviewers to gain an idea of what level of training you have undertaken to date, and this grading of posts allows candidates with varying training histories to be compared to some degree.

However, do not worry too much over the exact completion of this. As long as you enter all of your posts clearly, in chronological order, deaneries/UoAs will not penalise you if you make an error when entering your grade.

Lastly, please be aware that this section is purely for information purposes; suggesting you have undertaken a greater level of training will not necessarily gain you an advantage.

This field is included to give some more information on the kind of post being added here. This includes a number of options on the various types of post available, such as Academic, Foundation/CMT posts as part of full training programmes or stand-alone posts, etc. Select whichever option you feel is closest to the post type you are adding to the form.

In the event that the options available do not adequately describe the type of post you were in - such as non-UK posts, pre-2007 training posts, etc. - you should either select the option you feel is closest to the post type in question; or if none of the options can be considered equivalent, select 'other'. If you feel it appropriate, you can then add a brief note to the free-text 'post title' field - eg '...(SHO training post)...'.

Recruiters and interviewers are aware that there will be candidates applying with an extremely wide variety of post experience, and so the available options cannot always adequately communicate full details of a post. But as with the 'post grade field' (above), you need not be overly concerned here.

Provided that you are able to give recruiters/interviewers appropriate information on the makeup and content of each post you add to the experience section, this is the main thing. And should you subsequently be invited to, and attend interview, you will be given the opportunity to discuss your application form and past experience, and can expand on any posts there if need be.

Where you have undertaken rotations as part of longer posts/programmes, you should add each separate rotation individually.

So for example, if you trained in three different posts during your F1 year, you should add information on each of three posts; not just one entry for your F1 year as a whole.

If there are any instances where there is a gap in your career history of more than 28 days, it will be necessary to add explanations of this in the 'Career Gaps' section. If there are any gaps, and you have not provided any explanation for them here, you will not be able to mark this section as 'completed', and thus not be able to submit your application.

Please be aware that deaneries/UoAs are not looking to penalise candidates for any time outside of medical training/employment here. As suggested above, recruiters wish to gain a comprehensive idea of each candidate's skills/experience level; so to avoid a delay in assessing your application, you are instead requested to provide this information up front.