The Business Services Authority (BSA) has opted into the ‘Step into Health’ scheme which aims to enable employers to work with the Armed Forces community to provide career and development opportunities.
To support this initiative, there is an application question on BSA adverts that help identify Armed Forces community members who have applied for a vacancy.
Candidates can indicate their status by answering the application question ‘Are you a member of the Armed Forces community?’.
How is an Armed Forces community member highlighted to the Recruiting Manager (RM)?
Once the vacancy and candidates have progressed into the ‘Shortlisting: Evaluate’ stage, a medal icon will be present within the priority field indicating all candidates who are part of the Armed Forces community.
If you are unsure what any of the icons mean within this column, you can hover your mouse over the icon for further information.
Are Armed Forces community candidates guaranteed an interview?
An Armed Forces Community candidate should only be reviewed against the essential role requirements (Shortlisting criteria) for a role; if they meet this then they should be invited to Interview.
Special attention should be paid to these applications and a second review of the scoring can be carried out to ensure the scoring is correct.
What if an Armed Forces community candidate is not invited to interview?
If the Lead Shortlister does not invite candidates with the ‘Armed Forces Community’ status to Interview, the following message appears in Trac when confirming the Interview information:
“Please ensure that you have carefully considered all of these applicants and can confirm that they do not meet the basic requirements in the person specification that would guarantee their progression to the next stage.
If you are in any doubt, please click 'Cancel' below and review the applicants in Shortlisting with icons in the "Pri" column again (you can click on the column heading to list all of them together). In all cases, please add a note to explain why they were not moved into the next stage of recruitment."
Further Guidance
- Information on the Step into Health scheme can be found on the NHS Employers website.
- Guidance can be found within the managing applicantspage of the ‘Support’ section in Trac.