JHP Training
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This large national provider, delivers a range of Apprenticeship frameworks in the service and care sectors from over 50 local business centres across the country. JHP Training advertise all their Apprenticeships on Apprenticeship vacancies and have placed over 500 vacancies on the online system since its launch in January 2009.
Sarah Scott, Marketing and Communications Manager at JHP Training, believes that Apprenticeship vacancies has benefited JHP Training in a number of ways with the main benefit being that: “It’s widened the pool of our candidates enormously. We’re able to reach people now that we would never have reached before.”
Using Apprenticeship vacancies
JHP Training offers a full recruitment service to employers looking to find an apprentice, as well as support for learners to find
and complete their Apprenticeship. Each local centre is responsible for recruitment, selection and delivery of Apprenticeships in their area, working closely with both learners and employers; whilst marketing is managed by a central team at Head Office. This is reflected in the way JHP Training uses the Apprenticeship vacancies system. Each local centre engages with employers to understand their needs fully and build up a job description for their Apprenticeship vacancy. This is forwarded to the national marketing team, who ensure the advert meets necessary standards and is consistent with JHP Training’s corporate style.
Setting up vacancies
To make this process as easy and efficient as possible, JHP Training have developed templates for vacancy adverts for each of the Apprenticeship frameworks they offer. These templates include suggested text for the standard fields of the vacancy advert and suggested ‘additional questions’ for the application form. These are accessed through the company’s intranet, and are tailored by the local centres to match their employer’s exact requirements. This helps the local centres save time, whilst still ensuring that each vacancy is specific to each case.
“There are a lot of sections to fill in and a lot of repetition the more vacancies you put on. A lot of elements remain the same… so what we’ve done is try and complete as much of that on the template as possible for them” explains Sarah Scott.
To help employers think about what their Apprenticeship will look like, JHP Training have also developed a set of bullet points for each Apprenticeship framework, indicating the typical duties of an apprentice for that level and sector. This is used by the local centres to engage with employers, especially those new to Apprenticeships. JHP Training understand that employers are often very busy and anything that can give them a head start is helpful: “We’ve been finding that some employers are very reluctant to flesh out a full job description – so local centres can go through with the employer and cross out any bullet points that aren’t relevant and add in any that are.”
Managing applications
Once the vacancies are live on the system, the local centres take responsibility for managing their own vacancies, using the ‘applications ladder’ to manage and track applications as they come in. The information about candidates gathered from Apprenticeship vacancies is integrated with the local centre’s own ‘dashboard’ for managing applications. Chris Moore, the Employment Support Officer from the Plymouth centre, explains how this has benefited him in his day to day activities: “That really works well for me… it’s really quite simple and effective for us to use. It’s enabled us really to have a core of good quality applicants available at any one time. With the Apprenticeship vacancies system it’s impossible for us to lose applicants… they’re always on the system somewhere.”
Using the report function
JHP Training also uses the report function to help monitor and track Apprenticeship starts across all of its local centres. The reports used most regularly are the ILR Start Dates report, which gives a concise summary of how many starts they have had through the online system, and the Vacancies report which shows the status of all vacancies that have been advertised on Apprenticeship vacancies. These are compiled at Head Office, and a summary report is then sent out to all local centres. This has helped the national team to monitor performance across the whole business: “It does give quite an accurate view of how each centre is actually using the system and it enables us to flag up any problems. In terms of ease of use, it’s good. It suits our purposes.”
The benefits of using Apprenticeship vacancies
Using the Apprenticeship vacancies system has enhanced the service that JHP Training are able to offer and has in turn impacted on their business in a number of ways. The main benefit is that it opens up access to their target audience, providing a wider pool of potential candidates.
It also enhances JHP Training’s service to employers, as they can now offer to advertise their vacancies nationally and to pre-screen the candidates for them using the system.
“It’s given us a bit of an edge - in terms of positioning ourselves as offering recruitment for the employers, it’s really enabled us to back that claim up. Employers now have a choice of going with a traditional recruitment agency to advertise all their vacancies or us who can offer fee-free recruitment and relevant, vocational training once staff are placed.” says Sarah Scott.
Another benefit is that this can be achieved with no extra cost, as JHP Training have seen: “It’s obviously a lot more economical than having to advertise all of our employer vacancies in lineage ads in the papers.”
For the local centres as well, Apprenticeship vacancies provides one central place where all the information on each vacancy and every candidate is stored and instantly accessible. Chris Moore explains how using the system has benefited him: “It makes the whole process a lot easier for us, less time consuming… it really trims some time off, like being able to instantly refresh yourself with any position that’s come up.”
JHP Training have adapted the way they use the online system to meet their needs as a large national provider. From their experience JHP Training say they would “definitely recommend a central point of contact for uploading the vacancies and for pulling off the reports and monitoring activity – it’s the ones that put the time in to putting a good advert together that actually get the quality candidates coming forward.”
(Also available as a PDF - 496kb)
Last Updated: 08/02/2012