Episode #247 – How to Navigate Animal Health and Veterinary Marketplace Dynamics
Julea: Welcome to “The Animal Health and Veterinary Employment Insider,” brought to you by The VET Recruiter. In this podcast, Animal Health executive recruiter and Veterinary recruiter Stacy Pursell of The VET Recruiter provides insight and practical advice for both employers and job seekers in the Animal Health and Veterinary industries. The VET Recruiter’s focus is to solve talent-centric problems for the Animal Health industry and Veterinary profession. In fact, The VET Recruiter’s mission is to help Animal Health and Veterinary companies hire top talent, while helping Animal Health and Veterinary professionals attain career-enhancing opportunities that increase their quality of life.
Today, we will be talking about how to navigate Animal Health and Veterinary marketplace dynamics. Hello, Stacy, and thank you for joining us today.
Stacy: Hello, Julea. As always, I am glad to be here with you.
Julea: Stacy, what will we be talking about today? The title of today’s episode really does not give much away.
Stacy: You are right. It does not, and that is partly by design. First, it is general in nature because we’ll be addressing a deep subject but doing so in a broad way. And second, today’s episode is for both professionals and employers in the marketplace. Many times, on our podcast, we will address one or the other specifically, but today’s episode is for both, and I believe we will be discussing important information for both groups of people.
Julea: Okay, great! Where would you like to start today, Stacy?
Stacy: I would like to start by laying a foundation for our discussion. As an executive recruiter, I try to create a win-win situation for a candidate and one of my clients, a situation where they are both happy and they both benefit. Achieving a win-win takes work from everyone—myself, the candidate, and the client. Of course, I work as hard as I possibly can to make that happen, but it does require some effort from the other parties involved. So, what I want to talk about today are some basic dynamics of the Animal Health and Veterinary marketplace. They represent a few of the fundamentals involved in a person’s quest to grow their career and also the recruiting and hiring process.
And I would like to begin with a basic and very true statement: when it comes to the Animal Health and Veterinary marketplace, everybody wants something.
Julea: Yes, I would agree that is a true statement!
Stacy: With that in mind, there are three main groups of people that exist in the marketplace. They are job seekers or candidates, employers, and employees.
Julea: Could not an employee of a company also be a job seeker or candidate?
Stacy: Yes, that is right! For example, you could be the employee of a company who is also a job seeker looking to find a better employment opportunity with another organization.
To go a step beyond that, you might represent all three of them. You could be a company official in charge of hiring decisions, which also makes you an employee, but you could also be a job seeker looking for a better employment opportunity with another organization.
Regardless of how many groups you are in, all of these groups want something. The entire Animal Health and Veterinary marketplace is based upon these wants and the ability of the other groups to satisfy those wants. In addition to these three groups, our discussion of marketplace dynamics includes two main factors, as well.
Julea: Which factors are those, Stacy?
Stacy: They are motivation and priorities. Specifically, if you want to reach your goals and maximize your success, then you must align other people’s motivations with your own priorities.
Julea: How can you do that Stacy?
Stacy: That is what we’re going to discuss. And today’s conversation is going to focus on three big steps that everyone can take to navigate the Animal Health and Veterinary marketplace to experience more success.
The first big step is identification.
Julea: What does that mean, exactly?
Stacy: Let us look at this step through the lens of our three groups of people. If you are an employee, then you should identify the priorities that you have for your career. If you are a job seeker, then you should identify the priorities that you have for both your job search and your career. If you are a hiring manager, then you should identify the priorities that you and the organization have in terms of hiring new personnel.
However, keep in mind that there is a sub-step within this first step.
Julea: Which is . . .?
Stacy: The ranking of your priorities. This is critical because not everything is important, or to put it more accurately, not everything is equally important. To paraphrase the old saying, “If everything is important, then nothing is important.” The key is to identify what is most important to you and then to identify everything else that is important in descending order.
Julea: Stacy, what if priorities change over time?
Stacy: That is a great question Julea. Your list of priorities should be what is called a “living document.” That is because priorities can and do change over time, and that is why you should conduct an evaluation every so often to gauge how much your priorities have changed. The last thing you want to do is make a major decision based upon a list of priorities that are outdated.
Julea: How often should a person conduct an evaluation of their professional priorities?
Stacy: I would say no less than once per quarter or every three months. The reason that your priorities are so important is because your priorities drive your actions, especially your most important priorities. They form the basis of your motivation or what drives you forward.
And that leads us to our next big step.
Julea: Which step is that?
Stacy: The next step is alignment or the alignment of your priorities. As you know, Julea, I believe in a philosophy called The Principle of Reciprocity. According to this philosophy, when somebody gives something to us, we feel compelled to give something in return. Conversely, when we give something to somebody first, they feel compelled to give us something in return. And as you also know, I have a favorite quote by Zig Ziglar that sums up this principle.
Julea: Yes, I do! Zig had some famous quotes.
Stacy: This quote is “You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help other people get what they want.” This quote and the Principle of Reciprocity is part of our discussion today and it is part of experiencing success while you navigate the Animal Health and Veterinary marketplace.
However, this step involves more than just giving other people what they want. It involves giving them what they want while you get what you want at the same time.
Julea: Right, but how does a person do that?
Stacy: By identifying what motivates other people. Now, you might think that this is not possible, but it IS possible, at least to a point. Let us look at a couple of examples.
If you are an employee of an organization, what that organization wants from you is value in some form. It could be in the form of making money for the company, saving money for the company, or something else.
