Finding the Perfect Job

Posted on April 13, 2011

by David Wong
Associate Professor of Equine Medicine

This is always an exciting time for me to see veterinary students entertaining different prospects of what type of work they want to do and where they will accept their first job – whether it be a summer job, or their first full time job after graduation.  For the first and second year students, this is a great opportunity to explore the different areas of veterinary medicine that you think you might be interested in (small animal, exotics, mixed practice, industry, etc). For the fourth year students, you should be looking for a job if you haven’t already begun the search.  The question that remains is how to find, apply for, and accept a suitable position for yourself in the next several months.  This article will give you some tips at finding a job.  Some variables that may affect where you will start looking include the following:

• Location:  where do you want to live?  Some of you are free-spirits and are able to move to whatever part of the country (or world) that you prefer.  Others of you may be restricted to a specific location or region based on considerations such as spouse, family, property, etc.  The location(s) that you are considering will thus dictate where you may want to start looking.  This is less critical for temporary summer positions unless you intend to try and get hired on full time after graduation.

• Species Preference:  this variable may pertain more to large animal veterinarians rather than small animal veterinarians.  Clearly, there are parts of the country that have more feedlots or dairy farms as well as specific areas that have more horses.  If you are interested in practicing on a specific species you will have to look accordingly.  Most states have small animal jobs available but more rural states, such as the mid-western states, may have more need for a mixed animal practitioner.

• Other Factors to Consider:

o Big city versus small town – you probably have a preference depending on if you like the activity and amenities of a larger city compared to the quietness and slower pace of a small town.  Larger cities obviously may have more people with higher disposable income resulting in higher revenue for you.

o Salary based on region – the Atlantic and Pacific states in general have higher salaries (depending on the type of practice) than the middle of the USA.

o Weather preferences – Like or dislike of the frigid cold or blistering heat may dictate your direction.

Finding  Job Opportunities

The actual process of finding the ideal job for you may be as easy as searching the classified advertisements in a journal or considering a job with your local home-town veterinarian that you have worked with prior to starting veterinary school.  Thus, sometimes finding out which practices are currently seeking to hire a veterinarian can be straight-forward; however, finding a “good” job may be harder.  Some of the more highly sought after jobs (whether it is because of an ideal location, outstanding reputation, ideal mentorship, high salary, or other attractive characteristics) can be somewhat difficult to find because many of these jobs are known through word-of-mouth.  Others may have no idea where to start looking.  Several sources or job boards to consider include:

1)  The institution that you attend typically maintains a list of jobs for any veterinary students and new graduates.  Private practices and companies within the vet industry send in a job description to the student affairs office for them to post.  Check with your office of student affairs to see if this list is available.  These employers may be particularly attractive because they are (hopefully) interested in hiring and mentoring a newer graduate veterinarian.

2)  Your veterinary mentors may know the referring veterinarians in the area and can potentially provide some employment opportunities in the local or regional area.

3) If you are able to, attend the state veterinary meeting (i.e. Michigan Veterinary Medical Association) in the fall or winter of the year you will graduate.  Talk to veterinarians at the meeting and inquire if they are, or know somebody who is interested in hiring for a summer tech position or new graduate associate veterinarian.  Some of these conferences have specific times allotted for job interviews during the conference.

4)  If you are interested in a specific specialty (i.e. Emergency and Critical Care, Internal Medicine, Surgery, etc), check with the specialties web-site (i.e. www.acvecc.org, www.acvim.org, www.acvs.org)   or specialty journal to see if there are any job opportunities listed.  Also consider attending the specialty college’s annual meeting.

5)  The Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association also publishes job listings at the end of the journal.  This journal is published bi-monthly and has an extensive list of job opportunities.  You can also utilize the American Veterinary Medical Associations on-line listing of employment opportunities (http://www.avma.org/jobs/classads/clsearch.asp).

6)  Species specific websites are available that also have classified advertisements for veterinarians seeking employment.  These include:

Small Animal:        American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA)
http://careers.aahanet.org/search.cfm

Equine:                 American Association of Equine Practitioners (AAEP)
http://www.aaep.org/job_center.php

Bovine:                    American Association of Bovine Practitioners (AABP)
http://www.aabp.org/jobs/jobs/default.asp

Swine:                                American Association of Swine Veterinarians (AASV)
http://careers.aahanet.org/search.cfm

