After submission

Once your application has been submitted, recruiters will begin to carry out 'longlisting'. There is not a set timetable that this will be completed by and this is often influenced by the interview date and how quickly that specialty needs to be prioritised. At the absolute latest, all specialties' longlisting will be completed no later than seven days prior to the first interview date for that specialty.

The region managing your application will check your application and any information accompanying it against the eligibility criteria (as described within the person specifications, and detailed on the am I eligible? section of this website). There are three possible outcomes during longlisting:

• Your application is found to be eligible and you can proceed to the next stage (see below).
• Your application is found not to be eligible, you will be emailed confirmation of this as soon as it is confirmed.
• More information is required to establish your eligibility. Where this is the case you will be given a deadline by which to respond, most commonly 72 hours from when the request was sent. It is highly important to respond by the deadline as otherwise your application is likely to be rejected. Upon receipt of the requested information it will be decided whether or not you can proceed. Where more information or documentation is requested, issues that are not properly resolved within the deadline may be longlisted out with no further opportunity to supply anything further.

If you do not hear anything during the longlisting period this is likely to mean that 'no news is good news' as recruiters only initially contact applications where they require clarification or they are not eligible. However, please monitor your emails during this period and you can double check your messages area within Oriel to ensure you have not missed an email, as a copy of all messages sent via the system can be found there. 

Acceptance of application form

Once longlisting has been completed, eligible candidates will receive an email to confirm this and information about the next steps.

This is not a guarantee of eligibility - in the event information arises later in the process showing that you are not eligible, your application can still be rejected at that point.

For more information on the eligibility criteria and the process by which you can demonstrate that you meet them, please see the am I eligible? section of this website.

Shortlisting for all specialties will be carried out in mainly the same way, the key difference being whether that specialty is assessing commitment to specialty as part of the application scoring process:

• Using your application self-assessment
• Verifying your achievements and re-scoring your application
• Giving an organisation/evidence of thoroughness score for your evidence
• Depending on the specialty, marking your commitment to specialty score and assessing if you meet the minimum commitment standards for the specialty
  
• Using your priority status and the total score awarded to your application to invite to interview in score order.

There is not a set minimum score required, other than for commitment to specialty, and a specialty will invite eligible candidates to interview in accordance with their interview capacity.

To view the scores awarded to all submitted applications, including average scores and distribution nationally, for previous years please visit the relevant specialty's  page.

Medical Training (Prioritisation) Act

Shortlisting is the first stage where your priority status will be taken into account. Details of the criteria to be given priority status can be found on the Medical Training Recruitment website. Whilst applicants with priority status will be considered before those without, they still need to meet minimum requirements of the process, such as loading sufficiently well organised evidence to support self-assessment scoring and, should a specialty assess it in shortlisting, demonstrating satisfactory commitment to specialty.

Timing of shortlisting

This will vary by specialty and we are not able to confirm exactly when each will be completed. The sequence of events for the shortlisting process will be:

• Loading evidence to the evidence portal - the dates which it is anticipated you will be asked to load your evidence for verification are published in each specialties 'Interview dates & posts' section of their page.
• Evidence verification - your evidence will be checked and scores verified at some point after the evidence loading deadline.
• Feedback and appeals - you will be sent your verified scores and given a short window (usually 72 hours) to appeal if you disagree with any of the verified scores. At this point any candidate found to be not appointable based on their commitment to specialty (for specialties assessing this at shortlisting) or issues with their evidence content or organisation will be notified; appeals are not permissible in these circumstances.
• Appeal review - appeals will be reviewed by a clinical lead whose decision is final. Please note that appealed scores can be reduced as well as increased and should a clinical lead find an issue with scoring for a domain that was not appealed, this could also be adjusted. Outcomes of appeals will be confirmed to applicants. In cases where an applicant's score is too far from the interview capacity cut-off to make a difference to the chances of being shortlisted, appeals may not be reviewed by a clinical lead.
• Shortlisting processed and outcomes confirmed - you will be emailed confirming if you have been shortlisted and will be invited to interview, are on a reserve list or have not been successful on this occasion; this will usually be no later than seven days prior to the first interview date for that specialty. 

Reserve list candidates will be subsequently invited if places become available due to higher scoring candidates withdrawing their application.

Specialties with capacity to interview all

If a specialty can interview all who apply, in some cases they may choose to do evidence verification after shortlisting, and in some cases after interview. Whilst the application score will not be needed for shortlisting, a proportion of the score is used in the total score used for ranking and offers, so the verification will be completed before this.

Specialties with applications far exceeding interview capacity

If a specialty has a significantly greater number of applications than their interview capacity, they may choose to shortlist out candidates whose self-assessment score is too far away from the interview capacity cut off to have a chance of being shortlisted. Where this is the case, the specialty will withdraw candidates at an early stage, usually soon after applications close once numbers can be assessed against capacity.

Applications shortlisted out on this basis will only look at the self-assessment score and will not factor in commitment to specialty, should that specialty assess it as part of their normal shortlisting process.