What your team takes for granted could be why someone applies — ep 292

How can your clinic’s everyday routines help vets and nurses decide whether to apply?

Culture storytelling that helps vets and nurses choose a clinic

[00:08]

What your team takes for granted could be why someone applies.

Hello and welcome. I’m Julie South, and you’re listening to Veterinary Voices: culture storytelling conversations for vet clinics that want to be found by Their Kind of People—the vets and nurses who genuinely, absolutely care and can’t wait to start working at your clinic.

Veterinary Voices is brought to you by VetClinicJobs, helping clinics give vets and nurses the answers they need to their job application questions before they apply.

This is episode number 292, and it’s the ninth in the series about the REAL•CULTURE•STORY framework. That’s the framework we use when we’re working with clinics to create, tell and share their Culture Stories.

Please stay to the end for this week’s how-to takeaway: how to spot, source and share a Culture Story from your clinic.

Helping vets and nurses ask, “Is this My Kind of Clinic?”

[01:13]

Last week, in episode 291, we looked at Team Voice. That’s how your team’s own words, tone and humour help an outside vet or nurse get a sense of the people they’d be working with in your clinic. If you haven’t listened to that, I will put the link in the show notes for you.

This week, we’re looking at Uniqueness. We’re still in the CULTURE part of the framework, and that’s the bit that helps vets and nurses understand how your clinic works. In other words, we’re helping them understand your clinic from their perspective, so they can decide, “Is this My Kind of Clinic?”

You want to be different enough to help someone choose.

“But Julie,” you’re probably thinking, “we’re a regular clinic. We’re not doing anything nobody’s ever done before.”

And that’s exactly it. You don’t have to.

What does Uniqueness mean in a veterinary clinic’s Culture Story?

[02:15]

Uniqueness, as it applies to a REAL•CULTURE•STORY, isn’t about looking for something that no other vet clinic offers. Instead, what you’re looking for is something that’s specific, meaningful and useful to a vet or nurse who’s checking out their next career move.

Put yourself in the shoes of a vet or nurse who’s seen your job ad and is having a look around online before deciding whether to apply to that job ad or not. They may have several clinics on their shortlist.

And if every clinic offers a great team, a varied caseload and opportunities to develop your interests, what have you given them to compare? Everyone’s saying the same vanilla thing, and the vet or nurse is still left wondering what those promises could mean for them.

And yet, there could be something happening in your clinic every week that would help them choose. Something your team doesn’t even think about anymore because it’s so normal—and I use “normal” in air quotes. It’s so normal. It’s just how it is at your clinic.

How a nurse’s special interest can become part of her regular working week

[03:36]

Let’s take a small animal clinic where one nurse’s special interest in senior pet care has become part of her regular working week. It’s a place in the diary.

Inside this clinic, one of the nurses runs dedicated senior wellness nurse consults: booked follow-up appointments where she talks through how the pet’s getting on, carries out specific agreed checks and takes any concerns she may have from those back to the vet.

She’s got the nursing skills for that work. She’s got the time allocated in the diary and a consult room available for those bookings.

A nurse who’s recently joined the clinic asks how she got started, and it may sound something like this:

“I was interested in senior pet care, so we started by trialling a block of senior wellness nurse consults. Now they’re just a regular part of my week.”

Do you see how that started?

During one of those consults, an owner mentioned that their older dog has stopped finishing breakfast. The nurse makes a note and follows up with the vet, who decides what needs to happen next.

It’s so normal, so routine. They’d probably wonder why anyone would bother telling a story about it. But imagine a nurse reading that story after seeing the clinic’s job ad. Perhaps she’s interested in ongoing patient care and wants to know how much of that work she could do there.

What can a vet or nurse ask after reading a specific Culture Story?

[05:15]

Now she has something meaningful to ask at an interview, or by calling ahead of applying:

“Would these senior wellness nurse consults be part of the role that you’re advertising?”

Can you see what’s happened there? A vet reading the same story can understand how senior wellness nurse consults fit into the care that their patients receive. And a nurse thinking about applying can also see how that might apply to her.

