Vet Clinic Culture Storytelling Episodes

When veterinary clinics begin recognising the reactive recruitment cycle, certain phrases often start appearing.

They sound practical — but they’re often the cycle defending itself.

In this episode of Veterinary Voices, Julie South begins a new series exploring the objections that surface when clinics start considering a different way to approach recruitment.

The first phrase she hears most often is:

“Julie, we need someone now — not in six months’ time.”
When a clinic has been covering a va...

By month five of job advertising, most vet clinics and their teams are exhausted. Posting everywhere didn’t work. Rewriting didn’t work. Spending more didn’t work. But the vacancy hasn’t just stayed a vacancy — it’s started affecting the people who are still there. In this episode of Veterinary Voices, Julie South explores what happens when a role has been open for four to six months and the pressure inside the clinic starts to build. Teams have been covering the extra work. The goodwill that...

By month four of advertising, most vet clinics and their teams are exhausted. Posting everywhere didn’t work. Rewriting didn’t work. Spending more didn’t work. So you start trying random things. A Facebook post. Asking your team to share. Updating your careers page. Boosting something for $50… maybe $100. Because something has to (read: needs to!) stick. In this episode of Veterinary Voices, Julie South unpacks what really happens around week fourteen of the re...

Why Spending More on Job Ads Doesn’t Work By month three of advertising, most vet clinics assume the problem is reach. Not enough applications? Then not enough visibility. Not enough visibility? Spend more. Premium placement. Featured listings. Boosted posts. Maybe even a recruitment agency. But the real problem isn’t reach. It’s recognition. In this episode of Veterinary Voices, Julie South unpacks what actually happens around week ten of the recruitment cycle—when rewriting ha...

When a job ad doesn’t deliver suitable applicants, most clinics assume the problem is the wording. So they rewrite it. Add more detail. Highlight mentoring. Emphasise work-life balance. Polish the benefits. And wait. In this episode of Veterinary Voices, Julie South explores what’s really happening in month two of the recruitment cycle—when “posting everywhere” hasn’t worked, and rewriting feels like the logical next step. But vets and nurses aren’t analysing your headline. They’re pattern-ma...

This episode begins a new series looking at why the familiar recruitment playbook keeps failing veterinary clinics. Julie South starts with the first and most common response to a vacancy: posting job ads everywhere and hoping one platform will finally deliver a different outcome.

Using current data from across Australia and New Zealand, Julie explains how rotating job boards and increasing spend doesn’t change what vets and nurses experience when they scroll. The problem isn’t effort or intent...

Closing the Attraction Gap: Why Knowing Isn't the Same as Doing Most veterinary clinic managers know they should attract people before they need them—but knowing doesn't close the gap between understanding what needs to happen and actually making it happen. In this episode of Veterinary Voices, Julie South explores the attraction gap: the space between knowing you should build recognition and actually being able to do it while running a busy clinic. Through the predictable five-month recruitm...

When Big Numbers Don’t Matter When a clinic needs to advertise, the decision often feels obvious. Choose the platform with the biggest database. The most traffic. The largest audience. But what if those numbers aren’t measuring what actually matters? In this episode of Veterinary Voices, Julie South explores why big numbers can feel reassuring — yet still leave clinics stuck advertising for months. Database size, website hits, and subscriber counts might look impressive on paper, but th...

Recruitment Momentum: Why Starting From Cold Keeps You Trapped Most veterinary clinics don’t realise they’re stuck in a recruitment cycle — they just feel the exhaustion of it. In this episode of Veterinary Voices, Julie South explores recruitment momentum and why starting from cold every time you need to advertise keeps clinics trapped in an expensive, effort-heavy loop that never really gets easier. Through a simple but familiar comparison, Julie shows the difference between recruiting from...

Network Expansion: How Culture Stories Amplify Beyond Your Reach Most vet clinics don’t struggle to hire because their roles aren’t appealing. They struggle because the right vets and nurses never see them. In this episode of Veterinary Voices, Julie South explores network expansion — and why job ads keep clinics trapped under their own follower-count ceiling, while Culture Stories travel through networks clinics can’t access directly. Julie breaks down how culture stories move differently th...

Vets and nurses scroll past job ads — not because they think vet clinics are lying, but because they’ve seen the same claims repeated over and over again.
“Great team. Supportive environment. Work-life balance.”
The words didn’t become untrue. They lost meaning through overuse and under-delivery.

In this episode, Julie South unpacks why claiming culture through job ads keeps clinics invisible — and why vets and nurses now decide which clinics feel like their kind of place long before a vacancy ...

A vet in Melbourne is scrolling job ads, actively looking to relocate. She sees a position in Hamilton, New Zealand. Good clinic. Competitive salary. Sounds fine. She clicks through, reads the job description, then keeps scrolling. Three weeks later, she accepts a position in Melbourne. Not better. Just known. What happened? The decision didn't happen at the job ad stage. It happened earlier — at a moment most clinics never see. In this episode, we're looking at why relocating vets and nurses...

