Podcast
Veterinary Voices
Hosted by Julie South | Veterinary Recruitment Marketing Strategist · EN
Most vet clinics are proud of their culture. They know it's special — it's what makes them tick. What they don't know is how to share those stories in ways that mean something to other vets and nurses.
That's culture storytelling. And Julie South — founder of VetClinicJobs — shows vet clinics how to do it.
You'll hear real vets and nurses talking about what it's actually like to work at their clinics. Not the polished corporate version — the real moments that show how teams handle pressure, support each other, and why someone would actually want to work there. That's the kind of proof that builds trust before anyone's even looking.
You'll also learn which stories to share and when, how to stay visible to great people even when you're fully staffed, and why the quiet months between hires are actually your biggest opportunity. Each episode gives you something specific to do that week — a story to share, a shift to make, a pattern to break.
If you're tired of starting from scratch every time someone resigns, this podcast shows you how to become the clinic people are already watching.
11episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
Corporate or independent — does your job ad say? - ep. 282
1w ago00:07:30Tap to summarizeEveryone in veterinary has an opinion about corporate versus independent ownership. Strong ones, in both directions.But almost nobody says which one they are in the job ad.In the seventh episode of The Elephant In The Room, Julie South looks at the question that sits in the back of every vet and nurse's mind when they're reading a job ad — and gives you one practical check that takes about thirty seconds.Episode notesResearch VetStaff undertook with Unitec Te Pukenga in 2023 found that ownership type is roughly a fifty-fifty issue in the veterinary profession. Slightly more respondents said it mattered to them — but plenty had positive and negative experiences in both corporate and independent environments. This episode is not about which is better.The elephant is about disclosure.Some corporate groups advertise with their brand loud and clear — transparent, straightforward, and attracting the vets and nurses who want exactly what a larger group offers. Others make a deliberate business decision to preserve the local identity of their acquired clinics, for good reasons that serve both clients and teams.The result is that vets and nurses who care about ownership type may not know what they're looking at from the ad alone. They find out through their own due diligence — checking whether the contact email matches the clinic's URL, Googling the group name, asking at interview.When it matters to them and they didn't know earlier, it can feel like something was left unsaid.The episode argues that clinics — corporate or independent — have something to gain by being upfront. The vets and nurses who want what you offer can find you faster. The ones who don't can rule themselves out before anyone wastes time finding out three interviews in.This is the seventh episode in The Elephant In The Room — a series examining the things everyone in veterinary knows and almost no one says out loud.About your hostJulie South is the founder of VetClinicJobs and the host of Veterinary Voices. She has been in veterinary recruitment since 2019 and is known for her work in culture storytelling — helping forward-thinking vet clinics build the kind of genuine, specific culture evidence that attracts Their Kind of People long before any job ad runs.Julie has spoken on culture storytelling and employer branding at VetEXPO in Melbourne and works with clinics across Australasia and beyond who want vets and nurses to be excited about going to work on Monday mornings — for all the right reasons.Struggling to get results from your job advertisements? 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
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The New Grad Experience — What's Promised vs What's Real - 281
2w ago00:09:13Tap to summarizeSome vets and nurses leave the profession far too soon. You probably know of at least one yourself.In this sixth episode of The Elephant In The Room series, Julie South looks at what happens when a new grad arrives at a clinic and the support that was promised turns out to look very different in practice — and asks one question that every new grad and every clinic owner should be able to answer.Episode notesMany vet clinics advertise a mentoring programme for new graduates — and mean it. But meaning it and having something formal behind it are two different things.This episode looks at what happens when a mentoring programme exists in name but not in structure: the weekly catchups that become fortnightly, then monthly, then disappear entirely because there was nothing documented to hold them in place. And the harder version — where the new grad didn't clarify at interview what support would look like, the clinic didn't know what expectation had been set, and the new grad arrives to find they're largely on their own.The episode covers three outcomes for new grads who don't get the support they need: those who find their footing anyway, those who leave for a clinic that will support them, and a smaller group — real, if not large — who leave the profession entirely. They didn't fail at the job. The job failed them.The episode also looks at what the clinics that do it well have in common — week-by-week milestones, documented, a mentor who shows up and follows through — and why those clinics get talked about through new grad cohorts in a very different way.The closing question is for both audiences: new grads are encouraged to ask to see the mentoring programme on paper at their next interview. Clinic owners are asked what they would point a new grad to if that question came up tomorrow.This is the sixth episode in The Elephant In The Room — a series examining the things everyone in veterinary knows and almost no one says out loud.About your hostJulie South is the founder of VetClinicJobs and the host of Veterinary Voices. She has been in veterinary recruitment since 2019 and is known for her work in culture storytelling — helping forward-thinking vet clinics build the kind of genuine, specific culture evidence that attracts Their Kind of People long before any job ad runs.Julie has spoken on culture storytelling and employer branding at VetEXPO in Melbourne and works with clinics across Australasia and beyond who want vets and nurses to be excited about going to work on Monday mornings — for all the right reasons.Struggling to get results from your job advertisements? 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
