Creating a vacancy
This guide walks through creating a new vacancy from scratch, from the required fields you must fill in to the optional details that improve job board listings and candidate matching.
A vacancy can also arrive automatically through job parsing, without you adding anything by hand. RecSphere checks your configured job inboxes (the job email accounts set up for your desk, not your personal mailbox) roughly every minute and pulls matching jobs into the Vacancies list. See Vacancies overview for how a parsed vacancy arrives and what its status means.
Where to start​
Open the Vacancies page from the main navigation and click the Add vacancy button at the top right of the list. A creation form opens with the required fields at the top.
You can also start a new vacancy from a client record. Open the client, go to the Vacancies tab and click Add vacancy there. The client and location fields will be pre-filled for you.
Required fields​
Four fields are mandatory before you can save:
- Title. The role name as candidates will see it, for example "Senior Nurse" or "Warehouse Operative".
- Client. Pick the top-level client. Start typing to search, for example NHS South West. Clients can have child clients (their locations or sites) beneath them, and you can search to find both the top-level client and the sites under it.
- Location. Select from the sites linked to that client, for example Bristol Royal Infirmary. The main site defaults in for you. For a parent client (for example a health service) with several location sites, you can add sites individually, or tick cross-site to add several at once (see Cross-site vacancies below). Sites are managed on the client record.
- Start date. The earliest date a candidate could begin in the role.
Leave the reference blank to let RecSphere auto-generate one in the form RS-1234. The next vacancy in this example would be RS-1045.
Cross-site vacancies​
Tick Cross-site vacancy to attach more than one location or site to a single vacancy. This is useful where a candidate may work across several sites under one client. When the box is left unticked, the vacancy stays tied to the single location you chose.
Employment type and discipline​
Choose the Employment type for the role, for example Locum or Permanent. Then set the grade, speciality and any sub-specialities that describe the role, for example a specialist GP. Grade and speciality are used in healthcare and similar regulated sectors to match candidates by band, role family or clinical speciality.
Set the pay unit for the role, and add the original charge rate: the rate first quoted in the email or the scrape that the vacancy came from. This may differ from the rate card payroll has set for the client, and it can be discussed or overridden, for example a custom charge rate agreed for a last-minute fill.
From the grade and speciality, RecSphere auto-generates a role name, which you can rename. You can then add skills, qualifications and the job description, and assign the consultants (see Assigning a consultant below).
Optional fields​
The following fields are not required, but each one improves how the vacancy is filtered, shortlisted and published:
- Reference. Your own internal code. Use this if you want to match a client's PO number or an existing reference scheme. If you leave it blank, RecSphere assigns the next number in the RS- sequence.
- Rate. The pay or charge rate. The exact fields depend on the client's rate card (hourly, daily, sessional).
- Duration. Set a start date and an end date for the role. Use this for fixed-term, locum and project roles.
- Description. The job description. This is an HTML field, so you can paste formatted content straight in, and it is what appears on job boards and the public listing.
- Required compliance. Which compliance questionnaires or documents a candidate must have on file to be put forward. For example, a Senior Nurse role might require an in-date DBS check.
Adding a schedule​
You can attach the working pattern for the role in one of two ways:
- Potential schedule. If the pattern is not yet agreed, enter a potential schedule instead, for example assume Monday to Friday 9 to 5, giving a 40-hour week. The potential schedule drives forecasting of the vacancy's potential value before anything is confirmed.
- Confirmed schedule. If the pattern is agreed, add a confirmed schedule. This also adds it to the schedule.
A potential schedule can later be confirmed. A Confirm schedule action pushes the shift pattern onto the schedule.
Assigning a consultant​
Assign the consultants to the vacancy, then save. On a 360 desk one consultant owns the whole role. On a non-360 desk, consultants can be split between the client side and the candidate side. The vacancy detail then shows the primary contact along with the information you entered.
Financials​
With a client and rate card in place, the vacancy immediately shows the hours, the potential value and the potential margin, drawn from the Financials tab. Those figures come from the charge rate, the base rate, the pay rate and any location-based fees.
You can adjust these figures to model the margin and earnings for a candidate you have in mind. You cannot save them at vacancy level, so the pulled rate-card figures are never overwritten. If you attempt to save, RecSphere instead offers to push that candidate straight to the shortlist, where the agreed figures are settled. See The Financials tab for more detail.
Save as a draft or publish immediately​
When the required fields are filled in, you have two options at the bottom of the form:
- Save. Saves the vacancy as a draft. It is not visible to candidates and is not pushed to job boards. Use this when you are waiting on details from the client.
- Publish. Makes the vacancy live. It appears in the public listing and, if you have configured a job board integration, can be pushed straight there.
You can switch between Draft and Open at any time from the vacancy detail view.