Somerset NHS Foundation Trust will be launching a new software to improve its recruitment process.

The organisation will work with Oleeo, a talent solutions company, to also deliver a better experience for recruitment managers and candidates.

It plans to implement the new recruitment, applicant management, and reporting software in May.

The platform will support the Trust, which employs 14,000 people, in facilitating hirings of roughly 1,800 people every six months and making job advertisements appealing to a diverse pool of candidates.

Iain Reed, who works for the recruitment team at Somerset NHS Foundation Trust, said: “Like other NHS trusts across the country, we face an ongoing challenge in recruiting the nurses and other colleagues to meet the demand for our services.

“We want to change the way we approach recruitment and we’re pleased to be working with Oleeo to develop some really innovative ideas to achieve this.

“Using Oleeo’s ATS software means we will be able to send candidates a video to show them all the things that are great about working here. We also want to improve equality, diversity and inclusivity across the trust.

“The new system will give us better data on which groups we are recruiting from, as well as automated features, to make sure that our managers are supported in writing adverts that don’t inadvertently exclude anyone from the hundreds of career paths we have to offer.”

Samir Khelil, director at Oleeo, said the company is helping to transform the way employers recruit.

Mr Khelil said: "We want to do the same for the NHS, working with organisations like Somerset that want to collaborate with us to adjust the status quo."

The software allows the Trust to speed up its recruitment process by automating aspects of it and providing recruiters and candidates with access to dashboards that show where responses or checks need to be completed.