By Stacy Pursell, CPC/CERS
The VET Recruiter®
In our previous article for employers, we posed this question: “What is Your Animal Health or Veterinary Recruiting Plan for 2022?”
In helping readers answer that question, we shared five essential components of such a plan. They include the following:
1. Identification of talent
2. Engagement of talent
3. Recruiting of talent
4. Hiring of talent
5. Onboarding of talent
As you can see, talent is the common thread that runs through all of these components. Effective Animal Health and Veterinary recruiting and hiring begins and ends with talent. Specifically, it begins and ends with the right talent—those people who can not only carry out the duties and responsibilities of the position at a high level, but who also fit well into the company culture of the organization.
While we addressed what employers can do proactively to recruit and hire top talent in that previous article, in this article we’re going to discuss what else they can do to help ensure success in the New Year.
Making Animal Health and Veterinary hiring a priority
Having a plan is a good start, but it’s only that: a start. How you execute your plan is just as critical as the creation of your plan. In fact, the argument could be made that execution is even more important than creation. That’s because even the best plan in the world is useless unless you’re able to execute that plan to the point at which you achieve the goals you set when you created the plan in the first place.
However, instead of talking about plans, let’s discuss priorities. And of course, planning and priorities are related to one another. For example, a plan contains certain priorities because not everything is equally important. Some things are more important than others, including in regards to recruiting and hiring, and those things should be given the attention that they deserve. But there is a difference between an employer’s priorities within a certain plan and within the organization overall.
I don’t have to tell you that there is a labor and talent shortage in this country right now, and that shortage is likely to continue well into the New Year. I also don’t have to tell you that this shortage includes the Animal Health industry and Veterinary profession. (In fact, the talent shortage in the Veterinary profession is more severe than the worker shortage in the United States overall.) Since that is the case, employers must make Animal Health and Veterinary hiring more of a priority within their organizations.
What does this mean, specifically? It means that hiring officials and the members of management should not only be thinking about Animal Health and Veterinary hiring when they need to fill an important position. Instead, they should be thinking about hiring pretty much all of the time, and as a result, they should also be taking action that reflects that mindset. It’s a simple formula, when you think about it. The more that you focus on something, the more successful you will be with that something. The same holds true here: the more that you focus on Animal Health and Veterinary hiring, the more successful you will be in terms of hiring.
How to ‘Always Be Recruiting!’
There was a movie released in 1992 titled Glengarry Glen Ross. According to the website IMDB, the plot of the movie involves “an examination of the machinations behind the scenes at a real estate office.” Those machinations as portrayed by the film are, to say the least, stressful. Although I certainly do not endorse some of the language used in the movie, salespeople everywhere are familiar with the line that Alec Baldwin’s character uttered when he said, “Always be closing!”
The reason he said this is because the more that salespeople focus on closing, the more sales they will close. With that mind, employers would be wise to adopt a similar mindset when it comes to Animal Health and Veterinary hiring in 2022. In other words, they should, “Always be recruiting!” Now, you might think that’s impossible, since there is only so much time in the day and you’re a very busy person. If that’s the case, then I completely understand, and you’re certainly not the only person who thinks this way.
However, there are things that you can do that don’t require a lot of time and that will help you to adopt and maintain the “Always be recruiting!” mindframe. Just like salespeople have a sales pipeline, employers can have a “talent pipeline” that contains numerous prospects and people that they would like to hire, even if they don’t currently have an open position. Below are three ways to start building a talent pipeline in the New Year:
#1—Ask for employee referrals.
If you have great employees, then ask them for the names of friends or colleagues who they think might want to make a change in the near future. Referrals are one of the top ways to uncover qualified candidates, especially when the market is tight for talent.
#2—Create a fantastic employer brand.
Attracting talent is about more than just a new job. That’s because top candidates want more than just a new job; they want a life-changing opportunity with an employer that has an engaging company culture and stellar reputation. Make sure that your website and your social media channels reflect all of these aspects. (And also make sure that your site provides a great mobile experience.)
#3—Work with an experienced recruiting firm.
An experienced and reputable recruiter already has relationships with some of the top candidates and can contact them about your opportunity. This way, you can stay connected to talent in the marketplace, while at the same time maintaining maximum levels of productivity throughout every other area of the organization.
The VET Recruiter has about 25 years of experience helping employers with their Animal Health and Veterinary hiring efforts. We know what it takes to recruit and hire top talent, especially in today’s challenging job market, and we can put our expertise and years of experience to work for your organization.
You can click here to find out more about our services for employers. Click here to learn more about our recruiting process.
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.