Recruitment Support
Explore tools and guidance to support you deliver recruitment activity with confidence.
This page brings together the key tools, guidance and resources to support you throughout the NHS Scotland recruitment process. It provides practical information to help you plan, manage and deliver recruitment activity consistently, while ensuring a positive experience for candidates.
Use this page to access national systems, step-by-step guidance, and supporting resources to help you recruit effectively and confidently.
On this page you'll find:
- Getting Started with Recruitment
- How Recruitment is Delivered Across Scotland
- Recruitment Systems and Platforms
- National and Best Practice
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If you have any questions about the information provided, or if you think additional content would be helpful, please contact the Centre for Workforce Supply at nes.cwsmarketing@nhs.scot.
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Getting Started with Recruitment
Before beginning the recruitment process, it’s important to understand the full journey and what is required at each stage. Taking time to plan your approach helps ensure your recruitment activity is efficient, compliant and aligned with best practice.
This guidance supports you to:
- understand the end-to-end recruitment process
- prepare key documentation, including job descriptions and adverts
- plan timelines and identify key milestones
By starting with a clear plan, you can avoid delays, reduce rework, and provide a more structured experience for both your panel and your candidates.
Guidance and Processes
Visit the Hiring Managers Guidance and Processes page, to navigate the full NHS Scotland recruitment journey with clear, step-by-step guidance, tools and documents needed at each stage, alongside the national processes. This resource supports you at each stage of the recruitment process, from planning and advertising roles through to final offers, helping you deliver a fair, consistent and well-supported recruitment experience aligned with Once for Scotland standards.
Start with a Clear Overview
The Recruitment Timeline gives you a clear overview of the key stages in the process, highlighting key considerations at each stage, to help you plan ahead and keep your recruitment on track.
How Recruitment is Delivered Across Scotland
Understanding how recruitment works across Scotland
Recruitment in NHS Scotland is delivered through a combination of national systems, regional services, and local Health Board teams.
While each level has a different role, they work together to provide a consistent, supported recruitment experience for hiring managers and candidates.
This page explains the three levels of recruitment delivery.
1. National: Consistent Systems and Guidance
At a national level, NHS Scotland provides:
- Jobtrain, the national recruitment system used by all Boards
- Once for Scotland workforce policies
- National guidance, templates, and standard operating procedures (SOPs)
- Strategic direction to improve consistency and fairness in recruitment
This ensures:
- A standard approach across Scotland
- Consistent candidate experience
- Alignment with national workforce policies
2. Regional: Shared Recruitment Services and Collaboration
In some areas of Scotland, recruitment is delivered through regional shared services or collaborative models.
The East Region Recruitment Service (ERRS) is a shared recruitment service supporting hiring managers across multiple NHS Scotland organisations in the East of Scotland.
Delivered on behalf of partner Boards, ERRS provides a consistent and streamlined approach to recruitment, helping ensure a high-quality and efficient experience for hiring managers and candidates.
Who the service supports
ERRS supports recruitment activity for organisations across the East region, including:
- NHS Lothian (host Board)
- NHS Fife
- NHS Borders
- Public Services Delivery Scotland, formerly NHS Education for Scotland (NES)
- Scottish Ambulance Service (SAS)
The service is delivered through a shared model, with recruitment staff employed by NHS Lothian and operating across multiple locations.
What ERRS can support with
The East Region Recruitment Service provides support across all stages of the recruitment process, including:
- Processing and advertising vacancies
- Managing recruitment timelines
- Supporting shortlisting and interview stages
- Coordinating communication with candidates
- Progressing offers and appointments
ERRS also provides access to:
- Hiring manager guidance and templates
- Recruitment bulletins and updates
- Jobtrain support and guidance
- Vacancy submission checklists
Submitting a vacancy
To submit an approved vacancy to the ERRS for advertising, please send to: eos.regionvacancies@nhs.scot along with the job description, person specification, draft advert and confirmation of vacancy approval authorising the post to proceed to advertising.
Access the ERRS website
For full guidance, resources, and process information, visit the ERRS website, to find detailed guidance, tools, and links to support each stage of the recruitment process.
Other regions developing models
In other parts of Scotland recruitment is supported through:
- Board-level recruitment teams
- Regional collaboration and leadership
- Specific shared services (e.g. international recruitment in some areas)
These models may vary between regions.