If you are a job seeker or candidate for an employer’s job opening, that employer wants the same thing. They want value from the person they hire in some way, shape, or form. That is why it’s hiring the person in the first place.
This means that an organization is motivated by value. It wants a certain level of value from both its employees and the candidates that it hires who become employees. So as an employee or job seeker, your job is to align your priorities with what is motivating the organization. In other words, you should make sure that your priorities are in line with the organization’s motivation.
Julea: Okay, that makes sense Stacy. But what about if you are an employer? How does it work in that case?
Stacy: If you are an employer, what is your priority when it comes to hiring? It should be to hire the best candidates in the marketplace for your positions and NOT just the best candidates who are looking for a new job. But then at the same time, if you are an employer, you should also be asking what motivates top candidates in the Animal Health or Veterinary marketplace?
Julea: Well, we have discussed what motivates top candidates before on the podcast.
Stacy: Yes, we have! And there are many things, including:
- An employment opportunity better than the one they already have
- A great company culture
- The chance to grow their career through promotions/advancement
- The opportunity to add to their skill set through additional training
- A better work-life balance
So once again, to illustrate our point, if you want to hire the best candidates and that is your priority, then you must align that priority with what is motivating candidates. If those motivations do not align, then there will be a disconnect and that will greatly reduce the chances that you’ll be able to hire top candidates as an employer.
Julea: So, let’s say that you’re able to do that and align your priority with other people’s motivation. What happens next Stacy?
Stacy: Next is our third big step, which is action. Because you cannot make anything positive happen unless you take action. Among the other things that we have discussed to this point, you also know that I’m big on being proactive and taking action instead of being passive and reacting to what happens.
And to illustrate this step, I would like to use the examples from our three groups of people again.
If you are an employee or a job seeker, we’ve already established that value is what ultimately motivates organizations. That value can take more than one form, but mainly it involves making money for the company or saving money for the company or contributing in some way to the company’s success. Working backward from that fact, your talent and experience should provide value in that form. Ideally, it would provide value in both forms.
So as an employee or job seeker, you should strive to emphasize the skills and experience that you possess that can provide value to your current employer—or a potential employer—in as many different ways as possible.
If you are an employee, that means doing so on a daily basis. If you are a job seeker, it means doing so on your resume and during the face-to-face interview. If your top priority is to grow your career, then tie that priority to the value that employers are seeking and tie the two together at every opportunity. Now let us spring into action from the employer side.
As an employer, you should strive to provide as many ways as possible for employees and top candidates to satisfy their motivations, both in their current employment situation and also in terms of their career for the long haul.
Julea: Right, because correct me if I’m wrong, but employee retention is also a part of this conversation.
Stacy: Yes, you are absolutely right and I’m glad that you brought that up. Every Animal Health and Veterinary employer has two main priorities. The first is to hire the best candidates in the Animal Health and Veterinary marketplace for their open positions, and the second is to retain their top employees so they can keep benefitting from the tremendous value that those employees provide for the organization. In order to meet those priorities, employers must align them with the motivation of both candidates in the hiring process and employees who are already part of the organization. It really is a rather simple equation, when you break it down to its simplest elements.
If you want to hire top candidates and retain top employees, then you have to know what motivates them. Then you must use the knowledge by tapping into that motivation and offering what it is that top candidates and employees want. If your top candidate is motivated by work-life balance, then align that motivation with your priority of hiring that candidate and put it into action. If your top employee is motivated by recognition, then align that motivation with your priority of retaining that employee, and put it into action.
Julea: It does seem like it is rather easy, when you break it down like we have today.
Stacy: It does seem easy, but as is the case with many things, it is easy in theory but more difficult in practice. That is because there are often so many other elements and factors at play. But yes, these are the fundamentals, and these are the basics for professional and hiring success. And the key is to focus on your priorities and also the motivation of other people.
It’s when people focus too much on their own needs, while neglecting the needs of others, that the fewest amount of needs are met. Animal Health and Veterinary marketplace dynamics operate more effectively when The Principle of Reciprocity is the rule and not the exception. And as I said at the beginning of today’s episode, we’re talking about a win-win situation—everyone gets what they want!
Julea: Stacy, thank you for all of this great information about navigating Animal Health and Veterinary marketplace dynamics. And since today’s episode was for both professionals and employers, I want to mention there is plenty of valuable information on The VET Recruiter website for both employers and job seekers who work in the Animal Health industry or Veterinary profession.
Stacy: Yes, that is correct. We have a blog for employers and job seekers, and we also have career resources for job seekers. These include interview tips, relocation information, and best practices for working with an Animal Health or Veterinary recruiter. While you are on the site, you can fill out a profile and submit your resume for consideration, as well.
There are also many resources for employers, starting with a complete description of our services and what we offer. You can even download an e-brochure that contains more information about what we can do for Animal Health and Veterinary organizations. In addition, we have a breakdown of the twenty steps that are involved in our recruiting process, so you know what to expect when you partner with us on a search.
Our website is line with our mission statement, which is to help organizations hire top talent, while helping professionals attain career-enhancing opportunities that increase their quality of life. We believe our website helps us to carry out that mission.
Julea: For more information about The VET Recruiter and the services that it provides to both Animal Health and Veterinary employers and professionals, we invite everyone listening to visit www.thevetrecruiter.com. Stacy, as always, thank you for joining us today.
Stacy: It has been my pleasure, Julea, and I look forward to our next episode of the “Animal Health and Veterinary Employment Insider”!