Applying

Before you apply for Core Training you should check that you're eligible.

Disability Confidence Scheme

We are committed to supporting you if you require additional support due to disability or health conditions. You can apply for adjustments via Oriel, but please note the Disability Confidence Scheme (DCS) has replaced the previous Guaranteed Interview Scheme. Please refer to the guidance on the Medical Specialty Recruitment page for more information.

Reasonable adjustments

The process for 2025 is to submit all reasonable adjustments requests at the time of your application and on Oriel. All evidence will be uploaded at the time you are submitting your application. For further guidance on the details of evidence required please refer to the guidance on the Medical Specialty Recruitment page for more information.

Submissions for any adjustments at interview will be made via Oriel. Please follow the guidance on Oriel and the guidance on the Medical Specialty Recruitment page for this process. All evidence must be uploaded with your Oriel application. You will be notified of the outcome of your application prior to interview.

If you have a situation that has occurred after the application window has closed, please contact us via the Applicant Support Portal to receive further guidance.

Booking an interview

For any candidates with approved adjustments, you will receive an email from the recruitment team by Thursday 6 February 2025 with a link to the Event Management System (EMS) to book your preferred interview slot. Please note that Oriel will send you reminders to book your interview, as you are using a different system to book your interview, please ignore Oriel’s reminders. Once the booking window has closed your interview time will be booked on Oriel by an administrator and you will be able to see this.

Submitting an application

All applications must be submitted on Oriel before the national deadline of 4pm (GMT) on Thursday 21 November 2024. Under no circumstances will late applications be accepted.

If you are dual qualified (medical and dental), please note the following when completing your employment history on the Oriel application form:

• If you are a dentistry first applicant, call your pre-medical jobs ‘Dental’ and avoid the term SHO. Completing your MRCS does not preclude you from applying to CST.
• If you are a medicine first applicant and you have worked in surgical specialities before dentistry, doing your second degree ‘resets the clock’ on the 18-month limit of surgical experience. You may have to provide evidence of maintaining your foundation training competencies whilst studying for your dental degree.

Longlisting

Longlisting is the process of checking that you meet the minimum requirements to be eligible for a Core Surgical Training post. You can find the eligibility criteria on the person specification. More information about longlisting can be found on the Medical Specialty Recruitment pages.

Round deadline for submitting a CREST

As a result of changes to the application process, only the 2024 version of the CREST form will be accepted. It is anticipated that you will be able to provide a CREST at time of application. If you are not able to provide a CREST at this time, you will be presented with a window to submit a CREST within 72 hours of the application window closing. The CREST upload window will close at 4pm on Thursday 21 November 2024. 

Special circumstances and Fitness to Practise

Please refer to the Medical Specialty Recruitment page for guidance on special circumstances.

Any candidate who answers yes to one or more of the questions in the Fitness to Practise section of the application form, must complete the HEE London and KSS Recruitment Office Fitness to Practise (FTP) declaration form providing further details regarding their affirmative/positive answer. 

Please refer to the guidance and relevant forms which can be found within our support portal.

Shortlisting

As part of the selection process for 2025 recruitment, all longlisted applicants will be required to take a Multi-Specialty Recruitment Assessment (MSRA). This will form the basis of your shortlisting score.

Only the top 1200 applicants at MSRA will be invited to interview. All applicants that score higher than the cut-off score but are not initially invited to interview will be put on a reserve list.

Multi-Specialty Recruitment Assessment (MSRA)

As part of the selection process for 2025 recruitment all longlisted applicants will be required to take a Multi-Specialty Recruitment Assessment (MSRA). This will form the basis of your shortlisting score.

The MSRA is a computer-based assessment, delivered in partnership with Work Psychology Group and Pearson VUE, which has been designed to assess some of the essential competences outlined in the Person Specification and is based around clinical scenarios.

The MSRA will be delivered at Pearson VUE test centres. Applicants will be invited to register an account for MSRA, and a separate invite to sit the exam at a Pearson Vue test centre no later than to be confirmed. For more information and to find your nearest test centre visit Pearson Vue.

You can find further information on the MSRA pages.

Any queries related to the MSRA exam or Pearson Vue test centres are handled by the MSRA team and the Pearson Vue team.

