Why your job ad gets views but not applications - The Elephant in the Room - ep. 277

Veterinary Voices:  "The Gap Between The Ad And The Reality"

[00:00]

If you've ever looked at your job ad dashboard and wondered why the views are high and yet somehow your applications aren't, this episode is about one of the reasons.

And it's not the one that Seek will tell you about.

Welcome to Veterinary Voices. Culture storytelling conversations for forward thinking vet clinics.

I'm Julie South and this is episode 277, the second episode in the Elephant in the Room series.

Veterinary Voices is brought to you by Vet Clinic Jobs, helping clinics get applications from their kind of people.

Please stay to the end, because today I want to talk about whether your clinic can be trusted. I know, big word. Whether your clinic can be trusted to tell the truth, even when nobody's checking.

[01:04]

Ok, so you already know this because the dashboard tells you. Seek, for example, shows you the views. So does VetClinicJobs.

Plenty of eyes are landing on your ad, but not nearly as many of them — hardly any, virtually none — are turning into applications.

[01:34]

Seek's answer to that is usually spend more. Get more exposure, they say. More eyes, they say.

But more eyes on an ad people don't quite believe doesn't get you more applications. It just gets you more vets and nurses reading it, feeling possibly that something doesn't add up.

And then they close that tab. Or they keep scrolling.

Worse, sometimes the ones who do apply anyway are simply the ones prepared to take the risk, which probably isn't who you want.

[02:13]

Now, here's the gap — not between seeing the ad and clicking apply. Between believing the ad and trusting it enough to act on it.

What moves someone across that gap isn't more exposure. It's whether they believe what they're reading. Whether they trust what they're reading.

We've talked before about the different types of information vets and nurses need to feel safe before they apply to a job. Or not.

Today we're looking at one specific piece of that — whether they believe what's in the ad.

Now, don't get me wrong, because most vets and nurses aren't actively trying to prove or disprove whether you, the clinic, can be trusted.

But they're intelligent people, and they're wired to want answers to their own questions specifically — even when they're not consciously asking the question, can this clinic's word be trusted? The essence of that question is still sitting there, somewhere under the surface. Somewhere, perhaps, in their subconscious.

[03:37]

Last week's elephant mostly impacted the clinic. The clinic missed out — on the right vet or the right nurse, on the chance to be seen as what they'd actually become. Last week was about the reputation, if you remember.

This week, both sides miss out. Both parties can miss out.

This time, though, there's something else in the mix, and that something else is betrayal. When the truth comes out, whatever goodwill existed up to that point can unravel completely.

And when it starts, it happens fast.

This week's elephant is the gap between what the job ad says and what the role turns out to be. But underneath that gap is something much bigger, much huger. Trust — that your clinic's word can be taken at face value. Otherwise, seeds of doubt start being sown.

[04:32]

That gap can show up in three different ways, and each one is a different way someone gets stuck on the wrong side of it.

The first could be on day one. A vet or a nurse goes to an interview and they have a specific question in mind that they absolutely want to know the answer to. Perhaps it's something about the vet:nurse ratio.

And then the interview happens — and nerves take over, or small talk runs too long and they run out of time, or an emergency comes through the door mid interview and everyone's attention goes to the dog on the table.

The question ends up staying in their head. It doesn't get asked.

[05:11]

So on their first day, or in their first week, they find out anyway. The ratio in the ad was the ratio when the clinic was fully staffed, and it hasn't been fully staffed for months. What they're really working in is the thinner end of what that job ad described. And yet nobody told them, because nobody asked and nobody thought to say.

[05:33]

The second is when it happens at the interview. This time, the question does get asked. Who's actually doing the new grad mentoring this year? They might ask.

And the answer that comes back doesn't match what was in the ad, because the mentor left ages ago and nobody's stepped into that role since.

[06:04]

The vet or the nurse sitting across the desk at the interview doesn't feel relieved — well, I guess they do, in a way, that they asked. But they feel duped. Like the last hour was wasted. Like they got dressed up and drove across town. They made arrangements at work, at home, for a job that on paper wasn't quite the job that was genuinely on offer.

That's the betrayal moment, right there. Whatever rapport had been built up over that last hour evaporates in the space of one answer.

[06:24]

The third — before any of that. Increasingly, the gap is visible from outside before an interview is ever arranged. Review platforms, group chats, a cohort of new grads who stay in touch and then compare notes. I'm sure you know a few like this.

