There are four main things you must be doing or be ready to do when it comes to Veterinary recruitment and hiring. You must:
- Understand the market.
- Understand the candidates.
- Be ready to move swiftly when the time is right.
- Know what the competition is doing.
Organizations need at least one person devoted to Veterinary recruitment and hiring. That person can either work for the Veterinary practice as an employee, or they can be an external recruiter working for an independent search firm.
Now it doesn’t matter if you have somebody working for you internally or you hire an external recruiter. That person must do the following things to recruit and hire talent effectively.
#1 – Source suitable candidates.
#2 – Convince candidates to consider the opportunity.
#3 – Conduct telephone interviews to narrow the candidate list.
#4 – Schedule and conduct face-to-face interviews.
#5 – Determine the top candidate in the process.
#6 – Prepare and extend an offer of employment.
#7 – Negotiate the offer stage (if necessary).
#8 – Onboard the new employee.
If the person makes a mistake in any of these areas, it can derail the whole process. That’s how intensive it is.
Now if a Veterinary practice owner does make the decision to enlist the services of an outside Veterinary recruiter, the value that a recruiter brings to the hiring process can be broken down into four main categories.
Veterinary recruitment: knowledge
There are numerous things that recruiters are knowledgeable about, and that knowledge is very valuable to employers.
First of all, they have knowledge of the top candidates in the marketplace. Specifically, they know who these candidates are, and they probably already have relationships with them. As we’ve discussed before, the first step in hiring top talent is being able to identify top talent.
Second, recruiters have knowledge of the conditions of the job market, including current trends and emerging trends. An example would be a candidates’ market like the one we’re experiencing right now and that we talked about earlier. Veterinary recruiters have knowledge of what to do and how to handle specific market conditions, and they can use that knowledge to educate and guide their clients.
Third, recruiters have knowledge of what companies are doing within the industry. This is especially valuable for organizations that want to know what’s happening with their competitors. Companies do everything they can to grow and gain more market share. Since recruiters are “in the trenches” every day, they have knowledge of this sort of information.
Veterinary recruitment: opportunities
Veterinary recruiters are on the phone all the time, every day, talking to job seekers, candidates, and other professionals within their industry. We’re talking about sometimes hundreds of phone calls and conversations every single week. These are calls that result in opportunities—opportunities for organizations to hire top-level talent and opportunities for job seekers to find a better employment situation. Once again, these are opportunities that company officials do not have time to create on their own. As a result, they put a value on what recruiters are able to do, and that’s yet another reason why they work with them to fill positions.
I have an example that illustrates all of this. I made a placement in three business days. At least, it appeared to be only three business days, but there was much more to the story.
On Thursday, I reached out to the candidate. On Friday, the candidate had a face-to-face interview that involved air travel to another city halfway across the United States. (Yes, my client made that happen directly after the phone interview. After the phone interview, my candidate was on a plane. I don’t even think he had time to go home to get a bag.) On Friday, he interviewed. By Monday, he had an offer, which he accepted. On Tuesday, he resigned from his current position.
My client asked me if that was the fastest placement I had ever made. The fact of the matter was that looks were deceiving.
That’s because the placement actually started years ago when I first met the candidate. Our relationship continued to develop over a number of years, where we talked numerous times about his career and professional goals.
So when my client hired me to fill the opening, I knew who to speak with about it. My client may have had the perception that it was an easy placement. While I’m happy that my client was nimble enough to move quickly, I didn’t just meet that candidate. We had years of history together discussing his career, the Animal Health industry and Veterinary profession, the industry in which I work, his experience, and his career goals.
So, all of those phone calls and conversations helped to create an opportunity, and when the time was right, everything happened very quickly. Without all of those conversations, that opportunity might not have existed and quite possibly, nothing would have happened.
Veterinary recruitment: skills and abilities
While a Veterinary recruiters’ knowledge and the opportunities they create help them to identify top candidates who are willing to make a move, it’s their skills that are really their most valuable component. And a recruiter’s main skill is their ability to recruit, plain and simple.
And that ability is evident all the way through the hiring process. They recruit when they approach the best candidates and convince them to at least consider their client’s opportunity. They recruit when they convince candidates to enter the hiring process and schedule a face-to-face interview. They recruit when the offer is made because when you’re talking about top candidates, there is no guarantee that they’re automatically going to accept it. And they continue to recruit even after a candidate accepts the offer of employment.
A Veterinary recruiter’s skills are their most valuable attribute, and a recruiter’s main skill is their ability to recruit!
Veterinary recruitment: time
Veterinary recruiters have the time to work “in the trenches” day in and day out. They know what’s happening in the employment marketplace overall and their clients’ industry in particular. They know what the top talent is doing, and they know what the top companies are doing.
You might remember that information was the #1 item on our list. The reason that external recruiters are able to amass all of this information is that they have the time to do it. They’ve made it their job and their priority to know these things, and this is information that all organizations want access to.
As you can see, there are many challenges that exist in the marketplace when it comes to hiring. It is by no means easy. It can take a tremendous amount of time and effort to hire the type of employees that you want to hire. You can’t just post a job and do nothing else and expect to get the results that you want. Now every organization is unique. They all have different resources available to them.
That’s why it’s important to conduct an individual assessment and make decisions based on that assessment. Veterinary recruitment and hiring is as difficult as it has ever been, and it’s only going to get more difficult in the months ahead. There is no “magic bullet.” It’s as simple as recognizing the challenges and then formulating a plan for overcoming them.
Veterinary recruiting and hiring with The VET Recruiter
The VET Recruiter has more than 25 years of experience in Veterinary recruitment. We take great pride in helping employers in the Animal Health industry and Veterinary profession recruit and hire veterinarians.
Click here to see examples of The VET Recruiter’s placements. These are all examples of real positions that we have filled in the Animal Health industry and Veterinary profession.
We also invite you to contact us for more information regarding our recruiting process and how The VET Recruiter can help your organization identify, engage, recruit, and hire the best veterinarians in job market.
You can also call (918) 488-3901 or (800) 436-0490 or send an email to stacy@thevetrecruiter.com.