Blog / Veterinary / Why an associate DVM vacancy takes fifteen months to fill
Why an associate DVM vacancy takes fifteen months to fill
AAHA's own survey data puts the average time to fill an associate DVM role at over fifteen months, and a credentialed technician role at almost thirteen. That is not a recruiting problem. It is a maths problem, and most practices are solving the wrong half of it.
- AAHA survey data puts average time to fill an associate DVM role at over 15 months and a credentialed technician role at almost 13 months.
- Practice turnover averages 29.7% — roughly double the 12–15% national average — with 35% for technicians and 44% for other support staff.
- AVMA recorded 19,500 veterinarian job openings in 2023, 22% up on 2021, and 58% of practices reported difficulty finding full-time vets in 2022.
- Replacing one associate is widely estimated at around 200% of annual salary — roughly $100,000 direct, rising past $400,000 once lost production and premium locum cover are counted.
- A fifteen-month vacancy is not primarily a sourcing failure; it is what happens when a shrinking candidate pool meets a hiring process built for a buyer's market.
The number, and what it is measuring
A 2022 AAHA industry survey put the average time to fill a vacant associate DVM role at more than fifteen months, and a credentialed technician role at almost thirteen.[1]
It is worth being precise about what that figure measures, because it is often quoted alongside much shorter numbers that measure something else entirely. Job-board statistics about "days to fill" count how long an advert is live. The AAHA figure is practice-reported and covers the real cycle: the vacancy opening, the search, the offers that fall through, the notice period, and the ramp to productivity.
That is the number that appears in your accounts.
Why the pool is smaller than it looks
Three figures explain most of it.
Demand is rising. AVMA recorded 19,500 veterinarian job openings in 2023, up 22% on 2021.[3] BLS projects 10% employment growth between 2024 and 2034, described as much faster than the average across occupations, with roughly 3,000 openings a year.[4]
Supply is not keeping pace. The graduate pipeline is growing, but not at 22% every two years.
Most practices are competing for the same candidates. 58% of practices reported difficulty finding full-time veterinarians in 2022.[3] When more than half the market is struggling with the same thing, it is a structural condition rather than a local failure.
The practical consequence: a candidate actively looking has options, and the practice that moves fastest and communicates most clearly usually wins them — not necessarily the one that pays most.
The turnover figure is worse than the DVM figure
AAHA puts average annual turnover across veterinary practices at 29.7%, against a national average of 12–15% — roughly double.[1] Broken down:
| Role | Annual turnover |
|---|---|
| Associate veterinarians | 20% |
| Practice managers | 13% |
| Technicians | 35% |
| Other support staff | 44% |
The associate figure is the one practices watch. It is not the one doing the damage.
At 35% technician turnover, a practice is rebuilding a third of its clinical support every year. Every departure moves work up onto the associates — restraint, induction, client communication, records. An associate covering technician duties is an expensive associate having a worse day, and this is one of the most reliable precursors to the associate leaving too.
Which produces the loop that actually explains fifteen-month vacancies:
- A technician leaves and is not replaced quickly
- Associates absorb technician work
- Associate throughput falls and frustration rises
- An associate resigns
- The practice now has a fifteen-month hole and a thinner support team to survive it
- Which makes the next technician's job worse
The associate vacancy is frequently a symptom. Practices that only measure DVM turnover are watching the wrong end of the sequence. AAHA's retention work points the same way: the reasons people give for leaving are overwhelmingly about workload, support and culture rather than pay.[2]
What the vacancy actually costs
Industry estimates put the cost of replacing an associate at around 200% of annual salary.[6] The components:
| Component | Notes |
|---|---|
| Direct replacement | Recruiting, advertising, agency or search fees, interview time |
| Lost production | The largest line. Fifteen months of appointments not happening |
| Premium relief cover | Necessary, but priced above salaried equivalent |
| Onboarding ramp | Several months before a new associate is at full throughput |
| Knock-on turnover | The hardest to attribute and often the most expensive |
Estimates run from roughly $100,000 counting only direct replacement to $400,000 or more with everything included.[6]
Set against that, relief cover looks cheap rather than extravagant. At $800 a day for a vet seeing 15 appointments, cover runs about $53 per appointment against $150–$400 of appointment revenue.[5] The relevant comparison is not relief cover versus a salaried associate — it is relief cover versus the appointment not happening, which is the actual alternative.
