How to get a job in domiciliary care

Domiciliary care is a career path that is open to anyone regardless of career experience. You can get a domiciliary care job at any point in your life from straight out of full time education to later in life after several different jobs.

It’s an incredibly rewarding job to have, as long as you have a genuine passion for helping others. It can be extremely hard work at times and you will no doubt encounter all types of people who have very different needs, so if you don’t have a genuine passion for the job you will quickly find the work unfulfilling and stressful.

When recruiting for domiciliary care jobs, recruiters often look for people who will be suited to the work rather than experienced social care or healthcare assistants. You will need to have a patient attitude, a positive approach, attention to detail and good communication skills. Of course, if you do have healthcare or social care experience then that’s a bonus, but it’s much more important to have the right approach to domiciliary care.

When you’re applying for a domiciliary care job, make sure you highlight your personal qualities in the covering letter, or in a section on your CV. Showing you’re aware that approach and attitude are as important as experience will definitely show the recruiter you understand the role. If you don’t hear back from an employer or recruiter straight away, feel free to follow it up with after a suitable length of time, say 2 -3 working days. It shows you’re a committed candidate serious about finding work in domiciliary care.

Care Manager jobs the most abundant right now

We current have more Care manager jobs than other job type advertised on Sociacare.co.uk, so that lead me to write an article yesterday drawing people’s attention to the fact that care manager jobs are the most advertised right now.

Becoming a care manager isn’t as inaccessible as you might initially think. Obviously there are requirements for leadership and management qualifications, but if you’ve got several years experience in social care, there’s no reason why you couldn’t undertake that professional development and apply to be a care manager.

You will definitely need either nursing or social care experience. If you’re applying to be a nursing home manager, then a current NMC pin, recent supervisory experience and a management award such as the RMA, NVQ 4 in Leadership and Management for Care, or the QCF Diploma Level 5 in Leadership and Management for Care are all acceptable. If you want to be a care manager of a facility that doesn’t offer nursing care, or doesn’t require you to be a qualified nurse then you will usually need the NVQ Level 3 or QCF Diploma Level 3 in Health and Social Care instead of a nursing qualification. You will still need to achieve a management qualification from the list above and have recent supervisory experience before you can apply.

However, none of those professional development awards are unachievable. There are many organisation, particularly within the charitable and private sectors that will support employees by assisting with partial or full funding of courses such as these. However, if you’re already qualified, you can check out the full list of care manager jobs posted on Socialcare.co.uk by following the link.

Middle East Nursing Jobs – could you move to the UAE?

I often see Middle East Nurse Jobs posted on Nurses.co.uk, I wonder how many of you would consider taking a nursing job in the region? There are so many great UAE Nursing Jobs currently advertised with us that I know if any of you NMC registered nurses wanted to go, you probably could.

As many of you will have noticed, this week I’ve been working closely with Alex at Green Care Management to promote their UAE Nursing Jobs, in particular in Dubai and Abu Dhabi (you can check out their nursing and midwifery jobs in the United Arab Emirates here). The benefits are without a doubt impressive, and the security of going with an experienced agency is definitely important, but what are the pros and cons of making the decision to emigrate for the sake of your nursing or midwifery career?

Pros

• Tax free salary at the same or higher pay point than currently available in the UK, the main motivation some would say
• Guaranteed length of contract
• Free furnished accommodation or allowance if you’re going on a spouse visa and intending to live with your husband / wife
• Return flights paid for, usually once or twice a year depending on the deal in your contract
• Annual leave, as you would expect
• UK interviews face to face with the employer, so you know exactly what to expect before you make the decision
• Support from the agency who received your application right up to you deciding to go, and often beyond that as well
• Often the roles are based in brand new hospitals with new facilities and resources available.
• Plenty of other English speaking staff, and many other UK nurses who have made the same move as you
• Still maintain your NMC registration, providing you meet the conditions of course

Cons

• Leaving the UK, the NHS or private practice and stepping into a new working environment
• A new country and a different culture
• Not being near your family and friends
• Register with the United Arab Emirates Nursing and Midwifery Council, which may be an extra expense

So it would appear from that brief analysis that there are more pros than cons to moving to the UAE for a nursing job, but no one will deny that the list of cons contains some pretty big ones that need considering before any decision is made. If it’s something you’ve always wondered about but never been brave enough to investigate, now could be just the time for you. No one’s going to force you into going if you get through the process and decide it’s not for you, so you should feel comfortable about making an enquiry and taking it from there. You never know, it could be the best thing you’ve ever done, especially if you’re finding nursing in the UK a bit of struggle right now and are looking for a change. Enquire here.

A new open approach to recruiting nurses and midwives on the social scene

If you follow our Facebook page for Nurses.co.uk (if you don’t, like it now!) you will have noticed today that the lovely Alex from Green Care Management and I have started work on a new idea! As usual, simple ideas are the best and hopefully this is a pretty awesome idea for anyone looking for nursing jobs or midwifery jobs.

