Thanks Raphael,

I'd pretty much decided to go that route any way. Unfortunately I think I may be moving jobs  before this gets completed but at least I can advise my successor on the best way.

I wish to extend the application form to include a lot of extra fields. I'm fairly sure I will just need to extend the database, classes and webforms. Is this correct?

Secondly, I'd like to develop a way of storing candidate information so that they can just 'Click here to apply' and it will prepopulate their details. I guess there are two ways to tackle this.

1) Community Builder - Get the candidate to register and then feed the details into the application form
2) Customise NeoRecruit to allow the saving of a profile matched against a logged in user.

Have anyone any experience of this that could suggest which is better? I feel the latter allows more control as I find CB's data structure a little weak as you don't have direct access over database fields.