Location Location Location - Why Vets and Nurses Stay Put Even When They Want to Move to Your Clinic's Location

Location Advantages - Why Relocating Vets and Nurses Stay Put - ep 252

Host: Julie South [00:00:03]:

Welcome to Veterinary Voices—culture storytelling conversations for veterinary clinics. I'm Julie South and this is Episode 252.

Veterinary Voices is brought to you by VetClinicJobs—helping forward-thinking vet clinics tell their culture stories, not just post job ads.

Last week we talked about quality of life at work and why trying to compete on it through job ads keeps clinics trapped in the same stop-start, on-off reactive hiring cycle.

This week we're talking about location advantages—location being where your clinic actually is—and why nurses and vets considering relocation so often default to what they already know, even when and even though they're actively looking to change. They're looking for a change.

Host: Julie South [00:01:15]:

So stay with me to the end because I want to leave you with a question about the vets and nurses that you're losing by default. Not because your location sucks or is bad, but because it's invisible.

Right now, somewhere in Melbourne, a vet and a nurse are scrolling job ads and thinking about relocating. They see a position in Hamilton, New Zealand. Good clinic, competitive salary. Sounds fine.

They click through, read the job description, then they scroll, looking for something else, because questions are already forming. What's it actually like to live here? Can I afford it on my salary? Where would my partner work? What do people my age actually do on the weekends?

Host: Julie South [00:02:11]:

They find a link and they click it. And it turns out to be generic tourism copy. "Picturesque region," it says. "Relaxed atmosphere," it claims. "Friendly community," it states.

It could describe almost anywhere. It answers nothing.

They close the tab and they keep scrolling. Not because Hamilton isn't right for them, but because they can't picture what their life would actually look like there.

Host: Julie South [00:02:42]:

Three weeks later, they accept a position in Melbourne. Not better, just known.

And the Hamilton clinic wonders why relocating vets and nurses never seem to apply.

Here's the part that often gets missed, and it's the important bit. That decision didn't happen at the job ad stage. It happened earlier, at the moment the vet or the nurse realised that they couldn't see their life happening there.

Host: Julie South [00:03:40]:

When vets and nurses consider relocating, they're not just evaluating a job, they're evaluating whether to uproot their entire life.

A new job is stressful. A new job in a new location means betting your routines, relationship, fun, finances and identity on answers that you don't yet have.

And when those answers aren't obvious, people don't stay undecided. They default to whatever feels safer. What they already know.

That's not a flaw, it's just how us humans behave.

Host: Julie South [00:04:15]:

Job ads aren't designed to answer those questions. And neither are tourism websites.

So relocating vets and nurses make perfectly rational decisions with incomplete information. They choose the known for the unknown.

This isn't a regional versus a city problem. A vet in Melbourne considering Perth asks the same question as a vet in Auckland considering Hamilton. A nurse in London considering Manchester asks the same questions as a nurse in Sydney considering Dubbo.

They're all asking the same thing, quietly. What would my actual life look like here or there in that location?

Host: Julie South [00:05:44]:

And when no real evidence exists, no evidence beyond glossy claims and generic descriptions, they default to what they can already picture. Even when, and even if what they can picture isn't what they really want.

This is where being visible before your hiring starts to matter, because the system no longer does that work for you.

When vets and nurses come across real location stories before a job ad vacancy ever appears, when they've already seen what Saturday mornings look like, where people like them live, what housing actually costs and what partners do for real work, something shifts.

They're no longer filling information gaps with worst-case assumptions. They're thinking, yes, I can see myself there.

Host: Julie South [00:06:42]:

This means that by the time they read your job ad, the heavy lifting has already been done. The job ad isn't creating confidence, it's confirming it.

These aren't location benefits, they're culture stories, real veterinary voices applied to place, not just the clinic.

And these stories only work when they live somewhere permanent, somewhere they can be found, somewhere obvious, built over time, not assembled in a rush at the same time a job ad is posted.

And right now, two things are happening in lots of places around the world.

One clinic is losing relocating vets and nurses by default, not because their location is sucky or bad, but because there's no real story. If there's anything at all, it's just great location tourism fluff, nothing meaningful.

Host: Julie South [00:08:43]:

And another clinic has been quietly making what real life location living looks like obvious for months through real stories about everyday life, not tourism copy built while they've been fully staffed, not scrambled and panicked and written at the last minute when they post the job ad.

So when they do advertise, when they are ready to post a job ad, relocating vets and nurses already know the answer to the real questions. Could I actually live there?

So instead of asking how do we describe our location better in job ads, ask instead:

If a vet or a nurse considering relocation was quietly checking out your location for the last three months, what evidence would they actually see of life there for someone like them?

Because people don't relocate to job ads, they relocate to lives they can picture, and then the job ad simply confirms the decision.

Next week, in Episode 253, we're going to be talking about culture made obvious and showing genuine authentic workplace life beyond what clinics claim.

This is Julie South signing off and inviting you to go out there and be your most fantabulous self. Because great work happens when you're part of your kind of clinic with your kind of people. And that kind of work becomes possible when clinics aren't afraid to make it obvious who belongs by telling their real stories long before the job ad's ever posted.