CareVets Gisborne | REAL+STORY

When vets and nurses think about changing clinics, they’re not just choosing a role.

They’re choosing the people they’ll work with — and the support around them when things get busy or unpredictable.

In this episode of Veterinary Voices, Julie South continues the CareVets Gisborne REAL+STORY series with a different perspective — stepping back from day-to-day clinical roles to hear from the Regional Manager who supports the clinic.

Julie is joined by Alice Dawson, Regional Manager at CareVets, who looks after Gisborne alongside Wellington and Napier. Alice has been with CareVets for ten years and worked as a veterinary nurse for seventeen, so what she shares here comes from long-term, lived experience.

They talk about what makes CareVets Gisborne work as a team — the family feel, the support behind the clinic, professional development, equipment, and the kind of vet who tends to fit best.

This isn’t a recruitment pitch.
It’s an honest conversation about what working at CareVets Gisborne is really like — and whether it feels like your kind of clinic, with your kind of people.

In This Episode

00:00 – Introduction and where this episode fits in the CareVets Gisborne REAL+STORY series
01:04 – Alice’s background: ten years with CareVets and seventeen years as a veterinary nurse
02:17 – The “family feel” and growing people from within
02:59 – Why CareVets isn’t a corporate in the way people assume
03:43 – Staying connected to Gisborne despite its geographic remoteness
04:03 – What stands out about the CareVets Gisborne team
04:40 – The impact of degree-qualified veterinary nurses in the clinic
05:18 – How CPD is used across nursing and veterinary teams
05:49 – The kind of vet who fits best at CareVets Gisborne
06:20 – Investing in equipment and diagnostics to support the team
07:04 – Gisborne as a place to live and work
07:31 – Case variety and why no two days are the same
07:54 – Closing reflections and recruitment invitation

If you’re an experienced small animal veterinarian considering your next move, CareVets Gisborne is currently recruiting.

You can find out more at vetclinicjobs.com/CareVetsGisborne.

About Julie South

Julie South is the founder of VetClinicJobs and host of Veterinary Voices.

She works with veterinary clinics that want to show what working there is really like — not just list job requirements. Through VetClinicJobs, Julie helps clinics tell their culture stories so vets and nurses can recognise their kind of people and their kind of clinic before a vacancy appears.

Struggling to get results from your job advertisements?
If so, then shining online as a good employer is essential to attracting the types of veterinary professionals who're a perfect cultural fit for your clinic.

The VetClinicJobs job board is the place to post your next job vacancy - to find out more get in touch with Lizzie at VetClinicJobs

Vets and nurses scroll past job ads — not because they think vet clinics are lying, but because they’ve seen the same claims repeated over and over again.
“Great team. Supportive environment. Work-life balance.”

The words didn’t become untrue. They lost meaning through overuse and under-delivery.

In this episode, Julie South unpacks why claiming culture through job ads keeps clinics invisible — and why vets and nurses now decide which clinics feel like their kind of place long before a vacancy appears.

This is a conversation about recognition, not reach — and what actually changes when clinics show what working there is really like, instead of telling people what they hope it is.

In This Episode:

00:00 – Introduction
01:39 – Why vets scroll past familiar job-ad language
02:47 – The quiet decision: choosing clinics they’ve been watching
03:34 – Post-and-pray recruiting and the questions vets actually ask
05:51 – How culture claims lost their power
07:37 – What’s working now: seeing culture before advertising
11:35 – The question every clinic should be asking
12:51 – Closing

About Julie South

Julie South is the founder of VetClinicJobs and host of Veterinary Voices. She works with forward-thinking veterinary clinics that want to shine online by showing what working there is really like, not just posting job ads. Through VetClinicJobs, Julie helps clinics build and maintain their own Culture Storytelling Centre — where real team stories, everyday moments, and ways of working are visible and discoverable year-round. This allows vets and nurses to recognise a clinic as Their Kind of Clinic long before a vacancy appears.

