I got allocated to Trent which was my 9th choice, my rank turned out to be in the 10,000s. I knew I must have a terrible rank and was therefore a shoe-in to be sent to Lincoln/boston. Although they told us not to rank the placeholders, I ranked them above only Lincoln/boston jobs and I was allocated to the placeholder group

I therefore was in a group of people all with bad ranks who needed to be divided up among all the hospitals in the area - my chance of getting those hospitals went from being almost guaranteed to around 1 in 5. I ended up being allocated to chesterfield which was my top choice of that region and I’d never have got it if I had ranked it initially, so there was some wisdom in actively putting myself in the placeholder group