Applying in Oriel

Oriel is the UK-wide portal and recruitment system for postgraduate training vacancies. You use Oriel to submit your application.

All applications must be made electronically using the Oriel recruitment portal by the specified deadline.

Registration

You can register your details on Oriel before the application window opens.

To register, go to Oriel and click on Account Registration. You will not be able to access the online application form until the application window opens.

You will be asked to provide:

• your name – this must be entered exactly as it appears on the GMC register
• a valid email address – ensure you register with a secure and individual email address which you check regularly
• password – at least 8 characters in length and contains at least one upper case letter and one numeric value

Once the system has validated these details you will be taken to the selection page where you can choose the specialty you are applying for and the relevant recruitment round and year. You will not see details of specific posts until preferencing has opened.

Information

There are a number of sources of information that will be available throughout the recruitment process, both generic and specific to Obstetrics and Gynaecology.

Oriel will have vacancy information, but also information on:

• the recruitment leads
• news about the process
• resources with contain various guides and forms
• frequently asked questions

Submitting an application

You can make an application at any point in the application window (see recruitment timelines). Late or incomplete applications will not be considered. The deadline will not be extended and there will be no exceptions.

The online application form is the only way to apply for a post - there are no alternatives. 

Due to the nature of the application form, we cannot provide an example version. However, it will ask you for your personal details, educational record and work experience. The application form is not marked and longlisting is based purely on how you meet the criteria as laid out in the person specification.

References will be required. Reference reports are not used for scoring purposes during longlisting or interview and will only be requested once you have accepted an offer of a post.

We are unable to provide copies of application forms after the relevant recruitment period is completed. You are advised to keep a copy of your application form(s) for future reference.

If you are found to have plagiarised any element of your application for, you may be reported to the General Medical Council (GMC). Our previous experience confirms that the GMC are likely to take a very serious view of any confirmed misconduct.

Communications about your application

You will be regularly contacted through Oriel throughout the recruitment processs so you should ensure you check your account regularly. This is also the method by which you will receive notification of key points.

Special circumstances

A standardised national process is available for all specialty recruitment to ensure that applicants with special circumstances and a requirement to train in a specific region are treated in a fair and consistent way.

If you fall into one of the following eligibility crtiteria you can apply to have your circumstances taken into consideration allowing you to be pre-allocated into a post.

• Criterion 1 – you are the primary carer for someone who is disabled, as defined by the Equality Act 2010.
• Criterion 2 – you have a medical condition or disability for which ongoing follow up for the condition in the specified location is an absolute requirement.

If you wish to be considered for special circumstances you should complete the special circumstances application form and forward this, together with supporting evidence, as a single scanned document to the Medical and Dental Recruitment and Selection (MDRS) team via [email protected] no later than the date the application window closes.

Fitness to practise

If you make a Fitness to Practise declaration on your application form, you must complete a form and send it to [email protected]. This must be provided no later than the closing date for applications.

This will not affect the progession of your application.

Equality and diversity

We are committed to ensuring our selection procedures are fair and that, in line with the Equality Act 2010, no-one is disadvantaged on grounds of age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion and belief, sex and sexual orientation.

We are required to monitor equality and diversity. However, the sections of the application form which capture this information are not shared with any of the assessors.

Less than full-time training

If you have a valid reason why you are unable to work full-time you can select the less than full time (LTFT) training option at the time of applying. This information will be treated in strict confidence and will not be shared with clinicians involved in interviewing. If you would like more information, contact the MDRS team via email on [email protected]. 

Disabled applicants

You will need to state whether you have a disabiloiuty that will require special arrangements to be made for interview or the Multi-Specialty Recruitment Assessment. You may need to provide evidence, if requested.

Preferencing

Preferencing in Oriel involves marking each option as being in one of 2 different states.

• Preference - If an option is marked as Preference it means you wish to be considered for posts within this programme. You must rank these options to specify an order of preference. If you come to be made an offer you will be offered your highest ranked preference where posts remain available.
• Not wanted - If an option is marked as Not wanted it means you are not wiling to accept an offer for this programme under any circumstances and therefore do not wish to be considered for these posts.

When you select the option a pop-up box will appear with:

• a brief description of the area / trust / hospital involved
• the number of posts available
• the post start date

The level of detail available at the preferencing stage may differ between regions.

You must only preference programmes that you would be prepared to work in, including those listed with zero vacancies as posts may become available at a later date. Selecting a preference with zero posts will not put you at a disadvantage.

If you preference a post, it is assumed that you will be able to accept this, if offered. It is therefore imperative that you consider your preference choices before submitting. During the offer process, you will have 48 hours to respond to offers so we would recommend researching regions carefully in advance.

