Posts and preferencing
Dental Foundation Training (DFT) applicant guideDuring preferencing you will be able to rank the schemes you are interested in.
You are advised to read this page in full and the Oriel user guide prior to expressing your preferences.
Scheme preference selection
The preferencing window will open on (to be confirmed) and will close on (to be confirmed).
You will receive notification via Oriel messages when this opens, please also see our timeline for dates.
Once offers are released, preferencing will reopen periodically and you will be notified via Oriel of these dates.
Updating Programme Preferences involves marking each option as being in one of up to two different states:
- Preference - If an option is marked as a ‘Preference’ it means you wish to be considered for schemes within this programme. You must rank these options to specify an order of preference. If you come to be made an offer you will be offered your highest ranked preference where schemes remain available
- Not Wanted – If an option is marked as ‘Not Wanted’ it means you are not willing to accept an offer for this programme under any circumstances and therefore do not wish to be considered for these schemes
You can be matched to any preference in the Preference column so please ensure you rank places you wish to train in.
This is a mandatory part of the recruitment process.
You will not be able to take up a DFT placement if this is not fully completed.
Please ensure that you have read through and understood the COPDEND guidance on education and training with close family members.
Selecting your preferences
You must carefully consider your preference choices.
Limiting the number of preferences will limit the chances of being offered a placement.
However, please do not preference regions in which you cannot train.
By preferencing a scheme, you are confirming that you are prepared to train in any of the practices that will form the scheme.
When preferencing you must consider the following.
- Any offer is made in accordance with the national rank you receive as a result of your selection centre score and preferences made
- The first ranked candidate will be offered their first preference. This will continue until all posts within that iteration have been offered
- If your first preferenced scheme has no further vacancies, you will be offered your second or subsequent choice. This process will continue until all vacant positions have been filled
Important: Important
If you limit your schemes and you do not rank highly enough to be offered any of them based on your selection centre score, you will not be offered a training post.
This is considered "preferencing yourself out". We suggest that when the preferences have reopened you widen your choices as much as possible.
This may mean that candidates who would be eligible for an offer based on their score and rank will not receive an offer of a training post.
In this case candidates are considered to have pre-emptively declined an offer of a post as the only vacancies left are in schemes that the candidate is not prepared to train in appear under the 'Not wanted' list.
Your preferences will not be used as a scoring criterion and will not be available to assessors.
Amending preferences
You can amend your preferences whilst the window is open.
Once this window is closed we will reopen after the first offer match has been released.
After the first iteration of offers, you will be able to amend your preferences intermittently up until the upgrade deadline date (to be confirmed).
If you did not receive an offer you can follow the guidance above to amend your preferences.
Amending preferences after receiving an offer
If you received an offer, you will need to make a decision on either accepting or declining the offer.
If you chose to decline, you will not be included any further offer matches.
Once you have accepted the offer, you can only amend your preferences if you opt in for upgrades.
This option is available as a button on the offer page.
Once you have opted into upgrades, you will be able to see your preferences at the bottom of that page, and you can then amend them accordingly.
You cannot remove the scheme you have been offered at this stage, and you should only rank schemes higher than your offered scheme rank if you definitely want to go to them as upgrades are automatic and you cannot revert to your original offer if an upgrade is made.
If you want to save the changes you have made click the ‘Save’ button. If you wish to cancel the changes click ‘Cancel’ and your preferences will revert back to the last time you saved.
It is your responsibility to ensure your preferences have saved as you wish and it is recommended that you log out of your Oriel account and then log back in after making any changes to preferencing to ensure your selection is confirmed.
The recruitment office responsible for your offers will determine which columns are available to you.
You can continue to amend and re-save your programme preferences until the preference window closes, which will be listed in the programme preference opening email you receive and on the preferencing screen.
If you do not click the save button then any changes you have made will not be recorded.
Whatever order you have saved your programme preferences in when the window is closed is the order that will be used when matching applicants to available schemes.
It is advisable to review your saved programme preferences prior to the deadline as they cannot be amended once the window is closed.
Page last reviewed: 10 April 2024
Next review due: 10 April 2025