Links

Connect with Julie on LinkedIn
Learn more about Culture Storytelling

Struggling to get results from your job advertisements?
If so, then shining online as a good employer is essential to attracting the types of veterinary professionals who're a perfect cultural fit for your clinic.

The VetClinicJobs job board is the place to post your next job vacancy - to find out more get in touch with Lizzie at VetClinicJobs

A vet in Melbourne is scrolling job ads, actively looking to relocate.

She sees a position in Hamilton, New Zealand. Good clinic. Competitive salary. Sounds fine.

She clicks through, reads the job description, then keeps scrolling.

Three weeks later, she accepts a position in Melbourne. Not better. Just known.

What happened?

The decision didn't happen at the job ad stage. It happened earlier — at a moment most clinics never see.

In this episode, we're looking at why relocating vets and nurses so often default to what they already know, even when they're actively looking for change. And what's actually happening in that invisible moment where they close the tab and keep scrolling.

I'm Julie South. I run VetClinicJobs and help vet clinics across Australia, New Zealand and beyond build Culture Centres through Culture Storytelling. I've seen hundreds of clinics add better location descriptions to their job ads, wondering why relocating vets and nurses never apply — while their competitors attract people who've already decided they could live there.

Listen if: you've ever wondered why relocating vets and nurses never seem to apply — or why your location advantages don't seem to translate into applications.

Struggling to get results from your job advertisements?
If so, then shining online as a good employer is essential to attracting the types of veterinary professionals who're a perfect cultural fit for your clinic.

The VetClinicJobs job board is the place to post your next job vacancy - to find out more get in touch with Lizzie at VetClinicJobs

CareVets Gisborne's Clinic Coordinator Rhonda moved from London to Gisborne five years ago.

In London, her commute was 90 minutes. In Auckland, she never got out of second gear in traffic.

In Gisborne? Five minutes. Through "5 o'clock traffic" means waiting for half a dozen cars at a roundabout instead of going straight through.

"I go home for lunch," she says. Like it's nothing.

But here's what made me want to record this conversation: Rhonda isn't a vet or a nurse. She came from corporate backgrounds in big cities. And she's the clinic coordinator at CareVets Gisborne — the person who keeps the machine running, who checks in with locum vets before they leave, who listens when the team says "we need to tell people what it's really like here."

So when Rhonda talks about what makes someone stay five years, or what locums say about the nursing team, or what happens when things get busy — you're hearing it from someone who sees how the whole clinic actually works.

At the time of recording, CareVets Gisborne is recruiting for a small animal veterinarian.

But whether you're looking or not — listen to what a five-minute commute actually means when you've spent years in traffic.

I'm Julie South. This is Veterinary Voices.

Struggling to get results from your job advertisements?
If so, then shining online as a good employer is essential to attracting the types of veterinary professionals who're a perfect cultural fit for your clinic.

The VetClinicJobs job board is the place to post your next job vacancy - to find out more get in touch with Lizzie at VetClinicJobs

You list protected meal breaks, no weekend work, and flexible hours in your job ad.

So does every other clinic in your city.

How do vets and nurses decide? They can't tell you apart. So they don't apply. Or they apply everywhere and mean nowhere.

Meanwhile, down the road, another clinic fills their position in three weeks. Same benefits. Same salary. Same city. But vets and nurses already knew their team actually gets lunch breaks - because they've been watching it happen for months before that clinic even advertised.

That's not luck. That's visibility before vacancy.

I'm Julie South. I run VetClinicJobs and help vet clinics across Australia, New Zealand and beyond build Culture Centres through Culture Storytelling. I've seen hundreds of clinics add more benefits to their job ads, wondering why nobody applies - while their competitors show their Quality of Life at Work year-round and attract people who've already decided.

This episode shows you why competing on Quality of Life through job ads keeps you trapped, how the system changed in three ways most clinics haven't noticed, and the one question that changes everything about how you think about Quality of Life at Work.

