Recruitment Assistant

Main area: Recruitment Assistant

Grade Band: 2

Contract: 4 months (Fixed term until mid August 2025 to cover a secondment)

Hours: Full time - 37.5 hours per week (Hybrid working in line with policy - 80% home, 20% office)

Job ref: 380-SS0628-A

Site: Eastern and Coastal Area Offices

Town: Canterbury

Salary: £23,615 per annum

Salary period: Yearly

Closing: 26/03/2025 23:59

Interview date: 09/04/2025

The CQC rates us as an Outstanding organisation for Caring with an overall rating of Good.

Kent and Medway NHS and Social Care Partnership Trust (KMPT) offers a range of ongoing benefits to our valued workforce across the Trust. From an active health and wellbeing programme to regular recognition events, we work hard to provide varied benefits that make a difference to your work-life balance.

Would you like to work flexibly? In the NHS, we are reminded every day of how important life is. As a flexible working friendly organisation, we want to be sure that you can work in a way that is best for us, for our patients and for you. Speak to us about how we might be able to accommodate a flexible working arrangement.

Job overview: Do you have a passion for organisation and excellent communication skills? If you're a highly organised and motivated individual who thrives in a fast-paced environment, we encourage you to apply. We are seeking a highly motivated Recruitment Assistant to play a vital role in supporting our recruitment team. You'll play a key role in ensuring a smooth and efficient recruitment process, helping us find the best possible candidates for our Trust.

This role is currently being advertised as a fixed term role, to cover secondment until mid August 2025. The team is currently based at home for 80% of the working week, with 20% being spent on-site in Canterbury, in accordance with our current hybrid working policy.

In this role you will assist in all areas of the recruitment process to help ensure that it is carried out effectively and efficiently in a timely manner. This post is open to both external candidates and internal KMPT staff who may be interested in this role on a secondment basis. Please note: The successful candidate will be required to commence employment no later than 5th May 2025. We encourage interested individuals to submit their applications without delay, as this advertisement will be closed once the application cap has been met.

Main duties of the job:

• To be responsible for the generic recruitment e-mail address, acknowledging and replying to messages and alerting colleagues of any messages requiring their attention.
• Book ID appointments with candidates and ensure collection of appropriate ID is taken for candidate's Right to Work Checks and DBS applications, highlighting any queries to the recruitment officers.
• Book interviews and assessments following instructions/details from hiring managers.
• Send out shortlist regret emails to the unsuccessful candidates.
• Follow-up emails to the hiring manager if the interview date has passed and the correct document has not been returned within the specified time frame.
• Undertake and assist in the follow-up and chasing of outstanding pre-employment checks in order to ensure each vacancy is expedited and delays kept to a minimum.
• Download personal files from Trac saving these electronically and send them to the hiring manager once the recruitment vacancy has been filled and all pre-employment checks are completed to a satisfactory standard.
• Deal with enquiries and queries regarding the recruitment process from applicants, hiring managers and other internal colleagues.
• Upload interview results sent to recruitment team inbox accordingly to the relevant job file and inform the Recruitment Office.
• Follow up with Occupational Health/References/DBS to assist the recruitment officers in processing pre-employment checks as quickly as possible.

Working for our organisation: Come and work with us in the Garden of England where we combine exceptional professional development opportunities with a tremendous quality of life. We are Kent and Medway NHS and Social Care Partnership Trust (KMPT), providing mental health, learning disability and specialist services, serving 1.8 million people in Kent and Medway, as well as specialist services for adults in Sussex and Surrey. We are rated Good overall by the CQC. Each year we care for over 2,000 people in our hospitals and 54,000 people in the community. We are proud to employ over 3,800 people from 66 nationalities, and to serve an increasingly diverse range of communities across rural and urban areas.

You will be joining friendly, passionate colleagues, rich in their diversity, who are committed to providing excellent care to our service users and their loved ones. The nature of our work attracts kindness and compassion as standard and everyone from our cleaners and porters to the chief executive and chairman are recognised as playing a vital role in providing an exemplary service.

Our mission is what we set out to do every day: We deliver brilliant care through brilliant people. Our vision is where we want to be in the future: To provide outstanding care and to work in partnership to deliver this in the right place, for every service user, every time.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities: Please refer to the attached job description for full details of the main responsibilities of the role.

