More than 350 recruiters have registered for a Department of Work and Pensions scheme that will pay them to help high-end jobseekers back to work.

The service is set to go live from “the start of April”, a DWP spokesperson told Recruiter. The target audience will be candidates whose last job paid £30k-£70k. Among the offerings will be CV writing, help with interview preparation and knowledge about the local labour market.

The £3m scheme first came to the notice of recruiters when the Recruitment & Employment Confederation notified its corporate members on 10 March. Recruiters had 10 days to register interest.

Tom Hadley, director of external relations at the REC, told Recruiter: “This is a good news story for the industry. It shows just how much interest there is in helping the unemployed back to work. A lot of recruiters have the knowledge and experience to make a positive difference.”

Tor Macleod, a director of Macleod Associates, who registered for the scheme, said: “This is a great opportunity to get people into work, and as a recruitment company we are able to deliver a solution for them.

“Because we already provide tailored services to help the unemployed back to work, registering our interest only took us about 10 minutes,” he added.

However, the initial 10-day registration period left at least one recruiter unimpressed. Recruiter Phil Harmsworth, director of ESP Personnel, has called for the reopening of the scheme. He first heard about the scheme in Recruiter (18 March 2009).

Harmsworth told Recruiter that the time to register was “ridiculously short … Unless they reopen the scheme, and ensure recruiters know about it, you have to assume it is an ill-thought out gimmick.”

Fortunately for Harms - worth and others who may have missed out, there may be future opportunities to sign up. “We anticipate offering suitable organisations a further opportunity to express interest once we have assessed the scale of the initial response,” the DWP
spokesperson said.