NHS Job Profile

Setting up the NHS job profile

Following is my step by step guide in building a solid NHS job profile.

Creating an account in NHS Jobs website

1. Go to the website: jobs.nhs.uk

2. Click on “Register” button, on the top right corner

3. Fill out your Personal information like First Name, Surname, Country of Residence, Email address. Create a strong password and answer a security question. Then accept the terms and conditions that says you have read and understood the “acceptable use policy”. You can always go through the acceptable use policy using the hyperlink of the text.

Finally, click on “Create” button at the bottom right corner of the page.

4. Confirm the email address from your email inbox and Log in to the website using the email address and the password you created.

 

Preparing a job profile

I would like to discuss step by step on how I created my NHS job profile here:

1. Personal Information

- Firstly check whether personal information is showing the correct email address on the top. This is the email address that NHS trust uses to communicate with you in the future. This is prefilled automatically based on your login information.

- Next is to select your title as “Dr”

- Then fill your Surname/Family name, First name, and Middle name(s). If there is a difference in the name in which you are registered with a professional body, then you have to mention that name too.

- UK national insurance number is generally left blank.

- Then fill out your home address. This address will be part of your conditional offer letter.

- Next is to fill out the telephone number with proper ISD code. However, NHS rarely communicates with you via phone.

- Then answer if you are a UK, EC, or EEA national. If your answer is “NO”, which is most often the case, you also have to select the category that relates to your current immigration status. In most cases, the status is “visitor”.

- If you hold any current visa make sure you provide that information as well. If you have a visitor visa of your PLAB 2 exam, put that visa number, start, and expiry date, and write yes to the condition restricting employment or occupation in the UK with this visa. The details to that restriction should be “No work or recourse to public funds”

 

2. Qualifications

The next step is to fill your Education and Professional Qualifications. I filled out mine in the following way:

 

- Then fill out any relevant training course that you attended. Like for example:-

 

All the information here can be subject to verification.

In this section, make sure that you are keeping all the information in chronological order with the most recent first. You might have completed a lot of training courses, but it can only accommodate 7. So, try to keep the relevant training courses that are significant for the job you are applying to.

- Then you have to fill out the information regarding the membership of professional bodies. Since you have GMC registration already, click on “I have current UK professional registration and license to practice for this post”. It will then ask your registration number and expiry date. Fill it correctly, as they can always verify it from the GMC website. The expiry/renewal date is generally 1 year later than the issue date. Check your GMC account for this information.

- Finally, fill out any restrictions on your fitness to practice.

 

3. Employment History

- The first thing to fill out here will be your effective start date of NHS service. Just put one tentative date on which you intend to start your job. Do not put a date that’s very far. And to your note, this date is later on again discussed with you once you get your conditional offer letter. So not a big deal here to be honest.

- Then you have to fill your employment history in chronological order with most recent first. Try to fill in all the boxes, as leaving one or two might not give a good impression. While you are filling your “Grade” of the job, make sure you fill up like it’s known in the UK. For example, if you work as a senior medical officer in certain hospitals put SHO in the bracket, similarly, for your internship or first year of house job after medical school keep FY1 equivalent in the bracket. This kind of terminologies will make more sense to them.

- A very important section in this part is the description of your duties and responsibilities. When I review the job profile of many IMGs, I find this part poorly filled up. You have to be very thorough here, as they want to check what you are capable of before they offer you this job.

You can take the following extract from my profile as a guide on how to fill up job description and roles:

This is just an example. Note, how I, first of all, introduced my workplace, then gave a brief overview of my clinical duties, and talked about my basic rota in a week and as well as my other activities within the department. This gives them a clear picture of what kind of candidates you are. You can also read the job description of the post that you are applying to better know what kind of roles and responsibilities they are trying to provide you. Tailor your current job description in a similar way, to increase the probability of getting an interview.

 

4. Referees

In this section, you have to provide the names and full contact details of your referees. Double-check the name and email address of your referees before you move forward. They will use this information to cross-check with your referees later if you get this job. Try to cover references over a period of 3 years. Keep at least 3 referees. Keeping many referees in this section will only increase your headache later on during the pre-employment checks, as in such cases all those referees most fill up the reference forms provided by NHS.

Work email address is always preferred, but not mandatory.

 

5. Supporting information

- First of all, in this section you have to declare your practical experience. Trust can always ask for verifiable Logbook/portfolio evidence. Hence, I always advise making a note of any procedure you do in a proper logbook and get signed by your seniors.

- If you want to highlight any of these experience you can use the relevant section of the form. If you want further help and support to enhance your skills and abilities, you can also mention here.

- If you have relevant teaching experience, make sure you fill all this information as well. Even if these are not evidenced, there is no harm to mention them in this section.

- If you have any audits, case reports, paper presentations, original research article you can also keep them in this section of your profile.

- Any awards/prize/distinction, management and leadership experience, team working experience that you have will also help you in this section.

- Finally, the important part here is your other supporting information. This is the section where you sell out yourself. Following is my recommendation in this part:

I always would like start this section by giving the self-declaration: “

Then afterward I would like to describe side by side, on how I match the person specification of this job. Like for example here is one person specification of a job in General Medicine at ST1/ST2 level:

In this person specification, there are 5 categories. Now take the following 'supporting information' as an example on how to explain that you meet all these requirements set out in 5 categories.

Note on how I explained each and every point of person specification given above. You have to explain your similarly. Always focus on the quality of the profile than the quantity of application.

Final two section of the NHS job profile is on Monitoring Information and Safeguarding which is all self-explanatory.

Disclaimer:

Contents in this blog are all my personal views. I recommend you listen to all other views as well, but take a final decision yourself. That’s what I did too. All the contents here are a collection of my personal experiences. Do not copy-paste the information here to your job profile. Just imagine what kind of impression will it give, if they see two different applications with similar wordings. Best of luck with your endeavors ahead. If you want me to review your profile do let me know. Thanks