Person specification:

Qualifications and Experience:

• Educated to GCSE level or equivalent and/or demonstrable administration experience.
• Demonstrable experience of working as an administrator within a busy office environment.
• NHS experience within a recruitment/HR role.
• Experience of working within a Recruitment Team.

Knowledge and Skills:

• Excellent ICT skills with experience of using Outlook, Word and Excel to a high standard.
• Ability to work on own initiative, within guidelines. Due to the diversity of tasks, there is a need to work effectively under pressure and prioritise workload and meet deadlines.
• Experience of using applicant tracking systems.
• Knowledge of Trac/ESR.

Your employer pays 23.7% towards your pension and life assurance benefits. 27 days for full time or pro rata if part time. After 5 years NHS service: 29 days full time or pro rata if part time. After 10 years NHS service: 33 days full time or pro rata if part time. Plus bank holidays, that’s up to 41 days - more than 8 weeks paid time off! Medical staff have national Terms and Conditions. Buying and selling of annual leave is also available as part of our flexible approach to staff benefits.

Statutory and occupational maternity, paternity or adoption leave dependent on length of NHS service. Other paid/unpaid leave can be for Jury Service, Reserved Armed Forces, etc. This is paid outside of annual leave. Non-paid leave for career breaks.

Staff Support: KMPT offers a face-to-face counselling service for any issues not just work-related problems.

NHS discounts and shopping vouchers: Staff can sign up for Red Guava, PS discounts and Health Service Discounts to receive a variety of discounts in travel, fashion, technology, mobile phone contracts, food and drink, days out etc.

Learning and Development opportunities: In addition to the mandatory subjects, there are a number of leadership, management and staff topic areas, including coaching and mentoring.

Induction: KMPT is committed to supporting all new staff and this includes a comprehensive Induction programme. The programme's duration depends on role and can be from 2 days to 4 weeks (not always consecutive days). The Induction programme will provide an excellent opportunity for new staff to meet and engage with KMPT’s subject specialists and include the required training. The programme may involve some travel to the various training venues across Kent and Medway, the main ones being Canterbury, Maidstone and Dartford.

New starter bonus: At the Trust we really value our nurses and the skills they bring. To recognise this we offer a New Hire Bonus of £1200 pro rata for band 5 and 6 nursing staff.

Staff Network Forums: A variety of staff network forums which empower, support and encourage network members and allies, to reflect KMPT values and promote equality and diversity.

Lease car scheme, Cycle to work scheme, the list goes on!

Probation Period: New employees external to Kent and Medway NHS and Social Care Partnership Trust are subject to a six-month probationary period.

To deliver an effective service it is essential in some of our roles that you are able to travel between work bases in a timely manner.

Production of false or forged documents/qualifications in order to obtain employment is a criminal offence and will be reported to the Police.

Disclosure and Barring Service Check: Certain roles are subject to criminal record checks called Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks. Therefore, you will be required to submit a completed Disclosure form to the Disclosure and Barring Service.

KMPT are signed up to NHS England's Sexual Safety in Health Care Organisational Charter. KMPT takes a systematic zero-tolerance approach to tackle any unwanted, inappropriate and/or harmful sexual behaviours within the workplace and in our care provision. We are committed to sexual safety which encompasses prevention, support and decisive action against perpetrators. We are committed to keeping you and our patients safe.

KMPT is creating an environment for equal opportunities for all, where we can ALL be ourselves. We take pride in our services – which are underpinned by our Trust values:

• Respect - We value people as individuals, we treat others as we would like to be treated.
• Openness - Work in a collaborative, transparent way.
• Accountability - We are professional and responsible for our actions.
• Working together - We work together to make a difference for our service users.
• Innovation - We find creative ways to run efficient, high-quality services.
• Excellence - We listen and learn to continually improve our knowledge and ways of working.

In cases where we receive a high volume of applications for a post, it may be necessary to bring the closing date forward. Please submit your completed application as early as possible to avoid disappointment. Due to the high volume of applications received, it is not possible to respond individually to your application. Should you not hear from us within six weeks of the vacancy closing, please assume that your application has not been successful.

If you have problems applying, contact:

Address: Kent & Medway NHS & Social Care Partnership Trust, Eastern & Coastal Area Offices, Littlebourne Road, Canterbury, CT1 1AZ

Telephone: 01227 230855 | ext. 730855