Blog / Veterinary / What a DVM job posting should tell you, and what silence means

What a DVM job posting should tell you, and what silence means

Fifty-eight percent of practices report difficulty hiring, and the average associate vacancy runs over fifteen months. In that market a practice that still won't state the salary, the caseload or the rota is telling you something specific. Here is how to read it.

Veterinary · August 26, 2026

Key takeaways

58% of practices reported difficulty finding full-time veterinarians, and the average associate vacancy runs over 15 months — so a candidate has more leverage to ask than most use.
A listing should state eight things: compensation range, production model, rota including after-hours, appointment length, support staffing, mentorship, the reason the role is open, and any restrictive covenant.
The reason the vacancy exists is the single most informative question, and almost no listing answers it — a maternity cover and a role nobody has stayed in for two years are different jobs.
Support staffing is the number that predicts your day, not the salary: technician turnover runs 35% a year, and a practice permanently short of credentialed techs pushes that work onto associates.
Ask what the previous holder of the role earned, not what the model pays in theory. A practice confident in its caseload will answer.

The market gives you more standing than you think

Two figures worth holding before you read a single listing.

58% of practices reported difficulty finding full-time veterinarians.[1] The average time to fill an associate role is over fifteen months.[2]

58% of practices struggle to hire · 15+ months average associate vacancy · 35% annual technician turnover

That means a practice interviewing you has usually been searching for months and may have had offers declined already. Asking direct questions in that context is not pushy. It is a normal response to the conditions.

Most candidates behave as though they are asking a favour. The arithmetic does not support it.

The eight things a listing should state

And what silence on each usually indicates.

Should state	If it doesn't
Compensation range	The most common omission and the most telling. Sometimes internal disagreement about the number; sometimes a number they expect to be argued down
Production model, if any	Often means the base is low and production is doing the work in the pitch
Rota, including after-hours and weekends	Frequently means after-hours is heavier than a candidate would accept if stated plainly
Appointment length	Short appointment slots are a common cause of associates leaving, and practices know it
Support staffing on shift	Usually means fewer credentialed technicians than they would like to admit
Mentorship, for early-career roles	For a new graduate this is the difference between a good first job and a bad one. Vagueness means it is aspirational
Why the role is open	Almost never stated. Almost always answerable
Restrictive covenants	Rarely in a listing, but ask before the offer stage rather than after

None of these omissions proves anything on its own. Practices write bad listings for innocent reasons — often the person writing it is a practice manager with fifteen other jobs. The pattern matters more than any single gap. A listing missing one item is a busy practice. A listing missing six is telling you how the practice communicates, which is itself information about working there.

The question almost nobody asks

Why is this role open?

There are roughly five answers, and they describe five different jobs:

Growth — the practice is busier than its current staffing. Generally good. Ask what changed.
Maternity or sabbatical cover — defined, finite, usually honest. Ask what happens at the end.
Someone retired — often a long-tenured associate, which means an established client base transferring to you. Frequently a strong position.
Someone left for another practice — worth understanding why. One departure is a life event.
Nobody has stayed in this role — the answer that matters most, and the one you have to ask for directly.

If the answer to “how long was the last person in this role?” is under eighteen months, ask about the person before them too. A pattern of short tenures in one seat is the single most reliable predictor available to you, and it is a pattern the practice can see even when it does not volunteer it.

Practices generally answer this honestly when asked plainly. Most candidates never ask.

The questions that describe your actual day

Salary describes your bank balance. These describe your life.

Appointment length and daily count. Twenty-minute appointments and twenty-eight a day is a fundamentally different job from thirty-minute appointments and eighteen, at the same salary. Ask both numbers.

Credentialed technicians on shift with you. Not employed in total — on shift, with you. This is the number that predicts whether you spend your day doing medicine or doing restraint and catheters. Technician turnover runs at 35% annually, and over half of credentialed technicians report being underutilized, so a practice may be simultaneously short-staffed and misusing the staff it has.[4]

Who does records, callbacks and refill requests. Administrative load is the quiet reason associates leave. If the answer is “the vets do it,” ask when — because if it is not inside the working day, it is unpaid evening work.

Surgery days and who covers them. Whether you are expected to run surgery on the same day as a full appointment schedule.

After-hours structure. On-call frequency, whether it is paid separately, and what a typical call-out night actually looks like. “Occasional on-call” is not a specification.

What happens when someone calls in sick. The honest answer tells you whether the practice covers gaps with relief or with the people already there. It is the single best proxy for how the practice treats its staff under pressure.

On the money, three specific asks

1. What did the person who previously held this role earn, in their last full year? Not the model, not the range — the number. A practice confident in its caseload answers. AAHA’s own guidance on associate compensation is built on the premise that the formula should be explicit and defensible, so this is not an unreasonable question.[5]

2. Is production calculated on collected or produced revenue, and are discounts and write-offs deducted? Collected exposes you to the practice’s billing performance, which you do not control.

3. What is the total package, itemized? Base, production, signing bonus and its clawback terms, CE allowance, license and dues, liability cover, health premium contribution, retirement match, and paid time off in actual days. Two offers $15,000 apart on base routinely land closer than that once everything is counted, and occasionally invert. BLS puts the profession median at $125,510, which is a useful anchor but says nothing about your setting.[3]

The eight questions, condensed

If you only get one conversation:

What is the compensation range, and what did the last person in this role actually earn?
Why is this role open, and how long was the previous holder here?
How long are appointments, and how many a day?
How many credentialed technicians are on shift with me?
What is the after-hours commitment, and is it paid separately?
Who does records and callbacks, and inside or outside the working day?
What happens when someone calls in sick?
Is there a non-compete or non-solicit, and what are the terms?

A practice that answers all eight straightforwardly is showing you how it operates. One that deflects on four of them is also showing you how it operates.

One thing to be fair about

A badly written listing is not proof of a bad practice. Some of the best small practices are terrible at recruiting because nobody there has ever done it professionally, and the listing was written in fifteen minutes between appointments by someone who was already behind.

The questions above are not a test to be passed. They are how you find out what a job is before you take it — and a practice that answers them well is often revealing more good than the listing did.

The one-line version

In a market where the average vacancy runs fifteen months, you can ask anything. The two questions that reveal most are why the role is open and how many credentialed technicians are on shift with you — and neither appears in almost any listing.

Common questions

Should a veterinary job listing include the salary?

In this market, yes, and its absence is meaningful. With 58% of practices struggling to hire and vacancies averaging over 15 months, withholding the range does not protect negotiating position — it shortens the practice's own shortlist by filtering out candidates who cannot afford three speculative interviews.

What is the most important question to ask about a DVM role?

Why the role is open. A maternity cover, a growth hire, and a position three people have left in two years are entirely different jobs with identical listings. Almost no posting answers it and almost every practice will if asked directly.

How do I find out what the job is actually like day to day?

Ask about appointment length, daily appointment count, and how many credentialed technicians are on shift with you. Those three answers describe your working day far more accurately than the salary does.

Is a production-based offer a red flag?

No, but an unexamined one is. Ask what the previous holder of the role actually earned in their last full year, whether production is on collected or produced revenue, and whether discounts and write-offs are deducted from your share.

What does it mean when a practice will not say how many technicians work a shift?

Usually that the answer is fewer than they would like. It is worth pressing, because technician turnover runs at 35% a year and a chronically short-staffed practice transfers that work to its associates.

How much leverage do I actually have as a candidate?

More than most candidates use. Vacancies averaging over fifteen months mean a practice that has interviewed you has already invested months in the search. Asking direct questions is not presumptuous in that context; it is what the market conditions permit.

Sources