Rating jobs with JobScore

Could this be the first "evidence based job hunting" system in the United Kingdom? Rhona MacDonald finds out more about this service hosted by BMJ Careers Junior doctor Peter Chapman and web designer Phineas Head brainstormed what they would want to see from a website devoted to reviewing medical jobs. From this "round the kitchen table" approach they made it happen by creating and developing JobScore--a new service that can be accessed through BMJ Careers (bmjcareers.com/jobscore). I caught up with them to find out more.

What is JobScore and who is it aimed at?

JobScore is a free online medical careers service, created by doctors for doctors. Essentially, it provides peer reviews of medical jobs submitted by doctors who have recently worked in them--think of it as evidence based job hunting.

JobScore covers all specialties, at all grades, in all hospitals throughout the United Kingdom, and you can search on these factors (plus a host of others) to tell you anything from exactly what a specific job is like, to what is the best hospital in the country to be a senior house officer (SHO) in accident and emergency, as rated by our users.

Why the need for JobScore?

Simple--to make informed job choices. As a junior doctor, the frustrations of frequent job changes are part of life.

The sheer number of medical jobs out there is bewildering, as you can see from flicking through the job adverts in BMJ Careers every week. But adverts rarely have any information about what a post is really like.

Unless you can speak to someone who has already completed the same post that you have applied for, you have no way of telling what the post offers; and six months is a long time in a job that doesn't meet your expectations, especially if you are moving to a different part of the United Kingdom or coming from overseas.

Now you don't need to spend hours tracking down the right person to speak to--you can log onto JobScore and see how the job has been rated by previous postholders. However, you do have to submit at least one report yourself--by scoring a post you have recently held--before you can search. We cannot stress strongly enough that this is your site and so its usefulness depends entirely on you submitting your job reviews.

How will a scoring system help?

By providing simple, objective reports on the important aspects of each job. The areas scored are hospital, job, academic, accommodation, mess, and leisure time, and each is broken down into specific ratings. In essence, JobScore is just like an online dating service, except you date jobs rather than people.

So what if there is no score or very few scores for a particular job?

If no one has submitted a report on the exact post that you are looking for, you can always broaden your search to provide more general information about a certain hospital. Some information, for example, accommodation, the doctors' mess and local facilities, will be common across reports. We hope that a JobScore "community spirit" will develop and so give a clear picture of the jobs and hospitals people consistently rate highly.

Can you explain the technicalities of how it works?

JobScore does two things. First, it allows you to submit reports and secondly, it allows you to search for ones written by colleagues. Submitting a report is extremely easy--you score a number of ratings between 1 and 5 and JobScore does the rest. The ratings are based on what we wanted to know about a job and also on the many suggestions from colleagues during our testing sessions.

Searching the site is simple yet still allows you to ask powerful and detailed questions. For example, you can look up specific jobs, create a league table, or perform more specific searches, such as, "get me reports on all SHO jobs at St Bartholomew's."

The site is based on objective ratings rather than free-text fields to prevent bulletin-board type misuse. There are three choices of security for users submitting reports. You can opt to be:

1. Anonymous and uncontactable
2. Anonymous but contactable "behind the scenes" through the site
3. Named and contactable

With options (2) and (3) report readers may then contact the author to ask them any specific questions.

What about confidentiality issues?

Obviously we take this very seriously and we developed JobScore with a legal team. We are registered with the Data Protection Act and therefore do not pass on, or "spam", any of the information we hold.

Disclaimer: Please note that BMJ Careers is not responsible for the content of JobScore, we only provide access to it.