Employment/ Salary Trends
Employment
Veterinarians held about 59,000 jobs in 2000. About 28 percent were self-employed in solo or group practices. Most others were employees of another veterinary practice. The Federal Government employed about 800 civilian veterinarians, chiefly in the U.S. Departments of Agriculture and Health and Human Services. Other employers of veterinarians are State and local governments, colleges of veterinary medicine, medical schools, research laboratories, animal food companies, and pharmaceutical companies. A few veterinarians work for zoos; but most veterinarians caring for zoo animals are private practitioners who contract with zoos to provide services, usually on a part-time basis.
Job Outlook
Employment of veterinarians is expected to grow faster than the average for all occupations through the year 2010. Job openings stemming from the need to replace veterinarians who retire or otherwise leave the labor force will be almost as numerous as new jobs resulting from employment growth over the 2000-10 period.
Most veterinarians practice in animal hospitals or clinics and care primarily for companion animals. The number of dogs as pets is expected to increase more slowly during the projection period than in the previous decade. However, faster growth of the cat population is expected to increase the demand for feline medicine and veterinary services, offsetting any reduced demand for veterinary care for dogs. Also, as non-necessity income generally increases with age, those who own pets may be more inclined to seek veterinary services. Small increases in the total number of household pets, coupled with the movement of baby boomers into the 34 to 59 year age group, means that the willingness by pet owners to pay for veterinary services should continue. In addition, pet owners are becoming more aware of the availability of advanced care and may increasingly take advantage of nontraditional veterinary services, such as preventive dental care, and may more willingly pay for intensive care than in the past. Finally, new technologies and medical advancements should permit veterinarians to offer better care to animals.
New graduates continue to be attracted to small animal medicine because they prefer to deal with pets and to live and work near highly populated areas. This situation will not necessarily limit the ability of veterinarians to find employment or to set up and maintain a practice in a particular area. Rather, beginning veterinarians may take positions requiring evening or weekend work to accommodate the extended hours of operation that many practices are offering. Some veterinarians take salaried positions in retail stores offering veterinary services. Self-employed veterinarians usually have to work hard and long to build a sufficient client base.
The number of jobs for large animal veterinarians is expected to grow slowly, because productivity gains in the agricultural production industry mean demand for fewer veterinarians than before to treat food animals. Nevertheless, job prospects may be better for veterinarians who specialize in farm animals than for small animal practitioners, because most veterinary medical college graduates do not have the desire to work in rural or isolated areas.
Continued support for public health and food safety, international and national disease control programs, and biomedical research on human health problems will contribute to the demand for veterinarians, although such positions are few in number. However, anticipated budget tightening in the Federal Government may lead to low funding levels for some programs, limiting job growth. Veterinarians with training in public health and epidemiology should have the best opportunities for a career in the Federal Government.
Earnings
Median annual earnings of veterinarians were $60,910 in 2000. The middle 50 percent earned between $47,020 and $84,220. The lowest 10 percent earned less than $36,670, and the highest 10 percent earned more than $128,720.
According to a survey by the American Veterinary Medical Association, average starting salaries of 2000 veterinary medical college graduates varied by type of practice as follows:
Small animal, predominant $42,918
Small animal, exclusive 42,640
Large animal, exclusive 41,629
Large animal, predominant 41,439
Mixed animal 40,358
Equine 28,526
New veterinary medical college graduates who enter the Federal Government usually start at $35,808. Beginning salaries were slightly higher in selected areas where the prevailing local pay level was higher. The average annual salary for veterinarians in the Federal Government in non-supervisory, supervisory, and managerial positions was $ 67,482 in 2001.
In today’s rapidly changing business climate, the staffing of companies has become more difficult. The cost of choosing the wrong candidate for a managerial job is estimated by some employers to be three times the annualized salary of an employee who leaves before a year is out. This does not factor in the cost of having the position vacant until the right person can be found.
As a result, a new interviewing technique called behavioral interviewing has become increasingly popular. Behavioral interviewing is a technique that seeks to evaluate everything about a candidate through assessment of specific actions or behaviors in given circumstances or jobs. It also elicits general knowledge or expertise from a candidate. Interviewers who use the technique encourage candidates to recount in detail job situations and the results of specific actions, even for seemingly minor tasks on previous jobs.
“It’s actually very effective,” according to Jay Schwartz, President of the Richmond office of Management Recruiters International, Inc. (MRI), the world’s largest search and recruitment organization. Schwartz’s company trains its recruiters and clients in how to use the technique. “But candidates who are prepared to answer questions in the appropriate way have an advantage over candidates who are blindsided by it and must be coaxed by the interviewer to respond appropriately. It’s not that you can ‘beat the test’ by understanding it beforehand. It’s more a question of making the interview go a little better by knowing what’s required of you,” says Schwartz.
