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Recruiting: More Than Finding a Candidate – It’s Finding the Right Candidate for You

Author: Kim Scott, RVT, Lead Recruiter

Hiring the right veterinary professional for your practice doesn’t just mean finding the candidate with the strongest resume. You’re looking for someone who will mesh seamlessly with your team and culture while exemplifying your values with passion through their profession. This is why the sole purpose of NVA’s dedicated recruitment team is helping our 900+ veterinary hospitals and pet resorts connect with their ideal candidates, placing even the most specialized, hard-to-fill positions from our robust candidate pool in record time.

NVA partners with practices to streamline searches

Our recruitment team works with each individual practice to identify the best applicants — both in terms of skills and whether or not they’re a good fit for the practice. We want to make the search process as effortless as possible for you. So we follow a tried-and-true strategy:

  1. Step One: Understanding your practice’s mission, culture and needs.

  2. Step Two: Creating customized, hospital-specific marketing strategies and content designed to help you attract top talent.

  3. Step Three: Once we identify candidates, our team conducts initial interviews and facilitates meetings with hospitals, which allows practices to quickly meet and hire the right person for the role.

Harness our extensive candidate database

Matching a practice with the right candidate is partly a numbers game and with NVA, the odds are in your favor. When you are looking for someone to join your practice, you can access NVA’s proprietary database of more than 10,000+ qualified veterinary professionals.

But it’s not just a list of names. In addition to cataloguing each candidate’s skills, our unique candidate pool identifies their life goals and desired career path. What are their geographical preferences? What is their desired type of medical sector? What kind of hospital culture are they seeking? NVA looks for the ideal match between practice and candidate.

NVA seeks out future leaders

We understand the importance of identifying emerging talent. Our recruitment team holds on-campus events across The United States, Canada and The Caribbean, which allows us to connect with 3,000 veterinary students each year. Even when visiting a campus is not possible (such as during school closures), the team participates in virtual events.

We dedicate resources to our programs, year after year, to conduct in-person meetings with first-year through fourth-year students, as well as interns and residents, which allows us to establish long-term relationships with the individuals who will eventually be searching for their ideal role. NVA also offers VIRMP and sourcing support, as well as externships, providing the next generation of veterinary professionals hands-on experience in a clinical setting. Additionally, we offer GP and Specialty & ER mentorship programs to aid candidates in their job search, while supporting hospitals in their search of the right talent.

Building these relationships means that your practice can reach candidates who can bring enthusiasm and a fresh perspective to your team — and, in turn, that DVMs will land in just the right place when they graduate. The key to success lies in early relationship building, finding your practice the best talent - ranging from new graduates to seasoned or specialized DVMs - and placing them in a much shorter fill time.

Our track record for retention equals your long-term success

Our recruitment team’s deep knowledge about the veterinary profession, combined with NVA’s dedication to culture and community, means that veterinary hospitals and pet resorts are able to build successful teams for the long run. As a result of our recruitment team’s thorough and strategic search process, NVA practices retain about 90 percent of their employees, year over year.

Wanted: professionals who feel called to care

To find out more about how NVA can help your practice hire veterinary professionals, please contact info@nva.com. or (888) 767-7755.

If you are a veterinarian, practice manager or other veterinary professional, you can find out more about a career with NVA, discover how to join our community and see why we’re different. Join NVA’s professional talent network or view current opportunities at our hospitals, pet resorts and support center.

If you are a student who would like to find out more about NVA’s externships or job opportunities, please join our campus talent community.

NVA knows that a veterinary practice is only as good as its people and team supporting them. That is why our recruitment team helps our community build its practices for long-term success — one person at a time.