The 12 Days of Christmas PS Style:

Ask anyone in the private sector how much they would give up to know that their jobs were safe.
Ask them why they didn't make the move 2-3 years ago when the public sector was crying out for staff. From HSA website;
 
They did, by their thousands.

Depends on the grade. I worked in a health board recruitment area in 2001 - 2002 and there were shortages. We were never anywhere near the 1,000's applying for jobs. The Allied Health were especially hard with Speech and Language Therapists being like hen's teeth. Grades like Physio and OT's were also difficult to get.

I remember interviewing 3 times for a grade III to cover a mat leave and the standard was poor, as the private offices like auctioneers, solictors were paying more. I did see a change around 2006 onwards, where if we had a vacancy we had a decent pool of interested/competent candidates.
 

I actually heard of a situation in the CS around 2000 where they were so desperate for Clerical Officers that they hired on the application form alone without going to interview for the posts. This situation changed around 2006 but there has been no large recruitment in the CS for a long time.
 

Indeed things got so bad in some cases, people had to hire their offspring and those of their friends without going through the correct channels!

On the 13th day of Christmas my Daddy gave to me ... a new PS job without having any silly little interview!
 

Now, you will have to start a new song and you can't do an Elton John.

I remember getting a grade IV in 1996 after 11 months on the panel - I was no.11.

In 2001, a new grade IV started in our section - he was in the 200's which was unheard of.

In 2006, a grade IV started in my office and she was 32 or so - she was the last person offered from the panel before it was closed off.
 

Where did this happen?