Up to 1400 soon-to-graduate nursing students will be testing the new ‘one-stop job shop’ when it goes live on August 6.
All applications and job offers for government-subsidised new graduate nursing positions in 2013 will have to be made via the new online ACE (Advanced Choice of Employment) clearinghouse.
The tough job market for new graduates in recent years prompted Chief Nurse Jane O’Malley to first moot the centralised recruitment process more than 18 months ago. The clearinghouse aims to provide better and quicker data on graduate employment trends (including how many are still job hunting at the end of the year) and help guide workforce planning.
Kathy Holloway, chair of nurse educator group NETS said students were “not unexpectedly” anxious about applying under the process as it was new. “But there’s a commitment across the sector to make it work.”
The process being piloted is built on the already established recruitment system for junior doctors. It means for the first time that all 20 district health boards have the same recruitment timeline and that sought after graduates cannot juggle multiple job offers for places on NETP (nursing entry to practice) or NESP (mental health) new graduate programmes.
The upcoming nursing graduates have six weeks to register and refine their applications online after the ACE nursing website goes live on August 6. They can lodge applications with up to four district health boards and in three specialties or practice settings (including residential aged care and primary health).
All applications have the same cutoff date of September 16, district health boards then interview applicants in October and select and rank the students they are ready to employ. The ACE software system then “matchmakes” the DHB job offers with the students’ own preferences until a match is made and the graduate’s application disappears from the pool.
A single job offer will be sent out on November 9 to all successful applicants who then have seven days to respond. If they decline the offer they are dropped from the recruitment pool, so students are being advised to be clear from the outset which boards they are prepared to work for.
Applicants who miss out on the first round are advised they have been placed in the talent pool for the second round (finalised late November) and if additional vacancies emerge over summer.
Low nursing turnover and tight budgets has in the last two years resulted in district health boards receiving twice as many applications as new graduate programme places on offer. A March survey of 1050 graduates from November 2011 confirmed this trend with only 635 of the 850 graduates in nursing jobs actually employed in new graduate programmes i.e. NETP (nursing entry to practice) or NESP (the mental health new graduate programme). But at the same time some DHBs have failed to fill all places.
