Building Your Dream Veterinary Team in 2025 - What Was and What Can Be - ep. 218

As we venture into 2025, understanding recruitment dynamics is critical for veterinary clinics facing staffing challenges.

Today Julie South looks into the current landscape of veterinary employment in Aotearoa New Zealand, emphasising the importance of a strong employer brand, adapting to immigration changes, and creating supportive workplaces.

Julie recaps the impactful recruitment changes in NZs 2024 and crystal ball gazes into what she believes must happen in 2025:

• Overview of recruitment trends in New Zealand 
• Analysis of immigration rule changes impacting veterinary staffing 
• Explanation of MPI's Voluntary Bonding Scheme for large animal vets 
• The significance of mentorship and new grad development programs 
• Importance of a strong employer brand in attracting talent 
• Discussion on the role of AI in recruitment strategies 
• Steps to improve visibility and attractiveness of job advertisements 
• Encouragement for existing staff to provide positive reviews

VetStaff
leading veterinary sector recruitment in New Zealand | veterinarians | locums | nurses

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Contemplating your next career move?
Tania Bruce - VetStaff's passionate kiwi recruiter - would welcome the opportunity to have a 100% confidential chat with you. Tania's a former Ortho Head Vet Nurse so speaks your language!

How to get more bang for your recruitment advertising buck
This is what VetStaff is really good at so if you'd like to stretch your recruitment dollar, please get in touch with Julie because this is something VetStaff can help you with.

Committed to DIY-ing your own recruitment?
If so, then shining online as a good employer is essential to attracting the types of veterinary professionals who're a perfect cultural fit for your clinic.

The VetClinicJobs job board is the place to post your next job vacancy - to find out more get in touch with Lizzie at VetClinicJobs

Revive Your Drive - daily 2-minute videos for veterinary employers and employees to help revive their drives at work and at home.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:05

If you could see into the future, would you want to? What would you do with what you saw Today? I'm going to attempt to do a little bit of future gazing crystal ball gazing into 2025, with how to get better results from your veterinary recruitment in God's Own or Te Arawa, new Zealand, and add my two cents worth to what I saw playing out down under veterinary recruitment. Wise Welcome to Veterinary Voices. This is episode 218, and I'm your host, julie South. Veterinary Voices celebrates all that's great about working in New Zealand's veterinary industry. I'd love to hear in which of the 1400 cities Veterinary Voices listen to around the world that you're tuning into right now, so please feel free to let me know. Veterinaryvoicesnz, and it's also veterinaryvoicesnz and it's also at veterinaryvoicesnz where you can find back copies as well. Veterinary Voices is brought to you by Vet Clinic Jobs, the job board that helps vet clinics do more than just post a job vacancy. Do more than just post a job vacancy. Vet Clinic Jobs is all about helping employers find their dream team members with no recruitment agency involved whatsoever, and it does this by letting job seekers find out more about a job vacancy than your regular boring old job advert. So check it out vetclinicjobscom. Happy New Year. Here's to wishing you and yours everything that you wish for yourself.

Speaker 1: 1:57

I hope that 2025 is your most fantabulous year yet ever. So 2024, from a recruitment perspective. What did that look like here in God's Own Ōtiroa, new Zealand? Well, it's been a job seeker's market for quite a few years and this is, I think, life according to Julie, becoming more obvious. More job seekers are doing what they call and I use air quotes here reverse recruiting, where they post anonymously onto Facebook, letting the meta world know that they're available for hire. I think this increasing trend, this more popular trend, is happening for two reasons. One, or the first is that the job seeker probably thinks that they're, or likes to think that they're, in control, and two, it's because clinics aren't doing a good enough job of marketing themselves as an employer. Why do I say that? Because if more clinics marketed themselves better as employers in other words, they strengthened you, strengthened your unique employer brand marketing message then job seekers would be approaching you direct if they thought they wanted to work with you. Those clinics with strong employer brands would actually have more job applicants. Better job applicants, more dream team type job applicants apply to them direct Right now in New Zealand globally. In New Zealand especially, we still have a veterinarian shortage and that's not going to end any time soon, and that's another reason to up the ante on strengthening your employer message.