3. Local: Health Board recruitment teams
Each NHS Scotland Health Board has its own Recruitment Team, responsible for:
- Supporting hiring managers through the recruitment process
- Managing local approval processes
- Coordinating recruitment activity
- Providing Board-specific guidance and support
Regardless of region, your local Recruitment Team plays a key role in delivering recruitment. Find out more about what recruitment support is available, by visiting the National and Local Guidance page.
How the Three Levels Work Together
This approach helps to balance consistency across Scotland with the flexibility needed to meet local service requirements. It also ensures that hiring managers have access to the right support at the right time throughout the recruitment process.
In summary, these levels are designed to work together:
- National → sets the framework (systems, policies, guidance)
- Regional → provides shared delivery models (where established)
- Local → delivers recruitment support and processes day-to-day
What This Means For You as a Hiring Manager
As a hiring manager, you may interact with different parts of the recruitment system depending on your Board and region. Each level plays a role in supporting you through the process.
You can use this site, to access national guidance, practical tools, and best practice resources to support your role. Where a regional service is in place, such as the East Region Recruitment Service (ERRS), this will support the delivery of recruitment activity and provide process-specific guidance relevant to your area. Alongside this, your local Recruitment Team remains your key point of contact for day-to-day queries, approvals, and coordination of your vacancy.
Together, these elements provide a joined-up approach to recruitment, helping you navigate each stage with confidence.
Recruitment Systems and Platforms
Use the National Recruitment Systems to manage vacancies and candidate applications. These platforms work together to support a consistent, end-to-end recruitment process across NHS Scotland.
Why These Systems Matter
Together, these platforms create a joined-up recruitment approach - supporting everything from advertising roles to managing applications in a single, standardised process. This helps ensure consistency, transparency and efficiency across NHS Scotland recruitment which are essential for managing the recruitment process.
Jobtrain (NHS Scotland recruitment system)
Jobtrain is the national digital recruitment system used across NHS Scotland to manage the full recruitment journey in one place. It is a cloud-based applicant tracking system that supports every stage of the process, from creating and advertising vacancies through to shortlisting, interview management and issuing offers.
Using Jobtrain, you can:
- create and publish job adverts
- manage applications and track candidate progress
- shortlist and schedule interviews
- manage offers and pre-employment checks
This provides a central, consistent system for hiring managers, HR teams and candidates, helping streamline recruitment and improve the overall experience.
NHS Scotland Jobs portal
The NHS Scotland Jobs portal is the national website where all NHS Scotland vacancies are advertised. It acts as the main entry point for candidates to search for roles across Health Boards and apply online.
Through this platform, you can:
- promote your vacancy to a national audience
- ensure visibility across NHS Scotland
- connect candidates directly to the application process in Jobtrain
This helps maximise reach and ensures opportunities are accessible to a wide and diverse pool of potential applicants.
National and Best Practice
Access National Guidance
Explore the national recruitment guidance, to support compliant and effective recruitment across NHS Scotland. These resources bring together key policies, standards and best practice to help you deliver recruitment that is fair, consistent and aligned across NHS Scotland.
They provide a shared framework to guide decision-making, ensure legal and policy requirements are met, and support a consistent approach across Health Boards. Using national guidance also helps reduce variation, strengthen confidence in recruitment processes, and support a high-quality experience for both hiring managers and candidates.
This guidance supports you to:
- meet national recruitment standards and ensure compliance at every stage
- apply fair, transparent and consistent approaches to selection and decision-making
- create an inclusive and accessible recruitment process for all candidates
- recognise and reduce potential barriers that may prevent candidates from applying or fully engaging
- embed NHS Scotland values within your recruitment approach
These tools also help you to make informed decisions when managing different scenarios, ensuring that your approach is both consistent and responsive to individual candidate needs.
By following this guidance, you can help ensure a positive and equitable experience for candidates, while strengthening consistency, trust and confidence in recruitment across NHS Scotland.
Selection and Interview support
Explore the Selection and Interview Support page, for a full collection of tools designed to support fair, consistent and effective selection processes.
This includes:
- Interview guidance and templates to help structure interviews and support panel members
- Shortlisting and scoring approaches to enable objective, transparent decision-making
- Values Based Recruitment support to ensure alignment with NHS Scotland’s core values
Using these resources helps to ensure:
- Fair and inclusive selection processes for all candidates
- Consistency across hiring panels and recruitment activity
- Clear alignment with NHS Scotland values and Once for Scotland guidance
Frequently Asked Questions
Have a question about the recruitment process, platforms, or any stage of the journey?
Explore our frequently asked questions to find clear answers to common queries.
Explore NHS Scotland's Hiring Managers Centre
