In talking with many practices, finding new team members can be quite challenging. Certified veterinary technicians have been in relatively high demand and short supply recently. Finding excellent team members is necessary to keep your practice healthy and operating effectively and efficiently.
Many practices establish relationships with veterinary technician training programs, even helping them to complete their training. This gives them an opportunity to get to know some prospective employees prior to when they are actually looking for employment. Others provide signing bonuses as a routine hiring practice to incentivize new team members to apply.
Some practices give incentive bonuses to current staff members who recruit colleagues who are qualified to become team members, with bonuses being paid upon the new employee achieving some benchmark, such as 3 or 6 months employment.
Advertising employment opportunities is important for reaching potential new team members. Advertising positions on indeed.com, craigslist.com, and local newspapers can bring new team members to you. Some practices utilize LinkedIn to identify and recruit new team members. Online promotion of your open position is important to spread the word and to reach new people. Veterinary medicine requires a lot of customer service, so reach out to areas with a lot of hotel and restaurant people, as many of them are professionally trained in customer care. Remember, you are essentially a customer care organization that happens to provide veterinary services. WIth exception of veterinarians and some technicians, the practice can teach new team members what they need to know, but it is important that they have the right chemistry, interpersonal skills, and the desire to care for people and their animals.