It’s common for recruiters to be pretty tight-lipped when it comes to releasing details about jobs into the public arena, and that’s usually for fear of a competitor ‘reverse gazumping’ them and stealing their client by pitching a better deal. However, in this increasingly competitive job market the game rules are changing, and in order to attract the best candidates, recruiters are having to work harder and crucially, release more details about the jobs they advertise.

So for any recruiter who is brave enough to do so, I am offering them to chance to be featured on our nurses Facebook page and have a dedicated note to a particular job vacancy shown on the page. They will be required to post an in-depth job description, give details of salary, benefits and working pattern (if known). Candidates will be able to freely access every detail available about a particular job before deciding whether or not to make an application.

This is a huge step forward for clarity in recruiting, and I’m so proud that we’ve made the first step. To check out the nursing and midwifery positions that are available through Green Care, you can read the note about nursing and midwifery jobs in the UAE on Facebook. This is a sign of things to come – there is as much detail there as anyone could expect, and the contact details for the recruiter are shown as well.

In order to continue this trend, it’s important that candidates have a voice. Tell recruiters what it is that convinces you to apply for a job online. Please answer this poll – choose as many answers as you like. Your feedback is really important to us, we can’t do it without you and after all, we’re here to provide a service to you the job seeker!

RCN’s new online training for HCAs nominated for award

The Royal College of Nursing recently launched a freely available online learning resource for all new healthcare assistants across the UK, and it has been nominated for a prestigious e-Learning Award.

The resources was constructed with all new HCAs in mind and is based on the NHS Knowledge and Skills framework in order to ensure anyone working as a healthcare assistant has access to suitable induction material. It’s available online and is free of charge to anyone, but as a healthcare assistant working in either the NHS or private sector there are National Occupational Standards that can be printed off as a checklist and completed as you develop your working knowledge with other healthcare and nursing colleagues.

It’s designed to be used alongside your induction at your new place of work as a healthcare assistant, but equally could be undertaken by an experienced HCA or nursing auxiliary in order to show a recognised standard of competency.

If you’re interested in studying through this system called First Steps, follow the link to being your learning journey.

Never applied for a job on a nursing job board before? Here’s a helping hand

If you’re someone who is used to using the internet on a regular basis but never before applied for a job on a nursing or social care job site before, here’s an introduction to how it works and how you can make the process work for you.

Applying for nursing and social care jobs online is now such common place that you will rarely ever fill in a paper application any more, but if you’re not familiar with how it all works, it can appear a little bit daunting. In this article I’m going to give you an insight into how it all works and give you hints about how to be successful using it.

First off, when you arrive at any of our sites whether that’s Nurses.co.uk for Nursing jobs, Socialcare.co.uk for Social Worker Jobs, Healthcarejobs.ie for Healthcarejobs in Ireland or Carehomejobs.com for Care Home Jobs, they all work in a similar way. If you’ve not registered with us before you will need to do so in order to apply for any of our jobs. Go to the Sign Up link on any of the sites to register, your login will work across any sites in our network (check out the logos at the top of this blog for which sites they are). Simply follow the instructions all the way through to uploading your CV and once you click upload CV, you’re done. You can now apply for any jobs on any of our sites. You can only apply for a maximum of 10 jobs in a day, and that limit is part of our anti-spam policies, plus it’s not good practice for candidates to manage a potential 10 interview requests at any one time.

So you’ve worked on your candidate profile, uploaded your CV and now you’ve found a job you really like the sound of. Simply click apply and you will see a cover letter box appear at the bottom of the page. You can write a message to the recruiter in this box, and while your CV and career profile details will automatically be sent with your cover letter, it’s a good idea to give the recruiter a summary of your experience and why you’d be a great candidate for that job in the cover letter space.

When you’re happy with everything you’ve written you simply click submit. Your CV, career profile information and cover letter are automatically bundled into one email that goes directly to the recruiter who posted that vacancy. They are given your contact details and will either contact by you by phone or email, so make sure you are monitoring both!

Unfortunately if you don’t get a reply within 1 working week, it’s likely you haven’t been successful, but that doesn’t mean you can’t follow it up with the company you sent your application to just to be certain. It’s always good to get feedback about the applications you make so that you know how to improve for the future. In order to find out the email address of the recruiter that received your application, simply check your email inbox because each time you apply, a copy of the application is sent directly the email address you registered with. If you haven’t received a copy be sure to check your junk folder in case it’s ended up there.

If you would like more details about this and to find out more, check out our careers toolbox article – Here’s how to find and apply for nursing jobs.

Could you work in social care as a support worker?

With recent press reports reminding us that the recession is still in full swing and economic recovery is going at a snail’s pace, many people are finding themselves faced with the dilemma of a career change. Despite reports that job losses are falling, the number of people claiming job seeker’s allowance is actually rising (see BBC), which can only mean that people who could otherwise manage without benefits are being forced into claiming them.

We hear about redundancies every other day on the news, with thousands of people having already lost their jobs, some people are turning to one of the only growth sectors left in the UK – social care. As the population of the UK continues to grow so does the need for support workers in all sectors of social care.

