Oriel: A Beginner’s Guide - What is Oriel?

Oriel is an essential but daunting process for pharmacy students entering their foundation training year. This recruitment portal guides foundation trainee pharmacists through applications, preferencing, and assessments. Starting in June, applicants submit personal details, rank placements, and complete Situational Judgement and numeracy tests. In November, candidates receive their first offer, with options to accept, upgrade, or explore placements outside Oriel. This article series provides insights and tips to navigate each stage confidently.

What is Oriel?

It is an online recruitment portal which is used by many healthcare professionals including foundation trainee pharmacists (previously known as pre-registration pharmacists) and medics. What happens during the recruitment process (specifically for pharmacy)?

Applications:

Around June of the summer before your final year, the applications for oriel open up for pharmacy students. During this time, there is the release the foundation trainee pharmacist handbook which explains the whole process, how different things work, deadlines and any specific information for that year. This is when you fill out an application form which will include personal details, university details, employment history etc. This window closes about 2-3 weeks after opening and once it’s past the deadline you are unable to send through new applications.

Preferencing:

Around July the preferencing window opens and this is normally open for a few months up to around October (this window is open during the time you sit for your tests too). Preferencing is the process of putting the placements/jobs in order of preference from which one you would like the most to least. This process is time-consuming and may take up to a couple of weeks to do. Even now, when I’m 3 days away from the deadline, I feel like I should go back and look at it. When preferencing you should always prioritise what’s most important to you, I’ll talk more about this in my preferencing post!

SJT and numeracy tests:

In August, you get to book when you’re going to sit your tests. These are done you’re your university opens around September/October! After sitting on these tests, you get your scores which determine your rank. This rank decides the placement you are offered.

Offers: In November you get your first offer and according to that, you can either accept an offer or not. You can accept an offer with an upgrade or look for placements outside of oriel too.

During this time, it’s so easy to get stressed and not know where to go, I want to use these articles to answer all your questions and give you a guide you can refer to, I wish I had the same! I would like you to follow me through this journey of applying for my foundation training year and hopefully sharing my experiences may help you!