Applying and Interviewing For a Job

Needless to say, your application or resume (curriculum vitae) to a job portrays an important first impression upon potential employers and should be professional, clear, concise and without contextual or grammatical error.  There is a considerable amount of variation in resume formats based on personal preference and you can retrieve numerous resume templates in books and on-line, therefore we will not directly discuss format.  Just be certain that your resume is professional in appearance and has no errors (have several people proof-read your resume).  However, some tips to consider in regard to what to include in your resume include:

• Contact information
• Academic record (where and when you graduated with what particular degree)
• Pertinent prior employment/professional experience
• Advanced training seminars or conferences that you have completed (i.e. AO/ASIF course; dental courses, ultrasound course etc.)
• Any awards or veterinary related certificates
• Veterinary related presentations given
• Publications that you have authored or co-authored
• Pertinent veterinary research that you have been involved with
• GPA
• Ranking in your veterinary class (i.e. graduated in upper 25% of graduating class, magna cum laude, etc)
• Outside or personal interests
• References with accurate contact information

When submitting your resume, you should also include a cover page that briefly introduces yourself and states your goals. Your cover letter is your opportunity to impart your personality and your way of thinking into your application, so be sure it is well written with no mistakes. Typically, a person from the practice that you are applying to (hospital manager, practice owner) will contact you within a few days to a week to acknowledge that they received your resume.  If no one contacts you, it does not hurt to give them a call to ensure that they received your information.

Interviewing Process:

If you are considering a job that requires you to travel a significant distance to meet the potential employer, you may consider a phone interview first.  Additionally, before you invest too much time, effort and money into traveling, have a candid conversation with the employer; it’s acceptable to ask them to describe the position more thoroughly, and other basic questions such as emergency/on-call responsibilities, case load, weekend duty, estimated starting salary and benefits and any other questions that may help you include or exclude the particular hospital or company from further inquiry.  In this modern day, most veterinary hospitals have a website so you can at least get an initial impression of the practice.  It can get expensive traveling the country for interviews so try and narrow down the practices you visit.  Alternatively, you can try and set up several interviews with multiple veterinary hospitals within a region to cut down on travel cost.  Some, but certainly not all clinics will pay for, or help pay for your travel expenses.

When going to interview with a potential employer, not only are they evaluating you, your interpersonal and clinical skills, and knowledge, you also should be interviewing them.  As a veterinary student, you may feel that you don’t have much to offer and are just out there begging for a job.  This isn’t true (at least for the most of you).  You have a considerable amount of new information to offer and hopefully have gained the knowledge and confidence to offer great things to veterinary hospitals.

Important things for you to observe about the hospital and ask employees:

• Overall appearance of the hospital: This may be obvious, but see how clean the hospital is.  How do the kennels, runs, stalls and instruments get cleaned.  Does it smell like cat urine?  Is there dog feces all around the building?  Is the office and reception area well organized and in order.  Take a look at some medical records.  Are they well organized and complete, or are there a few words scratched on a piece of paper?  How do they store radiographs?  Is the surgical area clean?  Is there an isolation area?  What sort of diagnostic equipment (hematology, chemistry analyzer, blood gas analysis) do they have or where do they submit their laboratory work?  Do they re-use/re-sterilize syringes or other (typically) disposable items?

• Take a mental inventory of reference books available and the medications on the shelf:  If the last veterinary text the employer has purchased is the first addition of Ettinger’s Veterinary Internal Medicine (1975), he/she may be archaic and not current on modern veterinary practice.  That’s ok if you don’t need mentorship but can be a detriment to patients and your learning as a new graduate.  Likewise, the use of old or outdated medications may also be a warning sign.  If they only have Amoxi-drops and prednisone in the pharmacy shelves, run away!

• Talk and spend time with the technicians:  Good veterinary technicians are invaluable to a well-run and efficient practice; bad veterinary technicians tend to get in the way and eventually become an annoyance.  See what they are capable of and what procedures they are proficient at.  Ask them about the work environment and how long they have worked there.  There may be some turn-around with veterinary technicians but there should be some technicians that have worked there for many years.  They are also an excellent resource to find out how the management and partners of a practice treat their employees.

• Visit with the office manager: Ideally, most veterinary hospitals should have an office manager that records the accounts, profits, client interactions, accounts receivable and other important information.  Sometimes the office manager is the practice owner; this is acceptable if they are financially savvy, but can be a nightmare if they have no accounting skills.  It is acceptable to ask their gross/net revenue and other aforementioned information so that you can get a feel of how well run and how profitable the hospital is.

• Husband-wife teams: Can work in some instances but can be very precarious in other situations.  Ask other employees how this marital interaction works in the hospital to avoid getting caught in a bad situation. Sometimes the husband/wife of the veterinarian is the office manager.  Again, this can be fine but this can also be a big warning flag for you.  Evaluate this situation carefully.