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Competitive Remuneration - two job ad words that say nothing - 280
3w ago00:08:41Tap to summarizeWhat's the single most important thing vets and nurses need to see in a job ad?Research says it's pay. By a country mile.And yet most vet clinic job ads say the same two words: competitive remuneration. In the fifth episode of The Elephant In The Room series, Julie South looks at why clinics won't put salary ranges in their ads — and why that decision is costing them more applications than they realise.Episode notesIn 2023, VetStaff — New Zealand's only specialist veterinary recruitment agency and a sister company to VetClinicJobs — undertook research with Unitec Te Pukenga asking vets and nurses across New Zealand and beyond what it took to click on a job ad.The results were unambiguous. Almost 97% of respondents rated salary as important or most important when considering a new role. Salary band information was the second most compelling element of a job ad — at 41%, just behind the headline at 43%.Yet most vet clinic job ads say "competitive remuneration" and nothing more.This episode explores two reasons clinics won't name a figure — they don't want to lock themselves in, and they're worried about being undercut by the clinic down the road — and why both fears are leading to the same outcome: a completely flat field where every ad looks identical and vets and nurses have nothing to go on for the most important piece of information they're searching for.The episode also argues there's a way through that doesn't require locking anyone in — and that the clinic which names a range, even a broad one, immediately stands out from every other ad in the market.This is the fifth episode in The Elephant In The Room — a series examining the things everyone in veterinary knows and almost no one says out loud.About your hostJulie South is the founder of VetClinicJobs and the host of Veterinary Voices. She has been in veterinary recruitment since 2019 and is known for her work in culture storytelling — helping forward-thinking vet clinics build the kind of genuine, specific culture evidence that attracts Their Kind of People long before any job ad runs.Julie has spoken on culture storytelling and employer branding at VetEXPO in Melbourne and works with clinics across Australasia and beyond who want vets and nurses to be excited about going to work on Monday mornings — for all the right reasons.Struggling to get results from your job advertisements? 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
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After Hours - What The Job Ad Never Says - 279
4w ago00:07:59Tap to summarizeIf you're responsible for hiring at your vet clinic, do you have dread words? Words you know you have to include in the job ad, but the moment you type them you can already feel the applications not coming?This episode is about two of those words: after-hours.In the fourth episode of The Elephant In The Room, Julie South looks at why "shared across the team" tells a vet or nurse almost nothing — and why the clinics that have genuinely solved after-hours are sitting on something worth saying, and saying nothing.Episode notesMost vet clinic job ads that mention after-hours say the same thing: shared across the team, rostered. Nothing else. Yet behind those words, the experience can be completely different from one clinic to the next.This episode looks at what that difference actually looks like — from a clinic where most of the team want to be on the after-hours roster, to one where one or two people quietly carry the load while the roster looks balanced on paper.The key example: a small animal clinic whose owner doesn't call it after-hours at all. She calls it the Emergency and Critical Care roster. Same obligation — completely different story around it. The financial reward is genuine, recovery time is real and honoured, and being on the roster is a choice most of the team actively make.The episode argues that clinics which have built something genuinely fair and well-supported around after-hours have specific, true things to say that very few clinics are saying — and that vets and nurses who'd thrive in that environment can self-identify from the way it's described. Generic language gives them nothing to go on.This is the fourth episode in The Elephant In The Room — a series examining the things everyone in veterinary knows and almost no one says out loud.About your hostJulie South is the founder of VetClinicJobs and the host of Veterinary Voices. She has been in veterinary recruitment since 2019 and is known for her work in culture storytelling — helping forward-thinking vet clinics build the kind of genuine, specific culture evidence that attracts Their Kind of People long before any job ad runs.Julie has spoken on culture storytelling and employer branding at VetEXPO in Melbourne and works with clinics across Australasia and beyond who want vets and nurses to be excited about going to work on Monday mornings — for all the right reasons.Struggling to get results from your job advertisements? 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