[06:55]

The vet or the nurse finds a story online that's different to the one in the job ad. They don't know which version is true, which is correct. So they don't apply. And it's not because anything has been confirmed, but because the seed of doubt has been sown.

Three different moments. Three different types of situation. But it's the same system.

The clinic said one thing in the job ad, and something else turned out to be true — because nobody thought to ask or check.

[07:18] (mid-roll)

Bit of a shameless plug here with an interruption.

If you're wondering what a vet or a nurse finds when they search for your clinic right now, then how about you book a one hour consult with me? We'll look at it together and you'll be able to see what's showing up through fresh eyes.

Email me. julie@vetclinicjobs.com.

Now let's get back to today's show.

[08:08]

Those three moments — here's the thing about all three of them. None of them are really anyone's fault.

The clinic didn't necessarily lie. The ad might be a year out of date and nobody's thought to check it.

The vet or the nurse didn't fail at interviewing — nerves or emergencies happen to everyone. We know this. You know this. I'm sure you've felt it yourself.

And finding a different version of the story online isn't anyone doing anything wrong either.

[08:44]

But not anyone's fault doesn't mean it's not anyone's job to fix.

It's not deliberate. It is, however, completely fixable. And it sits squarely, in my opinion, with the clinic — to go back and check, and then keep checking, every time you post a job ad.

[09:08]

But in every one of these scenarios we've talked about — these three different types of scenarios — the vet or the nurse ends up answering the same question for themselves: can this clinic's word be trusted?

[09:44]

Sometimes the answer they land on is good news, even though it doesn't quite feel like that at the time. The vet or the nurse who finds out — whichever way — that the role wasn't what the ad promised, and then walks away before signing, may think that they've dodged a bullet.

That mismatch, surfacing early — even painfully — is a better outcome than it surfacing six months in, when someone's in the job.

[10:00]

The clinic that wants the opposite outcome — the vet or the nurse who reads the ad, finds the same story confirmed everywhere else, and applies with confidence — has to make sure that all three of those moments tell the same story. The ad. The interview. And what's searchable and findable online.

[10:15]

And here's the part that genuinely matters. It can't be management saying it's all true. Management is expected to say that things are true. No manager is going to say, hey, you know, we're lying. Because saying good things, true things, is part of their role.

A vet or a nurse hears "great culture" from a practice owner, and then — as I've talked about a squillion times already on this show — they discount it automatically. The same way they'd discount it from anyone talking about their own thing, whatever that is.

[10:57]

What carries weight today is the team saying it. Not the owner describing the mentoring program — the nurse who's actually doing the mentoring this year, naming herself, saying what it genuinely involves. Not "great vet:nurse ratio" on a page somewhere — the vet who works that ratio every day, or the nurse, saying what it's really like. Peer to peer. Specific. From someone with nothing to gain by saying it, except that it happens to be true.

[11:19]

That's the only thing that closes the trust gap properly, because it's the only version of the story a vet or a nurse has no reason to discount.

[11:40]

I promised you a question, so here it is. It's for the clinics.

If a vet or a nurse started this coming Monday, what would surprise them, compared to what your ad promised?

If you can answer that honestly and the list is short, then you're in good shape.

If it's not — that's your trust gap. And left unfixed, it's how clinics end up with wrong hires that backfire, instead of the right ones. Instead of their kind of people.

[12:18]

For vets and nurses — if there's a question you meant to ask and didn't, it's never too late. If you haven't signed the job offer — email, call, ask before day one, not on it.

[12:59]

And where the answer is genuinely good — one that you like hearing — that's worth saying clearly, by name, by the people. Where you've asked this question — this is for the clinic — you've asked this question and you like the answer, then it's worth saying clearly. It's worth putting it out there by name, by the people actually doing the work.

Because the vet or the nurse deciding whether to apply deserves to know, before they sign, exactly what they're saying yes to.

[13:13]

When was the last time someone outside your clinic checked whether your job ad still describes what people actually walk into every morning?

If it's been a while, then email me and let's have a chat. julie@vetclinicjobs.com.

Next week, the elephant in the room is going to be about the skills shortage, and the different problem it's sometimes being used to hide.

[14:07]

This is Julie South signing off and inviting you to go out there and be your most fantabulous self — because you're working with your kind of people.

And remember, please — that trust isn't built in the job ad. It's tested by it.

Until next week.