Universal Jobmatch changes could hit public sector hiring
The government’s decision to terminate the bulk upload facility on its Universal Jobmatch service could “significantly hinder” public sector clients’ ability to fill crucial vacancies, a public sector job board has warned.
Earlier this week, Recruiter reported the Department for Work and Pensions is to limit the bulk upload of job vacancies on Universal Jobmatch from 22 May and will only allow employers to use the service directly.
Commenting on the DWP’s move, a spokesperson for public sector job board Jobsgopublic, which has posted its clients' jobs automatically to Universal Jobmatch for nearly 10 years, told Recruiter it understands the government’s desire to provide the highest quality vacancies for their users, but has concerns about the adverse effect on its clients.
“We take great pride in the fact that we only ever accept direct jobs from the employers themselves, ensuring that we maintain a consistently high quality service for our candidates.
“Having served the public sector for the past 18 years, we are passionate about ensuring that public sector and public service vacancies have maximum exposure and visibility. We are concerned about the impact that this move will have in this respect.”
The spokesperson explained the move would “significantly hinder” their clients’ ability to gain the exposure needed to fill crucial vacancies. “We have calculated that, at our current rate of 3,000+ vacancies per month, our clients will need to find at least an extra 250 working hours a month to manually upload roles to Universal Jobmatch (at five minutes per job) – and this considerable impact on recruitment teams' capacity can be extrapolated even more widely across the whole sector.
“We are currently attempting to make contact with Universal Jobmatch to see whether there is a way to maintain the service that we have established.”
But Derek Pilcher, director at job board Monster Government Solutions, told Recruiter the job board understands why the changes were being made.
“Monster has been operating the Universal Jobmatch (UJ) service on behalf of the DWP since 2012. The service continues to evolve, and we work closely with DWP to deliver their service requirements.
“DWP’s intention is that UJ’s core purpose is to support the UK’s jobseekers and small and medium-sized businesses. The changes that they are implementing reflect this purpose, and the site will continue to provide significant volumes of job opportunities connecting jobseekers and employers.”
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