Employers throughout the Animal Health industry and Veterinary profession continue to need talent, and many expect that need to increase. However, The VET Recruiter’s 2026 Workforce/Workplace Survey shows that finding the right people remains difficult.
Of the respondents who answered whether they play a role in their organization’s hiring process, 39.5% said yes. The employer-related findings reveal a significant tension: organizations want to grow, but many continue to struggle to find qualified candidates. At the same time, candidates have choices and evaluate potential employers on much more than compensation.
The message for employers is straightforward. Having an opening is not enough. Organizations must give talented professionals compelling reasons to consider the opportunity and ultimately accept it.
Employers Expect to Expand Their Workforces
One of the most significant employer findings involves future hiring plans.
Among the respondents answering the question, 61% said their organizations plan to expand headcount. Another 35% expect to maintain their current workforce, while only 4.1% anticipate reducing headcount. These numbers indicate a growth-oriented employment market, but expansion becomes difficult when the supply of qualified talent does not keep pace with demand.
Employers also have to consider turnover. According to the candidate portion of the survey, 76.3% of respondents look for jobs at least occasionally. Consequently, employers may have to recruit in two directions simultaneously. They must hire additional employees to support growth while replacing existing employees who leave.
This demonstrates why recruiting and retention should not be treated as separate workforce issues. An organization could make several new hires without actually growing if existing employees leave at nearly the same rate.
Animal Health and Veterinary Hiring Remains Challenging
Employers hoping for a significantly easier recruiting environment may be disappointed. Only 3.3% of respondents said hiring had become significantly easier than the previous year. Another 22.8% said it was somewhat easier but remained challenging.
Meanwhile, 44.7% said hiring was about the same, and 29.3% said it had become more difficult. In other words, nearly three-quarters indicated that hiring was either unchanged or harder.
Another survey question reinforces this challenge. When respondents were asked whether their organization had experienced “no trouble finding the right candidates” during the previous 12 months, 51.5% disagreed to some degree. Only 32.9% agreed.
These findings suggest that employers cannot afford a passive approach to recruiting. Waiting for an opening, posting a job, and expecting qualified candidates to apply may not be enough. Instead, organizations should continually build candidate pipelines, strengthen their employer brands, maintain visibility in the marketplace, and develop relationships with professionals before hiring needs become urgent.
Candidates Are Evaluating Employers
The hiring process is a two-way evaluation. Employers naturally want to determine whether candidates have the right skills, experience, and qualifications. However, candidates are simultaneously deciding whether the employer and opportunity meet their needs.
Compensation and pay transparency was the most frequently identified factor influencing whether respondents apply for a job, appearing in 52% of responses.
However, compensation was only part of the equation. Schedule, flexibility, and work-life balance appeared in 33.2% of responses. Location and commute appeared in 19.7%; benefits in 18.5%; role fit and duties in 17.2%; and culture, leadership, and team in 16.3%. Respondents also identified organizational stability and opportunities for growth and advancement.
This means a generic job advertisement focused almost exclusively on responsibilities and requirements may not be enough. Candidates want to know the compensation, schedule, flexibility, benefits, advancement possibilities, leadership environment, and staffing situation. They also want to know what differentiates one employer from another.
Retention Problems Can Become Recruiting Problems
Employers should also pay close attention to what respondents said about their current workplaces. Only 21% reported having no workplace concerns.
Understaffing was the leading concern at 36.9%, followed by poor management or leadership at 35.1%. Being overworked was cited by 29.4%, poor communication by 28.2%, and being underpaid by 27%. Poor culture, poor work-life balance, instability, and organizational financial health were also identified.
These problems affect more than retention. They can eventually influence recruiting because employees communicate with other professionals.
That is especially important considering that word of mouth (including through both internal and external recruiters) was the largest named source through which survey respondents obtained their current positions, at 47.6%. A positive workplace can create employees who recommend their organization to colleagues. A negative experience can produce the opposite result.
Employer branding, therefore, cannot simply consist of what an organization says about itself. The experience being promoted to candidates must match the experience current employees actually have.
