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