Team VPJ

Veterinary professionals are naturally type-A empathetic individuals, aspiring to make life better for both pets and pet parents by providing excellent care. So yes, achieving a work-life balance that allows you to thrive is every veterinary professional’s goal, but many don’t notice that things are off-kilter until it is nearly too late. It’s time for an Intervention. We approached veterinarians, veterinary nurses, veterinary technicians, and hospital managers from our global community for their advice and their practical, tactical tips to get you started on re-establishing your own work-life balance. Here are their 7 top tips…

We asked our worldwide network of over 308,000 veterinary professionals a simple open-ended question; “If you were fortunate enough to have two job offers where the salary, benefits, and location were similar, what other things would influence your choice?”. As you can imagine, the answers were wonderfully diverse! For some, it was cookies at morning tea, whilst others could be persuaded by team massages, and one very creative answer was in regards to the artwork in the practice. However, when we started to assemble the data, we quickly began to identify five themes that stood out above snacks, kneading fingers, and paintbrushes…

Network with the 31,000+ Veterinarians, Veterinary Nurses, Veterinary Technicians, Practice Managers, and Employer members of our regional Facebook and LinkedIn groups.  You can browse Veterinary Jobs, share your Locum Relief availability and even post great permanent Veterinary Jobs and Locum Relief work for free and in a more structured way – open to job seekers AND employers – feel free to join any Regional Group that may be of interest. Or join the 102,000+ Veterinary Professionals that Follow or Like us on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and more, and be among the first to see our latest veterinary jobs as soon as they are published…

Many veterinary professionals – Vets, Nurses, Tech and more – used to dream of spending anywhere from a couple of weeks to a year or two traveling the world, working with animals and locals, as a practicing veterinary practitioner…and then COVID came along. However, with the world slowly starting to open up, and courtesy of two jabs or more (regardless of the flavor), traveling abroad and caring for animals as a veterinary professional can be put back on your bucket list. So, given that this will take a little more planning time than in the pre-COVID days, it’s time to refresh your research and start exploring the options once more. Here are five ways to still fulfill your sense of wanderlust while keeping your veterinary skills at their sharpest…

Now that we are beginning to see some light at the end of the pandemic tunnel and we are settling into a ‘new normal,’ there are many opportunities to take your career in new and exciting directions. While the pandemic gave some people a lot of time for reflection, many in the veterinary world are busier than ever thanks to ‘pandemic puppies,’ staffing changes, and more.  And while many vets thrive on the fast pace, there may be something about going to the same job every day, which is beginning to lose its thrill.  Maybe there are just not enough surprises anymore…or maybe there’s no predictability whatsoever! You don’t need to give up vet med to freshen up your career, and of course, your training doesn’t ever need to stop (they don’t call it continuing education for nothing).  If you’re willing to explore new horizons with an open mind (which could be quite an adventure in its own right), you’ll find a host of interesting and surprising veterinary careers that you may not have considered, or maybe didn’t know existed, or didn’t even exist at all when you started…

So you have successfully started that professional veterinary career you worked so hard to achieve. You expected it would be a tough road getting there, but you persisted and you’ve made it and you are really enjoying being a practicing Veterinary Professional – Veterinarian, Vet Tech, Veterinary Nurse, and more. What you hadn’t anticipated was a pandemic and how it may impact your debt situation – no one could have. You are not alone. And as student loans are now the second-highest consumer debt category almost worldwide, the first being mortgages, here are some essential tips to help you successfully manage your veterinary student debt in these challenging times…

Although the challenges of this global pandemic are by no means behind us, green shoots are beginning to appear and with that, the prospect of starting to look a little further ahead than you may have in a while. And that includes your career. Do you feel your career has stalled during the pandemic? Per the Pulse of the American Worker survey, 26% of workers are planning to switch jobs post-COVID, and 80% are doing so because they’re concerned about career advancement – similar surveys in the UK and Australia reaffirm that this is a global situation. Concerns about skill stagnation, company culture, flexibility and work-life balance are at “top of mind” for many veterinary professionals, stretched far too thin during the past year. So if you are 1 of those 1 in 4 considering a change, here are five key ways you can accelerate your veterinary career now that the masks are starting to come off…