Submitting supporting evidence

If you are invited to upload evidence will be provided with further instructions by the deadline about how to upload evidence to the portal.

Please check your Oriel messages for updates during all stages of the recruitment process.

You should ensure that they present the evidence in the requested format.

Failure to submit all evidence by the stated deadline will result in your application form being withdrawn by the recruitment team.

Recruitment administrators cannot upload evidence on your behalf at any stage, and once the deadline for submission has passed, your access to the portal will be withdrawn.

Recruitment administrators cannot update scores at all throughout the recruitment process. This means that competencies/evidence gained after the application window has closed cannot be accepted.

If you have problems with uploading evidence, you must inform the recruitment team via the Applicant Support Portal.

Any instances where applicants are found to have deliberately over selected high indicators may be treated as probity concerns. This may lead to you being removed from the recruitment process or a referral to the GMC.

Portfolio Station

Following the successful use of a multi-station format during the interviews for Core Surgical Training for 2024, we will continue to use this format for the 2025 selection process and have expanded it to include a portfolio station.

You will no longer be asked to complete self-assessment on Oriel. Instead, you will be asked to upload an index page with the appropriate entries for each domain (using a letter from A-E instead of a score). Portfolios will continue to be uploaded on the verification portal as before.

During the interview, your portfolio will be assessed by the interviewers during a ten-minute waiting period (similar to the process pre-pandemic). After this, there will be a ten-minute virtual interview about the portfolio, you will have 5 minutes for each question and will be asked about two of your portfolio domains.

You will be provided with further instructions about how to upload evidence to the evidence portal in due course. You should ensure that you present the evidence in the requested format.

Failure to do so could result in your evidence being rejected and/or score being revised downwards.

Failure to submit all evidence by the stated deadline will result in your application form being withdrawn by the recruitment team.

The evidence upload window is from Friday 7 February to Wednesday 19 February 2025.

Recruitment administrators will not be able to upload evidence on behalf of applicants and once the deadline for submission has passed, applicant access will be withdrawn.

Training posts

Changes to training for Improving Surgical Training (IST)

England

There have been some changes to training posts for 2025. You may preference 2-year Core Surgical Training posts in England, HEE have agreed to pause the recruitment to all IST posts in England for 2024. The number of surgical training places will be maintained as posts will be added back into core surgical recruitment.

Wales and Scotland will continue to recruit to run-through IST.

Scotland

You can still preference uncoupled Improving Surgical Training Pilot Posts, run-through IST posts (in General Surgery, Vascular Surgery, Urology or Trauma and Orthopaedics), or a combination of any of these.

Offers, references and scoresheet 

Following interview, you will receive a total score, a unique ranking and will be deemed successful or unsuccessful and will be informed of this via Oriel. 

Your total score will be a combination of MSRA (10%), verified evidence score (30%) and overall interview score (60%). All scores are combined and appropriately weighted. The MSRA is weighted at 10% of the overall selection score and scaled onto a 0–10-point scale. The MSRA score is combined with the Management score, Clinical score and Verified evidence score, which are equally weighted to account for 30% of the overall selection score and each scaled onto a 0–30-point scale. The scores are combined to produce an overall selection score out of 100 points.

Offers will be made to those who are successful and have ‘matched’ to a post and will be based on the your ranking and preferences.

Initial offers will be made via Oriel by 5pm Tuesday 25 March 2025.

Following initial offers being released, further offers will be made in subsequent iterations.

You have 48 hours from the time of offer (excluding weekends) to confirm via Oriel whether you wish to accept, reject or hold your offer. Offers made after the hold deadline will only have the option to accept or reject.

References will only be requested when an offer has been accepted.

Scoresheets will be released to all on (date to be confirmed) therefore, you do not need to request your scoresheets after interview as we will be unable to provide them until the date above.

Allocation 

Once you have accepted a Core Surgical Training CT1/ST1 post, your information will be passed to their relevant region who will contact you directly to complete the allocation process.

Further information on how to request a deferred start date or training less than full time (LTFT) can be found on the Medical Specialty Recruitment pages.

Next steps and roles and responsibilities

If you accept an offer of a training programme your details will be passed on to the local training programme director around 14 weeks prior to your start date, and to the first trust you have been appointed to 12 weeks prior to your start date. Therefore, you should not expect to receive any communication from them prior to this time.