You list protected meal breaks, no weekend work, and flexible hours in your job ad. So does every other clinic in your city. How do vets and nurses decide? They can't tell you apart. So they don't apply. Or they apply everywhere and mean nowhere. Meanwhile, down the road, another clinic fills their position in three weeks. Same benefits. Same salary. Same city. But vets and nurses already knew their team actually gets lunch breaks - because they've been watching it happen for months before th...

The $5,000 professionally produced video gets 50 likes. The blurred photo of your team laughing at closing time gets 20 shares.
Why?
Most clinics think polish equals professionalism equals hires. They're wrong.

Shares trump likes because shares reach extended networks - the thousands of vets and nurses you'll never reach from your clinic account alone. But getting shares requires something most clinics aren't doing.

I'm Julie South. I run VetClinicJobs and help vet clinics across Australia, Ne...

When Sarah shares a Culture Story from her personal profile, her vet school friends believe her. When your clinic posts the same thing, it's marketing.

Sarah has 338 Facebook friends, 500 LinkedIn connections, 264 Instagram followers. Jake and Emma have similar. That's thousands of vets and nurses you'll never reach from your clinic account alone.

But most clinics haven't asked their team to share because you're worried about control, don't know what to give them, or don't know how to ask.

Si...

You're posting about your team. Nothing's happening. That's because you're copying clinics who haven't figured it out either. This episode shows you what you're actually looking at when you see those bland team posts - and why the water cooler conversation you keep having is the actual problem. I'm Julie South. I run VetClinicJobs and help vet clinics across Australia, New Zealand and beyond build Culture Centres through Culture Storytelling - so vets and nurses think "They're My Kind of Peop...

Are you going dark between job ads—and is that silence costing you when the next resignation hits? Most vet clinics think you stop posting when you're fully staffed. Then someone resigns and you're introducing yourself to complete strangers. Again. Just like last time. This episode is about why the ordinary moments you're dismissing—the blurry photos, the mundane Mondays—are exactly what keeps you visible to future vets and nurses who might be your kind of people. In this episode, host Julie ...

Most great vets and nurses already have a mental shortlist before they start job-hunting. Clinics they've noticed, names they recognise, places that seem good to work for.

If you're not on that list, you're starting cold when you post a job ad. And you'll stay cold for a very long time, no matter how much you spend on job boards.

Here's the problem most clinics don't realise: you think you're active online because you're posting regularly. But if all you're talking to is your clients — pet car...

Dr Anna knew nothing about New Zealand before leaving Dublin, Ireland. Just that the weather would be terrible - like at home.
A year later, she's thinking about residency.

This is the final episode in the VetsOne Employer of Choice series. You'll hear what the first year as a new graduate actually looks like—from someone who arrived knowing nobody and nothing about where she'd be living.

What you'll hear:
Seven weeks of structured induction as a brand new grad.

Why extended euthanasia appoin...

"You're not hiring staff. You're trying to bring back awareness from the dead", that's the point Julie South makes today. Most vet clinics think they have two options: advertise when hiring, or do nothing when fully staffed. But that "doing nothing" phase is costing you more than you realise — and it's not just the job board fees you see on invoices. When you go dark between hires, four things are quietly draining your budget. Most clinics never add these up. When they do, the number is...

What Support Actually Looks Like: Two Vet Nurses on Corporate vs Private Practice
Brooke and Abi are both veterinary nurses at VetsOne. One's been there two years, the other nearly two. Both came from clinics where they felt unsupported. Both found something different.

In this episode:
What "support" actually looks like when teammates pick up the slack on rough days

How Brooke discovered a passion for palliative care she didn't know she had

Why Abi's weight management clinic idea sat in her h...

Most responsible for recruitment in a vet clinic, think they're building their employer brand when they post a job ad. They've written a detailed description, listed benefits, maybe mentioned their culture. They hit publish and wait for applications. Then nothing happens. So they rewrite the ad, add more platforms, spend more money. Still nothing. They're advertising without marketing. And advertising without marketing is just shouting into a void where nobody's listening. In this...

Dana relocated 1300 kilometres from Central Otago to Hawke's Bay specifically for this veterinary nursing position at VetsOne. In this episode: Why she moved 800+ miles for a nursing role—and what it took to build a new life knowing only 3-4 peopleCorporate vs. privately owned clinics: "You feel more like a family member rather than just a number"Weekly role rotations that pair nurses with different vets daily—creating variety for everyoneThe Lincoln programme: Learning to navigate diff...

Your clinic's website, social media and team page were built to attract pet owners. When you send job seekers to that same content, you're asking consumer marketing to do employer brand marketing's job. It simply can't. The person visiting your website to book an appointment is looking for completely different information from the veterinary nurse deciding whether to apply for your position. Your consumer marketing answers questions pet owners have - but when a veterinary professional c...