Speaker 1: 4:00

One thing that definitely didn't help the veterinarian shortage in any way here in Godzone or Te Arawa, new Zealand, was Immigration New Zealand changing the rules in air quotes the rules a few times through 2024?. Although it didn't affect veterinarians directly, it did have a huge negative impact on veterinary nurses, which meant that veterinarians were impacted indirectly, which meant that veterinarians were impacted indirectly. As we all know, when you have highly skilled vet nurses on your clinical team, they help mitigate veterinarian shortages because not only are they worth their weight in gold the vet nurses, they're also worth every veterinarian's weight in gold who trusts them and utilises their professional nursing skills as well. Immigration New Zealand increasing its visa application fees, meant that or means that most clinics aren't prepared to pay the increase in fee, and this is sad because, as NZVNA executive member Michelle Cameron and I talked about back in October in episodes 207 and 208, check out veterinaryvoicesnz for these it is very definitely possible for vet nurses to be respectable fee earners in their clinics if only they're. But given the opportunities.

Speaker 1: 5:31

Another government increase this time positive in 2024, was that MPI, the Ministry for Primary Industries, increased its voluntary bonding scheme, the VBS, to its highest ever, with 35 Massey students heading off to 28 different New Zealand heartland areas into their first jobs in 2025. What's the VBS, you ask? Well, it's where MPI awards $55,000 over five years to large animal vets who are prepared to go and live and work in rural areas and then MPI uses this $55,000 to help pay down their student loans. When you consider that the average domestic veterinary science student loan in New Zealand is around $95,000 and $350,000 for international students, the $55,000 is a sizable chunk of debt reduction. The VBS scheme started in 2009 and around 30 students plus or minus are allocated each year. Fortunately, the numbers have been slowly increasing it each year. Fortunately, the numbers have been slowly increasing. In 2022, the VBS was awarded to 32 large animal vet grads, 33 in 2023, and, as I just said, 35 in 2024. It would be great if MPI could increase this in 2025, as those 35 students equates to around 28% or so of Massey's 2024 graduates. Something else I've noticed in 2024 is a few more clinics upping the ante by getting behind their new grads with new grad development and mentoring programs, which is great to see.

Speaker 1: 7:33

The more an employer looks after its employees, especially its new grads, the more likely they are to hang around and be loyal and stay in the profession. Employee loyalty pays dividends down the track, because it means that recruiting costs are reduced. Employers that invest in their employer brand like shouting from the rooftops about things like new grade development programs. These employers get to see approximately a 50% decrease in their cost per hire. That's huge. This is totally win-win. New grads are mentored and developed, while clinics offering these programs and then shouting about them from the rooftops save around 50% on their recruitment costs.

Speaker 1: 8:27

And if you're listening to this, thinking that you don't need to do this stuff. According to a CareerArc survey, 64% of job seekers said that they wouldn't apply for a role at a company that had no online presence. I know it's hard to imagine in today's digital world, but they're out there, or rather not out there. Every now and again, lizzie and I try to build out a clinic's employer brand, only to discover we've got nothing to work with because the principal doesn't believe in social media or in updating their website, which is unbelievable. That's a bit of what was what do I see happening in 2025? Ai, I'm sure you'll agree, will play more of a bigger role. I think it will also be a bit more of an insidious role, whether it's in automating recruitment processes and removing the human factor, or on the other side of the fence and auto generating CVs. And with that, the more you remove the human factor when it comes to hiring new staff or attempting to hire new staff, the more you need to talk about how human your clinic really is when it comes to looking after your humans. Again, I'm talking about employer branding.

Speaker 1: 9:58

If you're still advertising the same way you've been advertising and you still feel like you're banging your head against a brick wall because you're not getting the results that you want, then please get hold of Lizzie at vetclinicjobscom, totally free of charge. She can help you spruce up your job advertisements so that they're meaningful, and you can email her, lizzie at vetclinicjobscom. One of the most powerful things that you can do to improve the results you're getting from your job advertisements is to ask your existing Dream Team members to review your clinic as a five-star employer. I'm not talking about on unverified job board sites like Glassdoor, where anyone can write anything about anyone else, true or not I'm talking about at vetclinicjobscom, where all the reviews are still anonymous, but they're verified. Once you've got a review or two, you can start incorporating these into your job advertisements, as I said, get in touch with Lizzie to find out how you can do this if you're unsure.

Speaker 1: 11:15

Thank you for listening. This is a very quick episode this week. Thank you for supporting Veterinary Voices by listening. This show wouldn't still be going strong with over 200 episodes, if not for your ears. So, from me to you, thank you heaps. Wherever you are in the world, happy new year, happy 2025. You are in the world. Happy new year, happy 2025. Whatever you're up to, stay safe on the roads, in the skies and on the water. Here's to wishing you all the absolute best. I look forward to spending time with you again in 2025. This is Julie South signing off and inviting you to go out there and be your most fantabulous self Until next week, maybe until next year, depending on when you're listening to this. Kakiti anō.