Veterinary Recruitment Companies

I know some people have had great experiences with recruitment companies but knowing the way they work, I chose to avoid them.

Recruitment companies advertise jobs, recruit and screen applicants then forward the CV's of suitable applicants to a practice for them to interview; for doing this they charge the practice several thousand pounds.
The great thing about this is that their websites are often a one-stop-shop where you can filter jobs by sector (Small, Farm, Academia), location and various other things. They give you an overview of what jobs are out there and can be great for finding jobs. As a practice it's handy because they screen all the applicants and present you with a couple of suitable people to interview.

Their websites rarely give details of the practice, though if you know the area you can usually work it out, as they don't want you to approach them directly and cut out the recruiters. This can make it difficult to research jobs and see if it would be a good fit for you.
This works well for many industries where there are lots of varied applicants applying for the same role like Tech, Engineering etc but I know lots of people who have been put forward for vet jobs that are completely not suitable, because the recruiter just wants their £X,000 commission.

A friend of mine who graduated last year was really excited to get several interviews, the recruiter got her really excited in that she was exactly what they were looking for and offered her all kinds of things she was specifically looking for. She travelled for interviews (which can be expensive in itself) and realised once she got there that her and the practice weren't compatible at all but the recruiter just needed the figures.
It's so easy to get caught up in the excitement of your first job interviews and they're telling you everything you want to hear that you get swept away and then it turns out to be a waste of everyone's time.

I naively gave my email address to one recruitment company (it's common for exhibitors to scan your conference badge to enter their competitions etc) at BSAVA Congress in 2017 and once they had my details I got weekly emails and a couple of phone calls as they'd found the perfect job for me, in far flung regions of the UK ...I wasn't even applying for jobs back then!
I asked them to stop, which they did for a while, but then they picked up again when one of their employees set up his own company and stole my details and those of several others I know.
Clearly a breach of GDPR and it ended up going to the ICO but that's a whole other story...

BSAVA Liverpool Student Conference 2018

This weekend I travelled up to the Uni of Liverpool Leahurst Campus with two friends to attend the BSAVA Liverpool Student Conference 2019. It is the second year the conference has ran and as we have a break before our next block, we decided to go and it was great value at £60 for the two days plus a dinner on Saturday night.
We stayed with vet students I've spoken to online for a couple of years but never actually met, so was great to meet them too!

Saturday morning kicked off with a couple of lectures and then an Endoscopy workshop. I've done a bit before at the Endoscopy Weekend and scoping birds with rigid endoscopes but it was great to practice.
We had to retrieve foreign bodies from a 'stomach' and as they say, teamwork makes the dream work and we got the best time!

Next up we had a lecture on fluids with Jacqui Seymour from VetsNow which I wasn't particularly looking forward to but turned out to be really useful! I think in practice we often put animals on fluids without thinking too much about what, how much and why so it was really interesting to think about it and practice evidence based medicine!

The second practical session I went to was Rabbit Neutering with Frances Harcourt-Brown, an RCVS Specialist in Rabbit Medicine and Surgery, and her husband who both have a wicked sense of humour!
Frances spoke about surgical techniques and spaying, particularly about where to place the cervical ligatures and her evidence base for it ...which is different to what I've seen in practice.


Saturday night we had a formal dinner which meant several bottles of wine and we don't remember much but we all had a good time and sore heads the next morning!


I think my favourite session was the Communication Skills workshop with Penny Barker from VDS Training. I often see posts about VDS and know vaguely what they do but never really paid attention to them, Penny was really engaging and interactive especially considering it was last thing on Sunday afternoon.

She spoke about DISC profiling and we worked out which profile(s) we best fitted into and how we react to conflict.

I definitely think I'm a High I, while apparently most of the veterinary profession are C and S.
I sat there thinking about various friends and colleagues and which profiles they fit into and then related it to clients and how to interact with them.

Overall we had a great weekend so thank you to all involved organising the weekend, the speakers and Becca for hosting us!

Veterinary Endoscopy Weekend

This weekend we were lucky enough to be visited by this years BSAVA President Philip Lhermette come out to Kosice to speak about minimally invasive (keyhole) surgery and endoscopy.

Philip has practiced endoscopy since 1995 so perfected lots of techniques for diagnostics and surgery and lectures at Nottingham Vet School as well as all over the world!

Burtons Veterinary Equipment drove over from the UK with the latest fixed and rigid endoscopes for us to try out with some awesome gastrointestinal models which have pathology we had to find and foreign bodies to remove.


There was also a station with rigid endoscopes for laparoscopy training with different tasks to complete like stacking sugar cubes, peeling oranges, removing stones from a kidney (red pepper) and balloons filled with water to simulate hydropericardium.

Céline the wonder pup came along for the practical sessions and loved laparoscopy...

The lectures were great and loads of us are now itching to find practices who do laparoscopic surgeries to do EMS at and learn more about the procedures. I'm sure that during my career we'll see more and more laparoscopic surgery with the medical advantages (less hemorrhage and pain, faster recovery) and clients requesting it.
I've said it time and time again but the technology available to vets for surgery is amazing - I loved the EndoGrab for fixing ovaries to the abdominal wall before zapping off the ovarian ligament, artery and vein with a LigaSure tissue and vessel sealer.

Many thanks to Philip Lhermette and Burton's for giving up your weekends and coming out to speak to us - a great time was had by all!

TEZWIC - Transylvanian Exotics, Zoo and Wildlife International Congress

Last week myself and four friends drove eight hours to Cluj Napoca in Romania for the first TEZWIC Congress.

The drive wasn't too bad as we stopped a few times en route, the only thing being we were in a car nearly as old as me which didn't have air con and Europe is experiencing a heat wave at the minute so it was windows down the whole way!