Schwartz indicates that there are clues to know when one is in a behavioral interview and suggests some strategies to keep in mind:
1. Behavioral interviews often begin with a statement that the interviewer will be looking for specific instances from real situations in answer to his questions, and not to be nervous if it takes the candidate a few minutes to gather his thoughts.
2. The questions will often begin with words to the effect of “tell me about a specific situation in which you…”
3. When the candidate wanders towards generalities, the interviewer will often coax the candidate back to specific examples, asking for the names of people, their titles and other concrete details. Often the interviewer will rephrase a question so it sounds different but elicits the same information.
There are some easy ways to prepare for a behavioral interview according to Schwartz:
1. Decide what your chief skills or strengths are and fix in your mind actual experiences, which exemplify each. Be sure to recall or remind yourself of dates, names, quantities or measurements of success and other details that will convey the reality to the interviewer.
2. Understand the job description for which you are interviewing and be prepared to recall specific actions and behaviors which address the skills needed in the position.
3. Specificity is more important than vague proclamations of your skills. Small but telling actions and behaviors are more important than grandiose but unsubstantiated claims of job success. No one expects you to have single handedly saved the world, the company and your immediate boss from sure ruination. They simply hope that you are the person who can do the job for which they are hiring.
“The idea behind behavioral interviewing is that you can tell much more about a person’s attitudes, work habits and skills by hearing them describe real actions taken in real circumstances than by letting them speak in the abstract about themselves,” said Schwartz. He went on to say, “It’s amazingly effective, I think, because each of us reveals our motivations and attitudes whenever we recount our part in human interaction. Motivation and attitude are huge success factors in a new job.”
Source: Management Recruiters International
from “ASK THE HEADHUNTER® the insider’s edge on job search & hiring™”
How risky is it to lie about my salary?
Question
I was reading your very interesting comments on divulging salary information to prospective employers. Can prior employers give out salary information? I have a friend who got a much higher paying job by lying about her salary history. How dangerous is that?
Nick’s Reply
Your prior employers might indeed give out your salary information. Most will decline to divulge it, but clever researchers can often get this information if they really want it. If your friend got her job by lying about her past salary, that’s not a success story — it’s a disaster waiting to happen. A reader recently shared his story about this. He fudged his past salary, got hired, and started the job. At his orientation meeting, the company asked him for a pay stub from his last job. It didn’t match what he’d claimed. They canned him on the spot for misrepresenting himself.
Many companies bury some interesting terms in their employee handbook, and once you’re on board, you’re subject to those rules and regulations. The handbook may include requirements that you produce certain documents, such as a past pay stub and medical records. It will also likely state that if you fail to provide that information, that’s grounds for termination. Kind of a catch-22, isn’t it?
A company can usually do this after they’ve hired you because your offer letter will say something like, “This offer is contingent on your acceptance of our company’s rules, policies, employee handbook, insurance requirements, etc.” When you accept that offer, you accept those terms.
So, don’t lie. That doesn’t mean you have to divulge your salary history. People need to realize that if they want their salary history to stay confidential, they have every right to keep it so. But, they should state
their position clearly and in advance. Likewise, however, employers have every right to expect your honesty when you do provide the information. There’s a bigger message in all this: Ask to see all relevant documents and rules that you’ll have to live under before you accept a job offer. Companies sometimes don’t pony up all this information unless you press for it. Some won’t give it to you even then.
Best,
Nick Corcodilos
Ask The Headhunter®
Executives identify that the greatest threat to the continued success of their companies in this century is the job candidate shortage according to a recent survey conducted by Management Recruiters International, Inc (MRI).
More than 4,000 executives were surveyed by MRI, Inc. and nearly 50% said that a shortage of candidates was their biggest concern today while 18.5% considered keeping up with technology as the greatest threat to their company, 16.2% said the economy, while 15.5% said global competition.
“It’s a powerful statement when half of those polled in our survey consider the shortage of qualified job candidates to be the greatest threat to ongoing economic success,” said Allen Salikof, president and CEO at MRI, Inc. “Still, this comes as no surprise based on our daily experience in fulfilling the staffing needs of corporate America. What’s particularly compelling, though, is the fact that the candidate shortage was the overwhelming response of those polled, since technology, the economy and global competition have to be considered important issues as well.”
“Competition will remain particularly fierce in the professional-managerial fields as the level of hiring activity remains high and demographics for the next century clearly indicate a shrinking workforce,” continued Salikof. “Finding college-educated individuals with technical, sales or management experience will be a great challenge. What companies are up against, though, is the fact that in this workforce-which accounts for about 1/4 or 38 million, of all employed Americans–unemployment is less than 2% and will stay that way in the foreseeable future.”
MRI is the world’s largest search and recruitment organization and has system-wide billings of over $600 million. MRI, Inc. places 40,000 people in jobs annually. MRI is a subsidiary of Philadelphia-based CDI Corp. CDI Corp is one of the world’s largest staffing and outsourcing service providers. CDI generated $1.54 billion in revenue in 1998.
Source: Management Recruiters International
