Episode 284 — R: Real Stories (REAL+CULTURE+STORY, letter 1 of 16)

What is Episode 284 about?

[00:06]

Hello and welcome. You're listening to Veterinary Voices — culture storytelling conversations for vet clinics who want to be found by their kind of people. I'm Julie South. This is Episode 284.

What is the REAL+CULTURE+STORY Framework?

[00:23]

This is the first episode in a new series. I'm pulling apart the REAL+CULTURE+STORY Framework. That's the framework we use in every single Culture Story Centre we build.

What is the Decision Gap in vet clinic recruitment?

[00:42]

The framework answers the questions that sit in the Decision Gap. The Decision Gap is the gap between the job ad and the job application. It's the questions vets and nurses want answered before they hit apply. They ask these questions online, and anywhere else they can. Every clinic needs to be answering them — whether you're recruiting right now or not.

What happens if a clinic doesn't answer these questions?

[01:09]

If you're not answering them, AI will step in. It will either make something up. Or it will pull information from a clinic with a similar name — maybe in another country. Or it will say flat out that it can't find anything, and send the vet or nurse down a rabbit hole. And just like that, any chance you had of connecting with that vet or nurse is toast.

Veterinary Voices is brought to you by VetClinicJobs — helping vet clinics get applications from Their Kind of People.

Why do vet clinic job ads all sound the same?

[01:48]

Right now there's a clinic in Manchester, UK. There's one in Manukau, Auckland, New Zealand. There's another in Melbourne, Australia. All three are advertising for a vet or a nurse. They're totally unrelated. Totally disconnected from each other. Nothing in common except their recruitment status.

[02:13]

Read their job ads, and the wording is different each time. One talks about being collaborative and values-led, focused on care, and always improving. Another says they're a small, hardworking, friendly team. One promises that no one gets left behind.

What's missing from vanilla job ad claims?

[02:41]

Three completely different sentences. Not one of them tells you a single specific thing about what it's like to work there. Swap one clinic's logo for another on the ad, and no one would notice. There's no real story there. And yet there's plenty of opportunity to have one.

Is the job ad the place for the full culture story?

[02:56]

If you've been listening to me for a while, you'll know I've said the job ad isn't the place to write your culture storybook. But it is the place that should provide the pathway to those real culture stories.

If you're advertising right now — is your ad full of vanilla statements like the ones I've just quoted? If you're not advertising right now — what about that templated job ad sitting in the bottom drawer, or the folder on your desktop labelled "job ads"? Is that one any different? That last job ad you ran, the one that probably felt like it took forever and a day to fill — was that one any different?

What does a vanilla job ad cost a clinic?

[03:43]

Somewhere out there, there's a vet or a nurse who would have been perfect for your clinic. They scrolled straight past your ad. There was nothing in it that gave them a reason to stop. That's the vet or nurse who showed up in your job ad's "views" — and I'm using views in air quotes — but you never received an application from them.

What does a real culture story sound like?

[04:28]

Take the middle ad I talked about earlier: small, hardworking, friendly team. There's a real culture story sitting right behind a line like that. It might go something like this.

On the worst shift of the year, when the whole team was running on fumes, no one waited to be asked. Someone put the kettle on. Someone put the biscuits out. No one had to say they needed it. No one made a big thing of it. It's just what happens on bad days in our clinic.

What is REAL, and what does the R stand for?

[05:16]

That's the difference this whole series is about — real culture stories. Over the next little while, we're going to dissect those 16 letters. One letter, one episode. Each letter in REAL+CULTURE+STORY has something very specific, and very meaningful, behind it. This month we're on the four letters in REAL. Today it's the first one: R.

What is a Culture Story Centre?

[05:32]

Together, the 16 letters form the entire framework behind every Culture Story Centre we've ever built. It's the dedicated home we build for a clinic's culture evidence. It's made for vets and nurses — not the client-facing website your pet owners see. So clinics like you can find your kind of people, and vets and nurses can find your kind of clinic.

Why do real stories matter for recruitment?

[06:17]

Real stories are first-impression territory. They're what makes a vet or a nurse stop scrolling and start reading, instead of moving straight on to the next job ad.

What's the difference between the message and the moment?

[06:39]

REAL means something else as well. Is what your clinic is claiming real, or is it just window dressing?

With real stories specifically, it's the difference between the message and the moment. The message is what a clinic says about itself — a line in an ad. The moment is something that happened, and proves that line is true.

Remember that line from earlier — small, hardworking, friendly team? That's the message. Every clinic's written some version of it. But the kettle and the biscuits on the worst shift of the year, with no one waiting to be asked — that's the moment. We didn't use the word "hardworking" or "friendly" in the story. The moment does the work the message was trying to do. Properly. Specific to that team, on that day.

Why does peer-to-peer evidence matter more than marketing claims?

[07:33]

A vanilla claim stops being vanilla when it's backed up by peer-to-peer evidence. A real culture story is something a real vet or nurse lived, and can tell in their own words. Not something management made up, or turned into a marketing slogan.

What's the job ad's actual job?

[08:01]

You'll hear me say this every episode, because it's true of every letter in this framework: the job ad's job is to get someone to apply. It's not to carry the whole story.

So how does this apply to you? It's probably time — overdue, especially if you're advertising — to start telling your real culture stories, using a framework that works. Your job ad does a better job. Your kind of people have something to find in the Decision Gap that isn't there right now. Email me, julie@vetclinicjobs.com, and let me know how long you've been advertising. We'll take it from there.

What are the three steps to a real culture story?

[08:55]

I promised you three things. Here they are.

Spot it. [08:57] Find the sentence in your ad closest to "we're a great team" or "we are supportive." That's your starting point. It's not your finishing line.

Source it. [09:18] Find the real story that supports that claim. Ask yourself: what happened at our clinic last month that makes this claim true? If nothing comes to mind immediately, ask your team. You're looking for just one moment. One person. One outcome. Name it in a sentence, and you've sourced a real story that proves the claim.

Share it. [09:44] Build a home for it, and the other stories. Put it somewhere it can be found online. Ideally, on a Culture Story Centre built for vets and nurses. If you don't have one yet, your clinic's LinkedIn company page is free, and an easy place to start.

Spot it, source it, share it. That's this week's homework.

What's coming next week?

[10:28]

Thank you for staying to the end. Next week we're looking at the E in REAL — everyday evidence, and the peer-to-peer stories that live there.

This is Julie South signing off, inviting you to go out there and be your most fantabulous self, because you work in your kind of clinic, with your kind of people. And remember — one real story beats a hundred claims, every single time.

Until next week.