Veterinary practices throughout the country are understaffed and overwhelmed. There’s especially likely to be a shortage of veterinarians as more Baby Boomer vets retire, with fewer Gen X and Millennial vets being available to fill their shoes.
This means that hiring is an urgent priority for vet practices everywhere. It might be a priority for yours, too.
Are you struggling to find new employees?
Does your website need help attracting quality applicants?
If you answered “yes,” then here are the boxes you need to check to ensure your website is a powerhouse recruiting tool.
Your Website is Up-to-Date
Your website might be the first thing a person sees when they’re searching for a veterinary job and they want to learn more about your practice. Therefore, all the content on your site, especially your team page and job listings page, needs to reflect your practice as it is right now–not what it was 2 years ago.
If your website looks like it was last updated in 1997, it’s not going to make a very good first impression, and it isn’t going to be very helpful to a potential new hire, either. Also, they will want to see and know who they’ll be working with. This can make them feel more at ease about taking the first step and filling out an application.
You Have an Employment Application on Your Website
Make it easy for potential new hires to send you their application by including an up-to-date employment application on your website. Chances are, this isn’t their first job application of the day; they might be burned out from emailing practices in the area and filling out applications on Indeed or elsewhere. Having an easy-to-find, easy-to-complete application on your website will make the whole process much more convenient (and much less stressful) for them.
You Promote Your Team Culture and What Makes It Great
Your veterinary team is practically superhuman. Their skills are out of this world. Your company culture is one-of-a-kind, and if you’re not promoting any of these things, you could be missing out on some incredible new hires. Your website is the perfect place to humble-brag about your core values, team philosophy, things you do better than other practices, and various events and programs your team takes part in outside of work. This can tell someone a lot about your culture and who you are as a team, and help a potential new hire figure out whether they’d be a good fit for your group.
Your Website Uses Custom Photos–not Stock Photos
Custom photos that feature your veterinarians and staff hard at work engaging with clients and caring for pets make your practice look friendly and approachable, and they give potential new employees a glimpse of what it’s like to work for you. Stock photos tend to give websites a sterile and rather generic look, and that’s the last impression you want to give to anybody landing on your website. If you want to draw people in, you have to convey to them that your practice is an awesome place to work, learn, and grow.
Your Website Tells Applicants Why They’d Love Working for You
You definitely want to highlight the career benefits your practice offers, but don’t just list the usual perks, like insurance and a competitive salary. You should also touch on the learning, training, and career advancement opportunities you offer, the state-of-the-art technology employees get to work with, and of course, the team-oriented culture your practice fosters.
St. Paul Pet Hospital does this very well on their website:
Your Website is Optimized for Search Engines
With a good SEO (search engine optimization) strategy, the content on your careers page will be optimized to target certain high-volume keywords and a specific location so you can attract job searchers in your area. Without SEO, it’s much more difficult to reach people who are looking for a job, as you’ll be competing with a lot of other vet practices in the area who are looking for new hires, too.
Your Careers Page is Easy to Find
If a potential new hire lands on your homepage, they should be able to find your careers page and job application within 2-3 seconds. You should have calls-to-action sprinkled strategically throughout your website, guiding visitors to where you want them to go and making the application process as easy as possible.
Does Your Website Meet the Criteria?
Your veterinary practice website is an important marketing tool for bringing in new patients and clients and helping your business grow. But it’s also an excellent recruiting tool that can make your practice known to a wide pool of job applicants. If you’re currently looking for remarkable individuals to join your team, evaluate your website to see if it meets the criteria we discussed above. And if you have questions or need help optimizing your website to reach more applicants, you can call (800) 493-9003 to get InTouch.