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The skills shortage is real. But it's not why your ad isn't working - the elephant in the room - ep. 278
Jun 3000:08:20Tap to summarizeThe skills shortage is real. But it's not why your ad isn't working - the elephant in the room - ep. 278Two clinics. Same town. Same skills shortage. One's been advertising since-forever. The other has been running a different kind of recruitment programme — and has had multiple suitable applicants within weeks.Same shortage. Completely different outcomes. In the third episode of The Elephant In The Room, Julie South talks about the difference between a ceiling and a floor — and which one your clinic is likely dealing with.If your ad has been running for a while with little to show for it, this one's for you.Episode notesThe veterinary skills shortage is real — one hundred percent. But this episode argues it's not the whole explanation for why some clinics can't fill their roles.The shortage sets the ceiling: fewer vets and nurses available, more vacancies, more competition for the same applicants. That's the same for every clinic in every region.What the shortage doesn't explain is why one clinic's applicant pool is smaller than the clinic down the road's. Same ceiling. Different floor.The episode looks at why clinic managers and practice owners reach for the shortage as the default explanation — not because they're wrong, but because nobody's ever taught them there might be something else to look for, or where to start looking.The answer lies in culture storytelling: giving vets and nurses enough real, specific, current information about what it's like to work at your clinic that they can self-identify — see you as their kind of clinic, and themselves as your kind of people. A generic job ad that sounds like every other job ad can't do that. An ongoing culture story can.This is the third episode in The Elephant In The Room — a series examining the things everyone in veterinary knows and almost no one says out loud.About your hostJulie South is the founder of VetClinicJobs and the host of Veterinary Voices. She has been in veterinary recruitment since 2019 and is known for her work in culture storytelling — helping forward-thinking vet clinics build the kind of genuine, specific culture evidence that attracts Their Kind of People long before any job ad runs.Julie has spoken on culture storytelling and employer branding at VetEXPO in Melbourne and works with clinics across Australasia and beyond who want vets and nurses to be excited about going to work on Monday mornings — for all the right reasons.Struggling to get results from your job advertisements? 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
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Why your job ad gets views but not applications - The Elephant in the Room - ep. 277
Jun 2200:13:43Tap to summarizeIf you've ever looked at your job ad dashboard and wondered why the views are high and the applications aren't — this episode is about one of the reasons. And it's likely not the one Seek (or other job boards) will tell you about.In the second episode of The Elephant In The Room, Julie South looks at the gap between believing a job ad and trusting it enough to act on it — and why spending more for more exposure doesn't close that gap. It just means more people landing on the wrong side of it.If your clinic's numbers don't quite add up, this one's for you.Episode notesThis episode argues that high views and low applications often isn't an exposure problem. It's a trust problem.Three ways the gap between a job ad and reality can surface are explored:On day one — a vet or nurse who meant to ask about the vet:nurse ratio at interview, didn't, and discovers on the job that the ratio promised in the ad only held true when the clinic was fully staffedAt interview — a vet or nurse who does ask about new grad mentoring, and learns the mentor named in the ad left months ago with nobody stepping into the role sinceBefore either of those — a vet or nurse who finds a different version of the clinic's story online, doesn't know which version is true, and quietly doesn't apply at allNone of these are framed as anyone's fault — but the episode argues they're still the clinic's job to fix, because an ad that was accurate two years ago might not be anymore.The episode closes on why peer-to-peer evidence — team members speaking specifically and by name — carries more weight than anything management says about itself, and offers clinics one question to test their own ad against reality.This is the second episode in The Elephant In The Room — a series examining the things everyone in veterinary knows and almost no one says out loud.About your hostJulie South is the founder of VetClinicJobs and the host of Veterinary Voices. She has been in veterinary recruitment since 2019 and is known for her work in culture storytelling — helping forward-thinking vet clinics build the kind of genuine, specific culture evidence that attracts Their Kind of People long before any job ad runs.Julie has spoken on culture storytelling and employer branding at VetEXPO in Melbourne and works with clinics across Australasia and beyond who want vets and nurses to be excited about going to work on Monday mornings — for all the right reasons.Struggling to get results from your job advertisements? 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
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The reputation that travels everywhere except the job ad - ep. 276
