Finding good vets and nurses to fill roles is a massive headache for many practices.
According to a 2023/2024 AVA survey, 57% of practices advertised roles in the preceding year, with a whopping 36% of these roles remaining unfilled after 12 months.
The post-COVID expansion of pet ownership and the aging vet population are contributing factors.
So, what can you do to improve your recruitment success?
In business, I’m a huge believer in taking control of the things you can control and taking ownership of your market in order to generate opportunity.
In this article, I explain how you can leverage your veterinary website to attract the best candidates to your practice.
The first thing any potential job applicant does to find out more about your veterinary practice is go to your website.
They rule you in or out based on what they see.
Good vets and nurses want to work in successful practices with high standards.
First, they aim to get a sense of how professional, modern and well-equipped the business is.
They want to see a well-designed, well-organised veterinary website showing modern facilities and equipment.
If they can’t see your operating theatre, imaging equipment and wards, they assume your facilities and equipment are dated.
As they scan the pages (generally on a phone), they also develop a sense of your culture, values and quality of care.
They are looking for smiling team photos with interesting bios and professionals who can mentor and support them. People they can see themselves working with.
Stories about vets or nurses who have spent years at the practice and progressed their careers with support from caring mentors are gold.
Finally, they look for client stories and reviews both on your website and on Google and social media.
If you don’t have good Google reviews please check this article on how to fix that.
So it goes without saying if you have a dog’s breakfast website or it looks dated and tired and doesn’t work on a phone you are not going to attract the best (or any) candidates.
Once you have a professional, well-designed and informative website, the next step is to create a careers section.
This part of your website is all about what it’s like to work at your practice.
It should include general information about the day to day running of the clinic, you and your team and your culture and values.
Photos of everyone sharing time together, having a barbeque or a beach walk are great ways to show team spirit visually.
Even better, a video of you and your colleagues talking about what it’s like to work in the business is an incredibly valuable recruitment tool.
Knowing that applicants may come from overseas, you can also ‘sell’ your local area on this page – proximity to large towns or nature, opportunities to bushwalk, kayak, etc. Again, photographs are key.
You also need to include the more serious part – professional development, career opportunities and training and mentoring programs.
You can advertise specific roles in your careers section and go into more detail about the requirements, working arrangements, perks and benefits.
Finally, make the application process easy.
Have an easy-to-complete form at the bottom of every page of your careers section with a drag-and-drop option for a cover letter and CV.
Since good candidates are like hen’s teeth, you need to be on your game to secure them.
Move fast.
Monitor your career inbox like a hawk, and if you see an ideal-looking candidate, call them personally the same day and develop a rapport quickly.
Arrange an interview as soon as you can, and don’t delay offering them the job if you feel they are a great fit.
In the current market, a drawn-out recruitment process will leave you as one of the 36% who fail to find a candidate after 12 months of searching.
Deb Croucher is the founder of SVMG, a strategic growth partner for veterinary businesses. A former veterinarian and practice owner, Deb combines industry fluency, commercial strategy, and structured marketing systems to help clinics, specialists, suppliers, and industry partners become clearer, more trusted, and better positioned for growth.
Find answers to common questions about our clinic and your pet’s visits below.
A veterinary growth system brings structure to the parts of marketing that often operate separately: positioning, content, search, campaigns and reporting. SVMG operates that system end-to-end, so activity is not just happening, it is connected, measurable and aligned with how the veterinary market actually makes decisions.
Most agencies deliver services in separate pieces: a website, campaign, content plan or ads. SVMG works at the system level, taking ownership of how those pieces connect, perform and support long-term visibility, positioning and growth.
Yes. Veterinary practices and industry partners operate differently, so the system needs to reflect the audience, decision process and commercial reality of each business. For clinics, that may mean attracting better-fit clients and protecting position; for industry partners, it may mean improving visibility, sales support and market response.
In most cases, disjointed marketing is not caused by a lack of effort. It happens when activity is spread across channels without a clear structure behind it. That’s where bringing everything into one connected system changes how the business is understood and how it performs.
Search is shifting from broad keywords to more specific, question-led queries across Google and AI tools. SVMG builds search and content into the system, so veterinary businesses are easier to find, easier to understand and better positioned when the right clients, clinics or decision-makers are actively looking.
Yes, especially if the activity is there but the direction is unclear. What typically happens is marketing exists across websites, content, social, email or ads, but no one is owning how it all works together. SVMG steps in where structure, accountability and stronger market alignment are needed.
