More than 300 people attended a ‘one stop shop’ recruitment event at Cheltenham Racecourse with a large number fast-tracked into job opportunities within health and social care in Gloucestershire.
A total of 314 people were welcomed through the doors, 298 job seekers were interviewed and 270 of those were offered roles with 41% being new to care. The range of posts on offer included mental health, community services, adult social care, GP practice and hospital support roles.
Organisers have hailed the informative event, which enabled people to walk in and get screened, registered and interviewed on the day a ‘huge success’. Feedback from candidates indicated that the dynamic new format was straightforward and allowed them to navigate through the recruitment process quickly and with ease.
Gloucestershire Health and Care NHS Foundation Trust (GHC) Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (GHT), NHS Gloucestershire, Gloucestershire County Council (GCC) and the independent care sector joined forces to run the event which aimed to fill a large number of vacancies across the health and care sector locally.
Tracey Cox, Director of People, Culture and Engagement at NHS Gloucestershire said working in partnership was the key to success: “The event went extremely well and there was a real buzz in the air.
This was the first time we have recruited for health and social care posts at the same time in this kind of innovative way and the format worked well.
By working together with our partners we were able to be highly efficient which was really beneficial for the candidates.”
The busy demo and learning zones allowed candidates to meet health and social care professionals face to face, get a feel for the culture of organisations and find out about what the roles involve as well as exploring career progression and development.
Neil Savage, Director of Human Resources and Organisational Development at GHC said: “It has been so positive to hear feedback from applicants about how enthusiastic they feel about securing a role within the health and care system.
The event was a great way of demonstrating how rewarding it can be to do a caring job and support workers are really the backbone of our system so we’re very glad to be welcoming some new recruits on board.”
At the event, candidates were routed through to an interview zone where health and care recruiters worked from questions designed to find out about prospective employees’ values, capabilities and skills.
Claire Radley, Director for People and Organisational Development at GHT said: “We were really impressed by the calibre of candidates that the event attracted. We were hopeful that numbers attending the event would be high, but to get such quality applicants was fantastic and very heartening.”
Sarah Scott, Executive Director of Adult Social Care, Communities and Wellbeing at GCC said the one-stop shop style of the event made it much easier for applicants.
“Our aim was to remove barriers for people who may have considered the traditional route to employment a complex process and we’re really pleased that we were able to do this.
Welcoming some new employees into health and social care will definitely boost morale for existing staff which is hugely important.
The indications are that we will work together again to run future event, building on this initial success.”