The preference page in Oriel is a live page and will save the changes you make as you go along. The requirement to Submit or Save is not necessary. You can continue to amend your programme preference until the preference window closes on the published deadline. The preferencing process will reopen between offer cycles to allow you to amend your preferences further.

Your preference choices should be made solely on desirability of the associated post for you, not the perceived desirability for other applicants. Ranking a less popular preference highly will have no bearing on when an offer will be made.

Holding or accepting an offer will not increase your chances of receiving an upgrade.

You should not preference or accept posts if you are unable to commence training in them.

If you are made an offer and then decline it, you will be withdrawn from the process and will not be made any further offers for that specialty. 

Offers

Once all appointable applicants have an individual mark, the offers process can begin. All applicants will be offered posts based on their ranking. The posts you will be offered will depend on which posts remain unfilled or are still being considered by others.

You will be given 48 hours (exclusive of weekends and bank holidays) to respond to an offer and have the option to accept, decline or hold.

When you receive an offer, you have 3 options.

1. Accept / Accept with Upgrades.
2. Hold / Hold with Upgrades.
3. Reject.

Accepting an offer is a 2-stage process so you will need to ensure that you have completed both stages and that your offer screen in Oriel correctly reflects that an offer has been accepted upon completion of the process. Failure to do so could result in your offer expiring and being offered to another applicant.

Once you have accepted a post, you will not receive any further offers for any other specialties.

If you reject an offer, you will not be considered for any further ST1 Obstetrics and Gynaecology posts in this recruitment round. If you fail to respond to an offer within the 48-hour window, you will be deemed to have declined the offer.

Offers that are declined or expire will be recycled and offered in rank offer to other applicants.

If you choose to hold an offer, you can hold this until the deadline. Before this deadline, you will be required to amend your response to the offer on the Oriel system.

Any offers still held when the deadline is reached will be deemed to be declined and the system will automatically change your status to show that you have declined the post. The post will then be offered to another applicant.

After the hold deadline has pased, any offers made will only have the option of accept or decline.

If you opt into upgrades and a higher preferenced offer becomes available, the upgrade will be automatic. You will be placed in the higher preferenced post, and an automated message will be sent to you via Oriel informing you of the upgrade. You will not be given 48 hours to decide whether you wish to accept or decline the upgrade. If an upgrade is made, the previously held or accepted post will be released and reoffered to another applicant. Once you have been upgraded  you will be sent an automated messge through Oriel to inform you of this. Details of the upgrade made will be available in the relevant section on Oriel.

Upgrading of offers will not continue beyond the stated upgrade deadline, even if a preffered post becomes available at a later date. After the upgrade deadline, vacant posts will be offered to the next eligible applicant who has preferenced the post and who has yet to receive an offer, not to applicants who have already accepted a post. This includes situations whereby an applicant has accepted a Locum Appointment for Training post and a NTN post becomes available. You are advised to consider this when making your programme preferences.

Examples

These examples are not exhaustive and there are other combinations of events. Offers will be recycled until either all posts are filled or all candidates have been considered.

Deffering your start date

You can make an application for deferred entry as per guidance in the Gold Guide. Deferral can only be considered on statutory grounds such as maternity leave or ill health. No other reason will be considered.

Offers of employment and pre-employment checks

Once you have accepted an offer of training and the upgrade deadline has passed, your information will be released to your new recruiting region.

The Obstetrics and Gyneacology Recruitment team does not have any involvement after this stage and any queries should be sent to the region where the training offer was received. 

An employment contract detailing the terms and conditions of employment will be issued by the responsible employing organisation and is made subject to satisfactory pre-employment checks. 

The employing organisation carry out several pre-employment checks before an offer of employment can be confirmed. These will include:

• verification of identity
• registration and qualifications
• right to work (immigration)
• employment history
• employment reference checks (these are different from the clinical reference checks that the region needs)
• a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check
• an occupational health check

Some of these (verification of identity, registration, qualifications, and right to work, for example) may also be undertaken by the region during the recruitment process.

References

Referees should be contacted at the earliest opportunity to confirm that they are happy to support your application and provide a reference. You are required to provide details of your last three clinical or educational supervisors from your current post, your previous post and the post before that.

All offers will be made on the condition of the offered region receiving three satisfactory references. Obtaining references is your responsibility. The offered region will not chase your referees.

Reference requests

Reference requests are an automated process in Oriel. A request will be triggered and sent electronically to your nominated referees when you accept (or accept with upgrades) an offer of training. To ensure that requests are not blocked or filtered by your referees’ email providers you are strongly advised to inform your referees to add [email protected] to their email whitelist.