Employers Are Recruiting Through Multiple Channels
Survey respondents indicated that their organizations plan to use numerous resources to find candidates. Word of mouth was the leading resource, selected by 58.2% of hiring respondents. Animal Health or Veterinary-specific job boards followed at 50%, while company websites were selected by 47.5%.
Internal referrals were selected by 34.4%, internal recruiters by 29.5%, general job boards by 28.7%, and external recruiters or search firms by 23.8%. Career fairs and visits to colleges and universities were each selected by 14.8%. (Please note that survey respondents were able to choose more than one answer for this question.)
A multichannel strategy is important because not every desirable candidate is actively applying for jobs. In fact, 58.7% of survey respondents had participated in no interviews during the previous year, even though 76.3% look for jobs at least occasionally.
This represents a potentially valuable group of professionals who are aware of the employment market but are not actively interviewing. Reaching them may require networking, referrals, recruiter outreach, conferences, social media, and other strategies beyond simply posting jobs.
Search Firms Remain a Valuable Recruiting Resource
Looking ahead, 43.9% of hiring managers anticipate filling at least one position through an executive search or recruiting firm during the next 12 months. That figure underscores the important role that external recruiters continue to play for Animal Health and Veterinary organizations, particularly when employers need access to qualified candidates who may not be actively searching for a new opportunity.
The results also reveal an opportunity for more employers to take advantage of external recruiting expertise. Organizations want to grow, and many are struggling to find the people they need, yet a percentage have not recently engaged a search firm. While employers may rely primarily on internal recruiting resources, an experienced external recruiter can complement those efforts by expanding the candidate pool, reaching passive candidates, and helping organizations attract professionals who might otherwise remain inaccessible.
The value of an external recruiter should also be considered in relation to the cost of an important position remaining vacant. An open position can reduce productivity, delay organizational initiatives, limit growth, and place additional responsibilities on existing employees. Those added demands can contribute to overwork, which the survey already identifies as a significant workforce concern.
For employers facing difficult-to-fill positions, engaging an experienced recruiting firm can be a strategic investment in reducing vacancy time, accessing a broader pool of talent, and securing the right person before prolonged vacancies begin affecting employees, productivity, and organizational performance.
Recruiting and Retention Are Part of the Same Strategy
Taken together, the employer findings reveal why organizations must address recruiting and retention simultaneously.
Sixty-one percent of hiring respondents plan to expand headcount. Nearly three-quarters say hiring is either unchanged or more difficult than the previous year. More than half disagree that their organization has experienced no difficulty finding appropriate candidates. Meanwhile, 76.3% of employees look for jobs at least occasionally, only 36.5% say they plan to retire with their current employer, and just 21% report having no workplace concerns.
Employers therefore cannot concentrate on bringing new people through the front door while ignoring why existing employees might leave through the back door.
Competitive compensation, strong leadership, good communication, adequate staffing, reasonable workloads, flexibility, career growth, workplace culture, and trust can all influence both recruiting and retention.
Becoming an Employer Candidates Want to Choose
Ultimately, The VET Recruiter’s 2026 Workforce/Workplace Survey shows that demand for talent remains strong and competition for qualified professionals continues. Candidates have access to job boards, recruiters, professional networks, social media, conferences, and word of mouth. They can compare compensation, schedules, benefits, cultures, and career opportunities without leaving their current positions.
That leaves employers with an important question: Why should a talented professional choose your organization instead of another one?
The answer cannot simply be that the organization has an opening. Employers must communicate why their opportunities are attractive, create positive candidate experiences, move efficiently through the hiring process, and ensure that the employment experience matches what was promised during recruiting.
This survey shows that many Animal Health and Veterinary employers want to grow, but achieving that growth will require a strategic approach to both recruiting and retention.
In a workforce where employees remain open to new opportunities, finding talent is only part of the challenge. The larger challenge is becoming the employer that talented people want to choose.
We invite you to find out more about our Animal Health and Veterinary recruiting services for employers and also learn more about our recruiting process and how we can help you fill your critical positions in 2026.
We help support careers in one of two ways: 1. By helping Animal Health and Veterinary professionals to find the right opportunity when the time is right, and 2. By helping to recruit top talent for the critical needs of Animal Health and Veterinary organizations. If this is something that you would like to explore further, please send an email to stacy@thevetrecruiter.com.