Having recently completed the HTE National & International Permanent Recruitment ITT, we developed a great model for answering HTE’s qualitative tender questions. This model will help you to secure maximum points on the recently published HTE Total Workforce Solutions II ITT.
HTE has been very helpful on this tender by telling us EXACTLY what they want. They have written the questions in a fairly unique way – by asking an “overarching” question which is then scored based on very clear criteria. The scoring criteria documents specify exactly what elements of your answer will give you points. It is ONLY these elements which will attract a score, so putting in a load of additional information (however compelling it may be) will not get you more marks and will just take up space.
It’s therefore critical that you don’t answer the questions on the portal without your answer being in TOTAL alignment with the scoring criteria and the specification!
Sounds obvious doesn’t it?
We think the most common mistake people will make on this tender is answering the “overarching question” displayed on the portal without reading the scoring criteria and specification. The scoring criteria aren’t always obvious from the question so it will be quite possible to answer the overarching question in a way that seems complete, yet achieve a low score.
So, if you are bidding for HealthTrust Europe’s Total Workforce Solutions II ITT, here’s a step by step model for maximising your score.
Just answer each question in line with the scoring criteria and specification – no more, no less!
To explain this further, follow these points:
- Copy all of the questions from the portal/documents into a Microsoft Word format and use this as a working document. Don’t go near the portal with your responses until you have the final approved version. This is because portals are unwieldy tools for writing and editing responses and can’t be manipulated like Microsoft Word.
- Review the Scoring Criteria document to establish EXACTLY how each question will be evaluated. Literally, this document provides a list of elements that need to be covered in each question and specifies the number of points you can score for each one! Copy and paste the relevant parts of this into your working document underneath the question.
- The specification contains critical information regarding HTE’s requirements and the scoring criteria document identifies which sections that are relevant to each question. Copy and paste the relevant parts of the specification into your working document under the scoring criteria and highlight this in a different colour to allow cross referencing with your answer.
- Now write a draft answer to each question, focussing specifically on the elements identified in the scoring criteria to ensure you maximise your score. Cross reference your answer with the requirements identified in the specification to ensure you have covered everything that is important to HTE.
- The answer to each question is restricted to 2,000 characters (please note that HTE increased this character limit to 4,000 in the recent Perm & International ITT, so it may be that they do this again – keep an eye on the clarification questions and answers). Start off by ignoring the character count to ensure you have fully answered the question and ALL of the evaluation criteria. Then edit the answer to bring it down to the requisite character count (without losing any of the critical content).
- Finally, copy and paste the approved answers into the portal, checking that the entire response fits into the fields provided. This is important as the character count function in Microsoft Word doesn’t always match the exact online character count function, and portals will cut off any characters that exceed the set maximum.
We’ve shared the format that we use in our working document below:
Overarching question: This is the question that has been asked in the column marked “question” in the Questions & Scoring document provided by HTE
Scoring – maximum 5 points (this section is the information provided in the scoring instructions column in the Questions & Scoring document provided by HTE):
- 1 point = the bidder describes xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.
- 1 point = the bidder describes xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.
- 1 point = the bidder describes xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.
- 1 point = the bidder describes xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.
- 1 point = the bidder describes xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.
ANSWER
Insert your draft answer here in a different colour making sure you address each of the bullet points above and then cross reference your draft answer with the relevant section of the specification (pasted below) to ensure that everything required by HTE has been covered. Once you have the final version, this will be ready to paste into the portal.
PARAGRAPHS X & X OF SECTION X OF THE SPECIFICATION WHEN ANSWERING THIS QUESTION (this information is provided in the scoring instructions column)
Copy and paste the relevant section of the specification here in a third colour to make it easy to cross reference with your answer above.
Follow this format and guidance and you should be in a great position to score well in this tender…..GOOD LUCK.
PS – we have document templates that are available on our website priced at £95 + vat each as follows:
Agency Workers Handbook Template
Compliance Process Flow Chart Template – Healthcare Staff (Lots 3a, 3b & 3c)
Compliance Process Flow Chart Template – Non-Medical Non-Clinical Staff (Lots 4a & 4b)