I'd love to help you, if you'd like that - email me or connect with me on LinkedIn.

Struggling to get results from your job advertisements?
If so, then shining online as a good employer is essential to attracting the types of veterinary professionals who're a perfect cultural fit for your clinic.

The VetClinicJobs job board is the place to post your next job vacancy - to find out more get in touch with Lizzie at VetClinicJobs

What does a locum vet who's worked at five different clinics across New Zealand think when she walks into CareVets Gisborne? "I've actually loved it."

Dr Camille Bonini is an English vet on a working holiday visa with absolutely no reason to sugarcoat anything. She's seen what good looks like and what doesn't. So when she talks about a nursing team that's always two steps ahead, surgical schedules that actually finish on time, and a head nurse who stays calm when things get chaotic, you know she's telling it straight.

This is what a well-run clinic looks like through genuinely fresh eyes.

If you're from the UK or Ireland considering New Zealand, or you're responsible for recruitment and wondering what "Culture Storytelling" actually means in practice, this conversation shows you exactly that. No marketing speak. Just a locum vet sharing what she found when she arrived.

CareVets Gisborne is looking for their next permanent small animal vet. Details at vetclinicjobs.com/carevetsgisborne

Struggling to get results from your job advertisements?
If so, then shining online as a good employer is essential to attracting the types of veterinary professionals who're a perfect cultural fit for your clinic.

The VetClinicJobs job board is the place to post your next job vacancy - to find out more get in touch with Lizzie at VetClinicJobs

The $5,000 professionally produced video gets 50 likes. The blurred photo of your team laughing at closing time gets 20 shares.

Why?

Most clinics think polish equals professionalism equals hires. They're wrong.

Shares trump likes because shares reach extended networks - the thousands of vets and nurses you'll never reach from your clinic account alone. But getting shares requires something most clinics aren't doing.

I'm Julie South. I run VetClinicJobs and help vet clinics across Australia, New Zealand and beyond build Culture Centres through Culture Storytelling. I've seen hundreds of clinics invest in professional content that sits there gathering digital dust while their competitors' imperfect posts travel.

This episode shows you what makes Culture Stories shareable, why making yourself look good backfires, and how to tell if your posts will travel or sit there. You'll get a simple audit to run on your last five posts and know exactly what to change.

I'd love to help you, if you'd like that - email me or connect with me on Linkedin.

Struggling to get results from your job advertisements?
If so, then shining online as a good employer is essential to attracting the types of veterinary professionals who're a perfect cultural fit for your clinic.

The VetClinicJobs job board is the place to post your next job vacancy - to find out more get in touch with Lizzie at VetClinicJobs

Dr Ross Milner has worked everywhere from Antarctica to Fiji — but chose Gisborne as the best place in New Zealand for a vet to settle.
In this episode, he explains why, and what day-to-day life as a vet there actually looks like.

Dr Ross talks about:

• what surprised him most about living on the East Coast
• the kind of caseload you can expect in a regional clinic
• how the nursing team works (and why he’d trust them with his own dog)
• what the after-hours roster really feels like
• the community moments that made him feel welcome
• why he’s usually home by 5pm
• and how he often gets to go home for lunch

If you’ve ever wondered what it’s really like to live and work as a vet in Gisborne — or you’re considering your next move as an experienced small-animal vet — this conversation gives a grounded, honest view from someone who’s lived and worked all over the world.

Check out CareVets Gisborne

I’m Julie South. I run VetClinicJobs and help vet clinics across Australia, New Zealand and beyond attract vets and nurses by showing what working there genuinely looks like through culture storytelling.

If lifestyle matters to you as much as the medicine, check out the full position details.

Struggling to get results from your job advertisements?
If so, then shining online as a good employer is essential to attracting the types of veterinary professionals who're a perfect cultural fit for your clinic.

The VetClinicJobs job board is the place to post your next job vacancy - to find out more get in touch with Lizzie at VetClinicJobs