Challenges in Veterinary Recruiting

A current trend in most professions in recent years is the difficulty in recruiting, hiring, and keeping talent. The veterinary profession is not exempted from this troubling trend. There are many reasons why:

National shortage of veterinarians – As the deficit of veterinarians continues to increase, so do the challenges faced by clinics around the country. Simply put, there are more job listings than doctors looking for work, or even already in practice. The good news, however, is veterinary colleges in the United States reported an increase in enrollment in 2022 over 2021, according to the website todaysveterinarypractice.com.

Recruiting methods – In this day and age, it’s not enough to write a classified ad in the newspaper or trade journal and expect to fill a position in a short time frame. In the age of digital media, clinics must reach out to candidates on multiple online platforms both directly and indirectly. And even with those online ads, you’re likely to still face difficulty finding top candidates because most times they aren’t looking at the ads because they are already employed.

Making the offer and closing the deal – Because of the shortage of veterinarians, the ball is in the candidate’s court when it comes to negotiations. So when you do find the right candidate, be sure to bring your best offer to the table from the start. To do that, I recommend considering more than salary and benefits; get to know the candidate to find out what they’re looking for outside of the workplace and use those to your advantage to sweeten the deal. For example, do they want a mentor, or a 4-day work week, continued education, or perhaps live in an area that offers museums or theatre or mountains or a beach. Play up to those desires to make your offer more appealing.

Of course, recruiting can add up to a full-time job, and if you don’t have the time to spare to search for and hire the right candidate for your clinic, you might want to consider hiring a recruiting service. I’d love the opportunity to tell you how my team has earned a 93% success rate using our unique business model.