This Week on the Uncharted Podcast…
Jason Szumski, a soon-to-be new grad c/o 2023, joins Dr. Andy Roark to share some research on what new graduating veterinary students are looking for in a first job hire and to answer the burning question so many independent veterinary practices have: “How do I even compete to hire new grads?!” Let's get into this episode!
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Episode Transcript
This podcast transcript is made possible thanks to a generous gift from Banfield Pet Hospital, which is striving to increase accessibility and inclusivity across the veterinary profession. Click here to learn more about Equity, Inclusion & Diversity at Banfield.
Andy Roark:
Hey, Stephanie Goss. You got second to talk about GuardianVets?
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah, whatever you want to talk about.
Andy Roark:
Man, I hear from people all the time that are overwhelmed because the phones never stop ringing and I'm sure you hear from these people as well. Our caseload is blowing up and the doctors are busy and the phones just don't stop.
Stephanie Goss:
They never stop. That is a true story.
Andy Roark:
I'm amazed by how few veterinarians know about GuardianVets. This is a service where you have registered technicians who can jump in virtually and help you on the phones. You can flip the switch and GuardianVets can jump in and take some of the load off the front desk and they can handle your clients and get them booked for your appointments and give them support and it really is a godsend.
Stephanie Goss:
Pre-pandemic, it was amazing to me how many people hadn't heard about it for after hours call help. But at this point, I can't believe how many people don't realize that they are offering help during the daytime as well, which I would think right now is a huge benefit to practices because everybody is shorthanded. Everybody is drowning in phone calls and so we talk about it. We've talked about GuardianVets a lot on the podcast and every time we do, we always get somebody who says, “What is that?”
Andy Roark:
Guys, if you're not familiar with GuardianVets, if you think that you could use some help on the phones or at the front desk, check them out. It's GuardianVets.com. And if you mention our podcast, me and Stephanie Goss, you get a month free, so check it out, GuardianVets.com.
Welcome, everybody, to the Uncharted Veterinary Podcast. I am your host, Dr. Andy Roark. Stephanie Goss is not getting to do the introduction this week. Oh, no, I get to do this. In fact, Stephanie Goss isn't even on this episode. I am talking to a good friend of mine, a young almost doctor that I am so proud of and I am so pleased to mentor. He is someone that I expect amazing, outstanding things from in this profession. And I am so thrilled to have him here to talk about a question that a lot of people ask me. “How do I hire new grads, Andy? How do I even compete with the big dollars and the big budgets that are out there? How do I even get access to these people when other groups are able to go straight into the vet school? What do I do?” I have a magnificent fourth-year veterinary student who has got his thumb firmly on the pulse of the vet students in the United States and he knows the stuff and he's got some research he's going to unpack for us on what vet students want in their first job. It's a really good episode. It's really fun. You guys are going to really fall in love with Jason, if you have not heard him before. He is really amazing. But anyway, guys, that's enough. Let's get into this episode.
Meg:
And now the uncharted podcast.
Andy Roark:
Welcome to the podcast. Jason Szumski, how are you, my friend?
Jason Szumski:
I'm doing great. How are you, Dr. Roark?
Andy Roark:
Man, I'm good. It's good to see you again. For those who don't know you, which is probably, let's be honest, that's probably most people because you're just getting started. You are a fourth year vet student at Illinois College of Vet Medicine. You are the current class of 2023. You are the class president. You have been the VBMH chapter president at Illinois. You did an externship with me, which is super rare, because I quit doing those a long time ago, but you just wore me down, to be honest, and finally convinced me to take you on. And so you came and you stayed with me at my house with my kids and my wife and then helped me put on the Uncharted Conference back in April, and so you and I know each other really well. I am super glad to have you here because I have some questions that I have gotten through the Uncharted mailbag that I think that you're the guy to answer. Are you ready?
Jason Szumski:
I'm ready. Let's rock and roll. I'm glad to see you too, and thanks for having me.
Andy Roark:
Oh, man. My pleasure, my pleasure. Well, you actually, not only having you on the podcast, you are definitely the first veterinary student who's ever going to speak at an Uncharted Conference and so you've got that coming up, which is going to be pretty … No pressure. No pressure at all. We're definitely not going to do this again if you drop the ball.
Jason Szumski:
Right. Yeah, no pressure on that one.
Andy Roark:
But yeah, I'm sure you'll be fine.
Jason Szumski:
Yeah. I'm ready to rock and roll. It's going to be great.
Andy Roark:
It won't end your career before it starts. It will just cripple it if it goes badly.
Jason Szumski:
I can't wait. It's going to be a blast.
Andy Roark:
It's going to be great. All right, sweet. Here's what I got for you. Here's what you're talking about. At the GSD Conference in October, you are doing a presentation on effectively recruiting graduates from med school. And what I want to talk to you about was the number of questions that I get from frustrated, independent practices, small business owners, who say, “I don't know how to talk to vet students or how to get them to even look at us because there's so much noise and there are bigger companies that have big budgets and I just don't feel like there's any chance in the world that we can recruit a new graduate to our practice.” That just doesn't seem right to me, so let me go ahead. I'm going to open this up broadly and can you just speak at a high level, looking around, class of 2023, what do you think are the main concerns that new graduates have? What are they looking for in an employer?