A support worker is different from a care assistant because rather than actively providing frontline care for an individual you are supporting them to perform activities and live their daily lives as independently as possible. You may be required to perform some care tasks as a support worker such as bathing or assisting with the morning routine, but you will work with individuals who have a range of complex needs and require your support to live their lives.

Support workers are essential in the lives of anyone living with a learning disability or mental health issue, and forming a bond with the individual you are supporting is crucial to the support you can provide. There are support worker jobs all over the UK in various different settings, both full and part time. If you want to read more about life as a support worker, check out our article on the different roles of a support worker.

Don’t overburden yourself with too many online job applications

When you’re looking online for nursing jobs or midwife jobs, it can be tempting to apply for several vacancies at once, and while there aren’t any rules against that, I would urge caution with the number of applications you send at any one time.

Unfortunately the days of simply sending off the same nursing CV to lots of employers are gone – no longer does one CV fit all. Employers are now looking for the exact match, the person who most closely fits their requirements and in this time-poor culture we live in employers no longer spend time trying to understand your CV. If they can’t immediately see how you fulfill their requirements, unfortunately your CV won’t be in the pile for interview consideration.

Sending a tailored CV for each application requires time, dedication and patience, and during this period it will often become clear to you whether you really want to apply for the job or not. You also have to prepare for the possibility that you could be a suitable candidate for all the vacancies you apply to, and the potential response you might get. Do you really want 10 different people each phoning you about a different job opportunity that you’ve applied for?

My advice would be to apply for a maximum of 3 well chosen vacancies, which you have the skills and experience to be considered for, at any one time. You will then be able to give equal attention to each recruiter who phones you interested in taking your application further. If you decide to apply for any more than that, you may find the process difficult to manage and you could even end up missing out on the job you really want.

Obviously  I am talking about the ideal world situation here, and I’ve not yet encountered that in real life! So if you’re job seeking because you’re desperate to change jobs or to get a job in the first place, you’ll probably want to apply for as many jobs as you are eligible for. While I would still advise against it, it is manageable if you keep good records and you know who you are speaking to about which position. That way, you won’t get overwhelmed with information.

Should you be looking for a new nursing job at the moment?

It’s the eternal question we all consider – is it the right time to be looking for a new job? Now more than ever that question has particular pertinence. Nursing is an industry with too many qualified staff and not enough qualified nursing positions, an NHS in the midst of a total overhaul, and recruitment bans, pay freezes and budget cuts throughout the entire country in both public and private sectors.

It’s a tough time for job security for those lucky enough to still have a nursing job, but for those newly qualified nurses trying to get starting in the industry it can be a terrifying time. However, I happen to think that the answer to the title of this post is yes, because it can’t do any harm as long as you go about it in a sensible way.

You can never be sure if a department is about to have a recruitment freeze, or if a job you like the look of will be advertised again in the future, so you have to enquire while the opportunity is there. It’s natural and in most cases necessary to look for a post that reflects your ever expanding experience with an increased salary or benefits, so don’t be afraid to send an enquiry because the worst that can happen is they say no. You don’t have to give away your referee details unless you’re about to verbally accept an offer of employment, so there’s no chance that your current employer could get wind of your job hunting unless you want them to.

It’s an uncertain time for nurses, with many newly qualified nurses turning to the private sector for nursing positions that come with a preceptorship – the competition can be fierce. But whether you have a career of nursing experience behind you or are a newly qualified nurse straight out of uni, you still need to make sure your CV, covering letter and personal statement are as great as they can be. We publish plenty of tips and advice on how to do this in our nursing careers section, but it’s important to say that applying for jobs with the aim of being successful is more time consuming than simply sending off the same personal statement and CV with every application.

Recruiters are time poor so it’s in your interest to create a CV that delivers enough detail for them to decide if you are suitable for the job in a simple, clear layout. Someone reading your CV doesn’t want to have to figure out whether you have the right experience or not, they want to be told and shown evidence to back it up. If you’re completely in the dark about where to begin or haven’t updated your CV in years, why not start with our guide to updating your nursing CV.

Become a practice nurse if you are already an RGN or RMN

If you’re already a qualified RGN or RMN nurse, you’re eligible to become a practice nurse. Usually employers won’t accept newly qualified nurses to become practice nurses, unless they offer a specific preceptorship programme, but in most cases all you need is 1 year’s post qualification experience to apply.

You can switch the uncertainty of changing shifts and working nights for a stable working routine with consistent hours by looking for a practice nursing job. You will of course have to undertake further training at university level if you want to progress to being a health visitor, district nurse or advanced nurse practitioner – but practice nursing could be a great place to start.

A practice nurse job will give you the chance to have continuity of care with some patients who regularly need your assistance, to offer health promotion clinics in weight loss or smoking cessation, and to take part in health screening activities with individuals throughout all sectors of the community. You could end up working with all ages of people from babies and children through to adults and the elderly, it’s that diverse a nursing job.

Read more about the practice nursing jobs for RGN and RMN Nurses here.