Both have something concrete to compare with another job ad, and they know what to ask before they apply or at the interview.

You need to give the difference meaning. So now put that beside the “opportunities to develop your interests” statement. That phrase leaves just about everything to the reader’s imagination. But the Culture Story shows how one person’s special interest has become an established part of her role.

Nurse consults themselves aren’t necessarily unique. Plenty of clinics offer them. Others would like to, but don’t yet have the appropriately skilled staff, the diary capacity, or the spare consult room or suitable treatment space.

The clinic in this story has those pieces in place for senior wellness nurse consults. Someone considering a job there can see an opportunity that’s already up and running and compare it with what other clinics are offering.

You don’t need to claim that you’re the only clinic doing something. You do need to explain it clearly enough for someone to ask, “Is this My Kind of Clinic?”

Someone else might read it and prefer more theatre work. That’s useful information too.

This story shows how the clinic helped one nurse develop her special interest. It gives other vets and nurses something meaningful to ask about without promising that every interest will be funded. It takes them one step closer to deciding whether to apply or not.

How a Culture Story can encourage a pre-application conversation

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A job ad catches someone’s eye, but telling a Culture Story like this could be what makes a vet or nurse think, “I’d like to do that work. I want to know more.”

So you need to make it easy for them to have a no-obligation pre-application check with you, because changing jobs is a big thing. And if it turns out the role or the timing isn’t right, then you can invite them to join your Keep in Touch programme so you can—yep—keep in touch with them.

How do you spot a Culture Story your team takes for granted?

[08:18]

Spot it. Source it. Share it.

So how do you find a story like this in your clinic? Start with spotting it. Ask someone who’s joined your team recently:

“What do we do here that you hadn’t expected, or that worked differently at your last clinic?”

You’re looking for something about your own clinic that you’re so used to seeing, you don’t even see it anymore because it just is.

You’re listening for a routine, a particular part of the caseload, or an opportunity that’s already part of the job. In this example, it’s senior wellness nurse consults that grew from a trial into a regular work schedule.

What questions help you source the story from the person doing the work?

[09:09]

Then you want to source it. Ask the person doing the work to walk you through its history.

How did it get started? What did they need to make it work? What happened in a recent consult? And what happens next? Check how regularly it happens too.

Keep the person’s own words and leave out anything that could identify a client or a patient. We talked about using your team’s own words back in episode 291. That’s critical.

Where should you share Culture Stories so vets and nurses can find them?

[09:41]

After you’ve spotted it and sourced it, you want to share it. Help the reader—the vet or the nurse—understand what the person does and how that opportunity fits into the job.

Include a real moment, like the owner mentioning a change in their pet’s appetite, so they can picture the work.

You want to post those Culture Stories somewhere a vet or nurse can click through to from the job ad. That’s why we recommend our Culture Story Centres, because they’re purpose-built for culture storytelling. Funny that. We also recommend sharing them on your clinic’s LinkedIn company page.

Before sharing them, you need to ask yourself:

“What can someone now understand about working here that ‘opportunities to develop your interests’ didn’t tell them?”

If you can answer that clearly, you’ve given a vet or nurse something to help with their decision to apply and/or, if the timing’s not right, to keep in touch with you.

Next: helping someone picture the Reality of a regular shift

[10:54]

Thank you for listening.

Next week, in episode 293, we’re going to be looking at Reality. Can someone outside your clinic picture the pace, the interruptions, the pressures and the support on a regular shift?

If you only talk about your best moments, there’s a lot they’re still really guessing about. We’ll look at how Culture Stories help them understand what working at your clinic is genuinely like day to day.

And if you’d like help telling your team’s Culture Stories in a way that turns vanilla into something meaningful, then let’s have a chat—even if and even when you’re not trying to fill a vacancy at your clinic right now. Because culture storytelling is an organic, always-happening thing. It’s not just something you do when you’re advertising a job vacancy.

So please get in touch with me: julie@vetclinicjobs.com.

This is Julie South signing off and 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.

Thank you for listening. Until next week.