Attend your interviews, applicants told
26 Mar, 07 | by BMJ Group
Applicants under MTAS who have already been offered interviews in round one have been asked to carry on and attend these — even if they have more than one interview lined up.
Professor Alan Crockard, National Director of Modernising Medical Careers, issued the advice to all applicants by email on Friday 23rd March.
“I understand,
can i just have spome clarification on something-I’m on nights and feeling particularly thick this morning.do we get considered for just ONE post,our top rated interview?and if we don’t get that one, we go straight to second round?if the ratios are 4:1 at interview, there are going to be LOADS of us that don’t get jobs?!I don’t believe that there will generally be ratios of under 2 to 1 at ST3 interviews - surely masses of us are going to be worse off this way??
mari roberts
March 27th, 2007 at 11:27 am
“Canny candidates would discover that their best choices of getting a job would be to apply for surgery in Eastern area where there are 91 posts and only 9 candidates who have put it as a first choice.”
Great I’ll scrap the 3 years of medicine and college exams I’ve done and bugger off to Eastern to be a surgeon. I think you have really solved the problem here!
Melon
March 27th, 2007 at 11:00 pm
This farcical thing called MMC has become a joke.My understanding is that everyone will have only interview considered although he/she may have attended 3-4 interviews already. So only 1 choice would be considered.I would rather go to Las Vegas to try my chances there!! i mean now if you play your cards right ..you might get a job but if you have applied in an oversubscribed deanery you dont get a job and there is probably no second chance as the 2nd round is now going to be very small.MTAS has published its ratios but that will change as people choose their 1st choice and so in the end all this exercise which was supposed to modernise medical careers has resulted in a numbers game!
akash sinha
March 28th, 2007 at 6:40 am
this looks ridiculous as this is just a gamble and not realistic.
In addition competition rate released recently does not show anything as number of candidates in next step will change so it makes this gamble more risky;
so if you have done your best you have to apply for jobs and UoA that you have more chance and if everybody thinks the same way it means somebody without any experience in speciality could get a job in most convenient place and due to this gamble it is possible that the best candidates couldn’t get any job!!!
but what is the so:
1-scrap MTAS and extend the contracts.
2-carry on with round 1 and reduce the numkber of jobs in round one and offer more obs in round 2
3-increase the choices to 2 or 3 so candidates could have choices and arrange for new interviews in proper way to be fair for people they have done it before(they have to pay for their mistakes)
Mehdi
March 28th, 2007 at 5:05 pm
I disagree with the last paragraph and I think its slightly misleading. Yes there are 51 jobs for CMT in Mersey deanery but its 89 applicants put it as 1st choice and not 27. Also this number is likely to increase when candidates start changing their preferences… Why are we being mislead in every step???? Why are the goal posts constantly changing??? I truly regret all the sacrifices I made and the committment I’ve shown to the NHS and a failing system
Lynn Eaton replies: The competition table shows that of those who applied, 89 put it as their first choice. However, of those actually shortlisted for interview, 27 had put it as their first choice.
Fady Magdy
March 29th, 2007 at 3:02 am
Having been offered and attended 4 interviews I am obviously disappointed that I am probably no longer eligible my 2nd, 3rd and 4th choices. How many good candidates, who justifiably are applying to competitive areas/specialities, will now have no back-up job and find themselves in round 2?
Changing preferences on the basis on competition ratio now makes these ratios obsolete.
The review board no longer has junior doctor representation which some may say invalidates its recommendations.
By scrapping short listing and changing the first round so drastically half-way through the MTAS review has now disadvantaged even more doctors.
Sadly this process is chipping away at many doctors’ dedication to their profession and to the NHS. I dread to think of the repercussions this whole process will have on the NHS in years to come.
V. Tidman
March 29th, 2007 at 12:16 pm