Jun 1600:07:09Tap to summarizeThere's a clinic not too far from you right now that everyone in the profession knows about.The vets know. The nurses know. The locums know. You can see it in the turnover — always hiring, always starting over. And nobody says publicly why.In the first episode of a new series — The Elephant In The Room — Julie South talks about the reputation that travels through private chats and late-night conference conversations, but never makes it into the one place it might actually do some good.And about the clinics that have done the hard work to change things — and are still being judged for who they used to be.If either of those sounds familiar, this episode is for you.Episode notesThis episode explores why veterinary clinic reputations circulate privately — through WhatsApp, Messenger, and word of mouth — but never surface publicly where they could inform a hiring decision.Two kinds of clinics are examined:Clinics where the reputation is earned and nothing has changed — where high turnover is the visible signal and toxic behaviour continues to be toleratedClinics that have genuinely changed — new leadership, new culture, fixed rosters, addressed after-hours loads — but are still carrying a reputation that belongs to a version of themselves that no longer existsThe episode argues that the only thing that shifts a reputation is evidence: real voices from current team members, captured and published in a form that travels as far and as fast as the original reputation did.This is the first episode in The Elephant In The Room — a series examining the things everyone in veterinary knows and almost no one says out loud.About your hostJulie South is the founder of VetClinicJobs and the host of Veterinary Voices. She has been in veterinary recruitment since 2019 and is known for her work in culture storytelling — helping forward-thinking vet clinics build the kind of genuine, specific culture evidence that attracts Their Kind of People long before any job ad runs. Julie has spoken on culture storytelling and employer branding at VetEXPO in Melbourne and works with clinics across Australasia and beyond who want vets and nurses to be excited about going to work on Monday mornings — for all the right reasons.Struggling to get results from your job advertisements? 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
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The good stuff your job ad never gets to say - ep 275
Jun 900:06:30Tap to summarizeMost clinics have their most honest conversation about culture when someone's leaving.The vet or nurse is in their last week, and suddenly — they talk. They say what they loved about the team. They describe what made this clinic different. They name the specific things that kept them there as long as they did.Honest. Warm. Specific. Exactly the kind of thing that would make the right person read it and think: that sounds like my kind of place.And the job ad? It might still be running. Still saying passionate team, supportive environment, great work-life balance. The same words it said when it went up. The same words every other clinic uses.In this final episode of the series What Job Ads Were Never Built To Do, Julie South looks at the good stuff that surfaces too late — and what it would take to capture it while it can still do something useful.If you'd like to talk about what that looks like for your clinic — email julie@vetclinicjobs.com.Struggling to get results from your job advertisements? 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
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You Have a Great Culture. So Why Is It So Hard to Hire? ep 274
Jun 200:11:35Tap to summarizeYou have a great culture. Your team would back that up. So why is it sooooo! hard to find vets and nurses who want to work there?The answer probably isn't your job ad. It's everything that didn't happen before your job ad ran.In this fifth episode of What Job Ads Were Never Built To Do, Julie South unpacks the hidden cost of episodic recruitment — the off/on/off, stop/start/stop cycle that most vet clinics have normalised without ever questioning. The ad goes up. The ad comes down. The clinic goes dark. And the next time a vacancy opens, you're starting from zero. Again.Visibility isn't about being findable by name. It's about being present in the professional world of vets and nurses who are keeping their eye out — months or years before they're ready to apply. What's more - there's a huge difference between being visible and being believed. Third-party voice carries a weight that no amount of your own content ever will.A job ad is a moment in time. Visibility is a habit.Resources mentioned:One-hour consult with Julie — julie@vetclinicjobs.comStruggling to get results from your job advertisements? 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
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Vanilla Job Ads From Vanilla Clinics Get Vanilla Applications - ep 273
May 2600:09:36Tap to summarizeYour job ad has a requirements list. Must be a team player. Must thrive in a fast-paced environment. Must do one weekend in four. And you're hoping the right vets and nurses will read it, recognise themselves, and apply.Here's the problem. So does every other clinic's job ad. Word for word, in some cases.In this fourth episode of What Job Ads Were Never Built To Do, Julie South unpacks why requirements lists don't filter — and why vanilla clinics get vanilla applications. When every clinic looks identical, there's nothing for a vet or nurse to identify with. Nothing to recognise. Nothing that says that's my kind of clinic.The goal of a job ad isn't volume. It's resonance. One application from a vet or nurse who already knows you're their kind of clinic is worth more than fifty from people who are guessing. Most clinics are fishing with a net. This episode is about fishing with a line.Julie also introduces the concept of recognition and identification — what genuine self-selection looks like, why it doesn't travel on bullet points, and why the question worth asking about your job ad isn't "how do I make it better?" It's "is this vanilla?"Resources mentioned:One-hour consult with Julie — julie@vetclinicjobs.comStruggling to get results from your job advertisements? 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
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