• Previous associate veterinarians:  Ask the potential employer to provide the name(s) and contact information of previously employed veterinary associates so that you can have a valuable discussion on their impression of the practice and why they left the practice.  Most previous associates are happy to discuss their employment and tell you both the good and bad about the hospital.

Be Prepared:

You should also think about and be able to intelligently and articulately answer questions that the potential employer may ask you.  There are a wide variety of questions that employers can ask you; some are good and some are downright stupid.  Nonetheless, you should have a good answer.  Listed below is a sample of some of the more common questions that you should think about and be ready to answer:

• Tell me about yourself?  (yes, vague but a common question)
• Where do you see yourself in 5 years? (another somewhat nebulous and unrealistic question but common)
• Do you have any particular veterinary interests? (i.e. dermatology, surgery, exotics etc)
• What are your strengths and/or weaknesses? (yes, a loaded question indeed)
• How do you handle conflict? (you may be given a hypothetical situation to resolve)
• What attracted you to our practice?  (why didn’t you apply to a competing practice)
• What would be your ideal work schedule?
• What do you think an acceptable starting salary is?  (check the AVMA report on starting salaries to have a good answer)
• What do you like to do outside of work? (i.e. hobbies, interests)

In addition to being prepared to answer questions, you should also have a list of questions that you can ask the owner.  This not only will answer necessary questions but also will show some level of preparation on your part.  This can be any sort of question, but some important things to know about a practice might include:

• How many cases do you see a week (or day or month)?
• How many appointments are scheduled in an hour?
• How do you feel your veterinary team works together?
• Inquire about the equipment that they have available.
• Inquire about where referrals are sent.
• Inquire about the other veterinarians and their professional interests.
• Inquire about the level of mentorship that they will provide.
• Ask them to describe the ideal candidate for the job advertised.
• Discuss what the biggest limitations of the hospital are.
• Inquire about how patients are monitored throughout the night.
• Inquire about what they perceive as a fair starting salary.
• Inquire about the benefits included with employment.
• Inquire about continuing education.
• Inquire about the community if you are not from the area.
• Inquire about the technical staff.
• Inquire about the history of the hospital.
• Inquire about the profitability of the hospital.
• Inquire about potential partnership in the long-term.

Negotiating the Terms of Your Employment

Once you have found the best job that fits your professional interests (and assuming you get offered the job), it’s time to have a legal contract of employment.  You may have already inquired about some of these terms, but it’s time for your future employer to put what you discussed verbally into a written legal document.  Hopefully, most employers are fair and will abide by the previously discussed terms.  However, some employers may be less eager to accept verbally discussed terms of employment once the time of official employment approaches.  Have a lawyer or someone that has full knowledge of contracts take a look at the contract if you are not familiar with the language.

Your employer should send you a contract of employment which may discuss various terms.  Some of the more common points include:

• Salary – compare a straight salary compared with production salary (based on the amount of revenue you bring to the hospital).
• Non-compete clause – a very precarious topic in veterinary medicine.  This topic is especially important for large animal/equine clinicians.  Make sure that the terms are fair.
• Emergency Schedule and Compensation – how many nights and weekends will you have emergency duty and how will you be compensated.
• Weekend Responsibilities – how many weekends/month are you required to work a month.  Do you receive a day off during the week for working the weekend?
• Vacation/Sick time allowed – what is the exact number of days available for vacation?
• Maternity leave – duration of time for maternity leave.
• Other Benefits – what else is specifically provided:

o       Health Insurance – for you ± spouse and children

o       Liability Insurance

o       Disability Insurance

o       Continuing Education Resources

o       Association Dues

o       Employee Pet Discount

o       Mobile Phone Availability and Use

o       Vehicle Availability and Use (Large Animal/Equine/Mixed Animal)

• Level of mentorship when first starting employment

Locating, applying, interviewing and accepting your first job should be exciting, although it can be a bit stressful.  Try and find some enjoyment out of the experience and take your time looking around.  Don’t rush into a less-than-ideal job just because you think you need to start working right away.  Yes, I realize most of you have bills and loans to pay, but you have an entire lifetime to work.  Finally, don’t get discouraged if the actual practice of veterinary medicine is not exactly what you envisioned as a pre-veterinary or veterinary student.  There will be many rewards that go along with the job, but there will also be plenty of stressful situations, critical cases, difficult clients, and multiple other factors that will impact your state of mind.  You’ll enjoy working as a veterinarian, but there is a reason they call a job “work”.

Good luck!