What shortens it
Four things, in order of how reliably they work.
1. Publish the compensation range. The single cheapest change available. In a candidate-short market, an undisclosed salary filters out the candidates with the least slack — often exactly the recent graduates carrying significant debt who most need to know before investing three interviews. Practices that withhold the range are not protecting negotiating position; they are shortening their own shortlist.
2. Compress the process. Count the elapsed days in your current hiring process from first contact to offer. If it exceeds two weeks, you are losing candidates to practices that decided faster. In this market speed is a competitive advantage that costs nothing.
3. Fix technician retention first. At 35% turnover, this is where the leverage is. Improving technician retention makes the associate role materially better, which shortens the DVM search and reduces the chance of needing to run it again. It is also cheaper per head than DVM recruiting.
4. Route the role to people who know the field. A recruiter who has worked in practice can tell the difference between a DACVIM candidate and a general practitioner with an interest, knows why an associate would leave a particular corporate group, and can have a credible conversation about caseload. A generalist recruiter sending unscreened CVs adds latency rather than removing it.
One thing that does not work: waiting. The market has moved in one direction for three years. A role that has been open twelve months will not fill in month thirteen because of persistence.
Verified roles, worked by specialists — Every job order on PayRecruiter is verified with the practice before any recruiter sees it, and it goes to Talent Partners who have worked in veterinary practice. Multiple specialists working one role in parallel is a different proposition from one recruiter's queue.
The six-question review
Worth running on any vacancy older than three months.
- Is the compensation range on the listing? If not, why not?
- How many elapsed days from first contact to offer in our last three hires?
- What is our technician turnover, and when did we last calculate it?
- Are associates currently doing technician-level work? How many hours a week?
- Is the rota gap covered by relief, or absorbed by the remaining associates?
- If we asked the last three people who declined why they declined, would we already know the answer?
If question six makes you uncomfortable, that is usually the cheapest place to start.
The one-line version
Fifteen months is the market, not your recruiting. The levers that move it are publishing the range, deciding faster, and fixing technician retention — and the third one is the reason the vacancy exists in the first place more often than practices expect.
Common questions
How long does it actually take to fill an associate DVM role?
AAHA survey data puts the average at over 15 months. That is a practice-reported figure covering the whole cycle — from the vacancy opening to a new associate being productive — not the time a job advert sits live.
Why is veterinary turnover so much higher than other industries?
Average practice turnover is 29.7% against a 12–15% national average. The concentration is in support roles — 35% for technicians and 44% for other staff — which means the associate turnover figure of 20% understates the disruption a practice actually absorbs.
What does it really cost to replace an associate?
Estimates cluster around 200% of annual salary. The direct replacement cost alone is roughly $100,000; once you add lost production during the vacancy, premium relief cover, recruiting fees and the onboarding ramp, figures above $400,000 are defensible.
Is the shortage getting better?
Not yet. AVMA recorded 19,500 openings in 2023, up 22% on 2021, and BLS projects 10% employment growth for veterinarians between 2024 and 2034 — much faster than average. Demand is growing faster than the graduate pipeline.
Should we use relief cover while the role is open?
Almost always yes, and the reason is retention rather than revenue. An uncovered rota gap is absorbed by the associates who remain, and that is the mechanism by which one vacancy becomes two.
Does paying more actually shorten the search?
It helps, but stating the range publicly helps more. In a candidate-short market the practices that move fastest are the ones that remove friction from their own process — and an undisclosed salary is friction that filters out exactly the candidates who cannot afford to waste three interviews.