Veterinary Voices — Episode 271

Testimonials vs Reviews: Why One Works and One Doesn't

If you've ever put a glowing quote from a team member on your careers site and/or in a job ad and wondered why it's not moving the recruitment needle for your clinic, this episode is going to help you understand why — and what to do instead.

Welcome to Veterinary Voices — culture storytelling conversations for forward-thinking vet clinics.

I'm Julie South and this is Episode 271.

Veterinary Voices is brought to you by VetClinicJobs — helping forward-thinking clinics get recognised by the vets and nurses they want to hire.

Please stay to the end, because today I'm going to leave you with a question that'll give you an honest read of where your clinic culture sits. Not where you think it might sit, but where it really does.

Since the pandemic — for me, that's the line-in-the-sand moment when I started noticing that veterinary recruitment was changing — there's been an almost distinct before and after.

Before the pandemic. After the pandemic. Before lockdown. After lockdown.

To mitigate this "it's much harder now" change, vet clinics have been asking their job ads to do more and more work to attract applications from suitably qualified and good culture-fit vets and nurses than ever before.

This is the second episode in a series looking at the load being put on job ads — and why job ads aren't designed to carry that load. Which means they end up taking longer and/or not doing the job they are designed to do: get applications from suitably qualified vets and nurses.

Today we're looking at the social proof burden — one of the heaviest things clinics are asking their job ads and careers pages to carry.

Specifically, the difference between a testimonial and a review.

These two things look similar. But they're not the same. And the difference is what absolutely matters — because it's huge.

Let's start with testimonials, because that's where most clinics are right now.

I've started to see testimonials — in some form or another — being included in job ads and on careers pages. We've talked in previous episodes about why careers sites on client-facing websites won't get you the recruitment results you want, but that's a conversation for another day.

For today, let's look at what's in a testimonial.

Usually a quote. A name. Sometimes a photo. Something like:

"I love working here. The team is supportive and I feel valued every day."

Think about it — when was the last time a vet or nurse at your clinic knocked on your door and said "hey, I really want to write a review for our clinic website"?

Probably never. It just doesn't happen.

Which means that quotes on clinic websites are 99.99% solicited — and therefore fall under the heading of testimonial. The clinic asked for it. The person who wrote it knew the clinic would read it — and probably approve it before it went live.

Every vet or nurse reading the quote on your careers page knows this. Even if they can't articulate it, their instinct does the calculation: this is what the clinic asked for and/or wanted someone to say.

And it gets scrolled past.

That's not a review. That's a testimonial. And the difference is what absolutely matters — because it is huge.

A testimonial is the clinic speaking through someone else's mouth. Curated, controlled, shaped for a purpose. The reader knows it — which is exactly why it doesn't land.

A review, on the other hand, is something different.

Not the kind clinics commission or ask someone to write on their behalf. A genuine review — specifically a verified, anonymous employee review — is what happens when a team member is given a genuinely safe space to speak honestly, independently, without the clinic seeing exactly who said what, and without any ability to edit the result.

So what do I mean by "verified"?

Here at VetClinicJobs, we need to know that the person writing the review has the authority to write it — because they're currently working at, or have worked at, the clinic they're reviewing. That verification is done by a real, live human being. We go back and fact-check. Not a bot. Not an AI.

And this is where something interesting usually happens.

When I invite clinic managers to participate in that kind of review process — verified, anonymous, unedited — there's often a very particular reaction.

I ask the question. Then there's a pause. A sharp intake of breath. A bit of a gulp.

And then the questions start coming.

What if they write a negative review? What if they write a review on a bad hair day? What if? What if? What if?

That moment of hyperventilation is completely understandable. Being asked to let your team speak anonymously, without your input, is scary. It's challenging, it's confronting — and it requires trust.

It requires a level of confidence in your culture that not every clinic has.

And most clinic managers know, in that moment — when they're gulping, when they're close to hyperventilating — whether they have that trust or not.

The ones who take a breath and say yes — those are the clinics with something real to show. They're not performing culture, they're living it. And they trust their team to reflect that back.

The ones who decline often do so because they're not sure what their team would actually say. And that hesitancy — that doubt, that uncertainty — has its own kind of signal.

That's something for another day.

[STING]

A super quick interruption.

If you're listening and wondering where your clinic sits right now — whether the culture you think you have is the culture your team would describe — that's exactly what the Cultural Visibility Stress Test was built for.

Eight questions. Free. Takes about three minutes. You'll find it at careers.vetclinicjobs.com.

Now back to the show.

[STING]

Here's what a strong verified anonymous review sounds like — compared to a testimonial.

A testimonial says: "The team is supportive and I feel valued."

A verified anonymous review might say: "When I wasn't confident doing a procedure, I was never made to feel like I had to push through. Someone would always step in — no drama, no judgment. And the emphasis here is genuinely on what's right for the patient, not on hitting a number."

That's a completely different signal.

The first is what someone says when asked to say something nice. The second is what someone says when they know it's safe to be specific.

That specificity — the procedure, the colleague stepping in, the patient-first culture — gives a vet or nurse reading it a real picture of what it's like to work there. It's credible because it's detailed. It's trustworthy because it's independent. It's useful because it's real.

The testimonial is none of those things. Even when it's true — it's still an asked-for testimonial.

On VetClinicJobs, verified anonymous employee reviews have their own dedicated space — and they sit directly ahead of job ads. Not buried. Front and centre, exactly where they belong.

They can also link back to a clinic's careers site when they have one.

That positioning matters. Because the fact that they're on a third-party platform — VetClinicJobs, completely independent of the clinic — adds credibility and authenticity. Not just to what's being said, but to your clinic's culture and values as a whole.

When a vet or nurse searches to find out what it's really like to work at your clinic — on Google, or when they ask an AI like Perplexity or ChatGPT — it's this kind of independent, third-party content that gets surfaced. Not your job ad. Not the quote on your careers page.

The clinics building their independent voice now are the ones who'll be found first. The ones waiting are handing that ground to whoever moves first in their region.

I promised I'd leave you with a question, so here it is.

If your team were invited to leave verified anonymous reviews of your clinic today — how would you feel about that?

Not what you'd say publicly. How would you actually feel?

Would you have that gulp? Would you start hyperventilating? Would there be a bit of excitement — or a lot of fear and worry?

That feeling is probably your most honest read of where your clinic culture sits right now. And it's worth knowing what that feeling is.

If you'd like to talk about what verified anonymous employee reviews could look like for your clinic, please email me — I answer every single email. julie@vetclinicjobs.com.

Next week in Episode 272 we're going to look at the next job your ad was never built to do: carry your values.

This is Julie South signing off and inviting you to go out there and be your most fantabulous self.

And remember — when vets and nurses can see you're their kind of people, you stop hiring strangers. You start welcoming people who already feel like they belong at your clinic. Because you're their kind of clinic.

Until next week.