Following on from BSAVA and the Exotics Weekend I attended last month, I've realised what a great opportunity conferences like this are as I've learnt things we'll put into practice but also made contacts with people from all over the world.

There were people attending and speaking from Romania, Slovakia, France, Cambodia, South Africa and the Cayman Islands!

Norin Chai is a vet from Cambodia and now deputy director at Zoo Ménagerie du Jardin des Plantes in Paris. He spoke to us about wildlife and zoo medicine, anaesthesia and analgesia but the most interesting of his lectures for me was the Endoscopy approach. It's amazing the things that can be done with an endoscope, from removing foreign bodies, to neutering by cutting the fallopian tubes in a baboon and surgically castrating a bullfrog!

I've always been interested in Endoscopy in practice but it's something I'd like to look at more, maybe as a thesis project.

Minh Huynh, another French vet, gave lectures on emergency care in raptors and avian diagnostic imaging which he explained really simple procedures that you can gain a lot from, but that I've never seen in practice so will definitely be trying those in the future.

He previously worked at Great Western Exotics and now in France and said now they only use CT or MRI in birds, they haven't done x-rays since 2008 and 2014 in the clinics!

Another thing I've been hearing a lot about recently is Capnography, not something I've seen used in clinics myself but that I'm really interested to learn more about.
The Exotics clinic at uni have just ordered a Capnograph so it will be nice to get used to using one and learning how to foresee potentially fatal anaesthetic complications before they would be noticed using other methods of monitoring.

Cluj Napoca was a really nice city and surprisingly different to Kosice. It was a much bigger city which seemed to have a younger population and more people who spoke English, though that could have been because we spent a lot of time around the university.
The restaurants we ate at were nice too, lots of independent restaurants rather than chains, with amazing food!

Overall we had an awesome time and we were made to feel really welcome by Gratzia and everyone at Team TEZWIC.

The quality of the lectures and the people giving them were great, everyone's English was amazing, particularly as I think myself and Sarah we're the only native speakers there. We'll definitely be back, hopefully with even more students from Kosice next year!

Exotics and Wildlife Weekend

Another UVM Kosice conference weekend, this time the topic was Exotics and Wildlife with BSAVA President John Chitty and wildlife vet from the Netherlands, Sophie Bosch.

We covered all sorts of topics from initial consultation, stabilising, husbandry, surgery and how to get into wildlife vet work. John also did a session on PDP which is the Professional Development Phase new grad vets must complete and usually takes around 18 months after graduating.

The weekend finished with the Avian afternoon (save the best til last) which was really interesting. I learnt lots at BSAVA Congress and even more this weekend, particularly about parrots which I don't have much experience with.

Listening to John it became clear that the best way into exotics is to get into birds first, reptiles later as birds tend to be emergency cases which really prepares you, then these skills can be transferred to reptiles which you can generally take more time working with.
A true bird emergency is critical to be dealt with in 20 minutes whereas something like a tortoise can be stabilised and operated after a few days or even weeks. That's great for me as I already have a keen interest in birds and could possibly transfer these skills into reptiles.

He also taught us to question 'standard protocols' such as triple anaesthesia being used in every rabbit surgery; we don't treat all cats the same so why exotics? I'll definitely be paying more attention to the drugs used in practice this summer as previously I've just accepted the standard 'rabbit anaesthesia' protocol stated on the wall and not given it too much thought.

John and the BSAVA very kindly donated two BSAVA Manuals which he is Editor of to our Falconry and Raptor Rehabilitation Club; the Manual of Raptors, Pigeons and Passerine Bird and the Manual of Psittacine Birds.

Thanks again to Laura and Chris for organising the weekend and to Sophie and John for coming to speak to us.

Student to Vet Careers Conference

This weekend we had a Student to Vet careers conference organised by Chris off of @VetSchoolDiary, a 5th year student here.

Speakers at the weekend were two vets:

Mark (@ExpatVet) an American vet, graduated from Budapest, who started off doing mixed practice in Saudi Arabia and now works in the UK.

Hannah, a UVM graduate, who went into Small Animal practice and 2.5 years after graduation opened her own sole-charge practice in Cardiff.

Saturday covered a background on the speakers, how they got to where they are and how to get your first job.

Hannah spoke about starting her own practice and consultation technique while Mark spoke about working abroad and the different requirements (NAVLE exam for America) plus difficulties of working in the Middle East with limited access to veterinary drugs!

Sunday focused on writing a veterinary CV, interview technique and then problems in consults and how to deal with them.

The weekend finished with a Q&A session which covered all sorts of topics from starting salaries, Dangerous Dogs Act, legalities regarding, reporting animal abuse, non-paying clients and was really useful to ask burning questions.

It was great to hear from two European vet school graduates who have been so successful and just goes to show what we can do after leaving here.

They made it clear that European graduates are in demand due to our practical skills, which some UK students are lacking, and that we should choose our first job carefully, at a practice we want to work at and don't just chase any old job or the first job offer; though don't be cocky!

I guess 10 years ago there was some prejudice against EU grads but nowadays all practice owners know (or know of) vets who studied abroad and it's no longer seen as a negative that we've gone abroad to chase our dreams of becoming a vet.

Was also nice to listen to fluent English speakers who have experience of working in the UK!

Chris is our Student Representative for the BSAVA so got us some massive discounts on veterinary textbooks.

I've ordered the Canine & Feline Surgical Principles (£79 down to £25) and BSAVA Pocketbook for Vets which is usually £25 online but discounted to £5.

Great weekend - thanks to Chris for organising it and to Hannah & Mark for coming to speak to us!