Talent Shortage Poses Unique Challenges
The Australian veterinary industry has been experiencing a significant shortage of talent for a number of years. Market research shows that at any one point over the last 24 months there has been an average of 510 veterinarian vacancies across Australia. Vacancies in metro regions are open for an average of 129 days and regional vacancies are open for an average of 281 days.
Derek Del Simone, recruitment director, VetPartners Australia said, “The vet recruitment market in Australia is young — not much focus has been placed on marketing to and recruiting vets outside of local areas.”
Creative Talent Strategies & Technologies Staff Veterinary Clinics, Faster
Del Simone and his team developed a number of key talent acquisition strategies to address these challenges — and thus the company’s “Project Boomerang” and “Vets Abroad” campaigns were created. The Vets Abroad campaign targets those wanting to work a gap year abroad, or who are interested in a more permanent move to Australia or New Zealand. Project Boomerang allows the company to fulfill short-term placements of up to three months, appealing to those who are interested in short term assignments or gaining experience working in a different geographical region.
Del Simone shared, “When we launched these bold programs, I knew we needed to be equally bold with the technology used to support them. Ultimately, we wanted to reduce time to fill a vacant position and ensure our hospitals and hiring managers were satisfied with the recruitment solution we offered.”
VetPartners Turns to Outmatch to Deliver a Competitive Recruiting Process without Sacrificing Quality
Del Simone said, “One of the areas in the process where our team was getting dragged down was reference checking. We turned to Outmatch to help us speed our recruiting process and meet our goals of reducing time to fill without sacrificing quality of hire or manager satisfaction.” “We’re in tough operating conditions in terms of candidate marketplace — a qualified vet will have 2-3 qualified offers within 7 days from sending out their resume — so speed and time is of utmost importance. We were slowing down our recruiting process considerably by spending too much time chasing references. Outmatch was our answer for a better, more efficient recruiting process,” said Del Simone.
VetPartners Results
Competitive Edge in a Tough Market
VetPartners’ Vets Abroad and Project Boomerang campaigns give them a distinct point of difference over the competition. In fact, Del Simone and his team were recently recognized by the Australian HR awards with a “Best Recruitment Campaign” award for these programs, giving them significant market recognition.
Higher Quality References and Improved Compliance
VetPartners’ reduction in time spent on reference checking has also given them a dramatic boost in the time it takes to fill tough positions. VetPartners is currently filling metro vacancies 39% faster than the industry average. They’re also able to fill regional vacancies a whopping 56% faster than industry averages, thanks to the improvements in efficiency with Outmatch.
“Now that we’ve reduced time to fill, our team can focus more time on sourcing candidates and filling these highly skilled positions. Once my team has identified a candidate as a potential future hire, we request their references through Outmatch, to help speed the process.”
Improved Hiring Manager Satisfaction
“Now, by the time the hiring manager interviews the candidate we put forth, they have their detailed Outmatch report that includes 3-4 detailed reference responses,” said Del Simone.
“Our hiring managers love Outmatch because a candidate’s scores are easily consumable in a graph format, and showcases a candidate’s skill set as well. Outmatch helps us to show candidate quality in a way that we couldn’t do before,” added Del Simone.
Outmatch’s reports have also helped steer a more meaningful conversation between candidates and hiring managers.
“Prior to Outmatch, we were only able to gather an average of two references. With Outmatch, we’ve increased the number of references per candidate to include managers, peers or mentors. The candidate feedback is stronger and more detailed, giving everyone involved in the recruiting process a broader spectrum of data to better inform hiring decisions,” added Del Simone.