Jason Szumski:
Right. Yeah, that's the question, right? And as a little guy, it's hard to compete with these offers that the corporate groups are offering, right? They can offer, they have deep pockets and big budgets. And so really, we wanted to try to figure out … I put a survey together, me and a classmate of mine, Natalie Whalen and now Dr. Aaron Kaplan over at Virginia, Maryland, put together a survey that just asked people, what are you expecting from an employer as a new grad and then a ranking system. What do you rank these things? We talked about schedule flexibility, corporate versus private, continuing education loans, location, the number of vets, the benefits, the salary, and the mentorship and then we had everyone rank it. We got 300 responses from four different schools around the country, so we have a good base of what we wanted to do and the results were overwhelming. Everyone wants mentorship. By far, the number one thing that people requested was mentorship. And that's not breaking news to anybody, but what is mentorship, and that's different. That's person by person and that's why I think it's different.
Andy Roark:
Well, I was writing that down as my next follow up question. What is mentorship, because we throw this word around all the time. And I got to be honest, from a practitioner standpoint, it's super frustrating because vet students are like, “I want mentorship.” And you're like, “What does that mean?” And they're like, “I don't know.” I want to go through the rest of this list and then we're going to come back and I want to crack into mentorship with you a little bit, because I want to try to figure out what people mean when they say that and how to ask questions so I can figure out what they're saying when they say they want mentorship. So mentorship, number one with a bullet, what else did you come back with?
Jason Szumski:
Sure, so mentorship, by far, number first, the first thing that people asked for. And then number two, three, and four were pretty variable. I'd say upwards of 80% of people wanted mentorship as number one. Benefits and salary are number two and three, but not a close number two and three. It's mentorship, by far number one. And we also broke it down by class to see which class wants mentorship more than other classes and it's pretty interesting. There's a huge jump from second year to third year, where people are starting to realize mentorship is really important. When they start to get those looks for jobs and they're starting to break down the barrier, it was a huge jump.
Andy Roark:
Well, the clinical rotation part, too. When you're doing textbook work, when you're taking exams like you've always taken, you're like, “I got this.” And then when you actually have to stand in the room, you're like, “Oh, I don't got this.” Yeah. I think it makes a lot of sense to me that you would see this increase at that time.
Jason Szumski:
Right. Yeah, until you're standing next to your first spay in junior surgery, you don't realize how important having someone that can help you out that knows what they're doing is, right?
Andy Roark:
Yeah. It's a security blanket.
Jason Szumski:
Exactly, a security blanket, and that's one of the many things that we saw, was what people wanted in mentorship and it's very, very different, which was great. That was one of the questions we asked. What is mentorship?
Andy Roark:
Okay. Before we get into that, let's tease out the other two that are easy, so benefits and salary. What are you seeing as far as benefits and salary? I know the students talk. I think that there are some things that vets underestimate and there's some things that vets wildly overestimate. Can you talk to me just in general, broad terms about that? When vet students say benefits, what do they care about? What are the things that seem to impress people or that seem to make a difference?
Jason Szumski:
Right. And right now, most benefits packages that I'm seeing are pretty similar. I mean, you talk about health, you talk about disability insurance, you talk about liability insurance. I include CE in benefits. Some people put it separate and say they want a different CE balance, but I think that's included in benefits there. And those are the kinds of things that are looking for. PTO is a big one. Right now, there's three job openings per vet student, so the market is crazy for vet students right now and vet students know that if they want a couple extra days off per year, they're going to ask for that, so those are the kinds of things that they're asking for in terms of benefits. PTO and CE are really important right now. Those are the two of the bigger ones.
Andy Roark:
Yeah. That totally makes sense. All right. And then salaries, I'm assuming that you see pretty broad variation, depending on where people are going to go practice.
Jason Szumski:
Yeah. It's definitely dependent on where they're practicing and what they're practicing. I mean, mixed animal veterinarians will make a little bit less, but as I heard on an earlier episode with you, we're breaking the six figure mark pretty standardly now. And then I know it's different from even the last couple years, but most of vet students coming out are expecting an offer to be at or around six figures right away.
Andy Roark:
Yeah. That's what I'm seeing as well so yeah, I think that's definitely a trend. I think that's good for veterinarians. I think it's good for practitioners. I think it's where we're going. I think a lot of vets, a lot of practices get stuck in their head and they're like, “Well, why do these people make more money coming out of school than I ever made coming out of school?” And you go, “That's not an important question. That doesn't help you at all.” The question you need to ask yourself right now is, “This is what's happening. What are we going to do about it?” Not should we adapt, but how do we adapt? How do we make these things happen so we can be competitive?
Well, let's give the answer to that. Let's start to tap into mentorship because if you've got 80, 85% of vet students saying this is the number one thing for me and putting it over salary and benefits, well then obviously, this is a differentiator. And one of the things I think is really great, it actually makes me really happy as an entrepreneurial, optimistic, innovative person, is to say, “I think this is great,” because I think this is where individual practices can shine. I think this is where you show your culture and your values. I think it's where you can make up a lot, as far as dollars and cents, by giving people safety guidance feeling, that they're going to be brought up, grown, and developed. I think that's worth a lot more than dollars, once you hit a certain dollar threshold for sure. And so what is your take when we start to talk about mentorship, how it applies to different people? How do we crack this open, Jason? Are there broad categories that you think exist when people say mentorship? How do I start to get my arms around this concept?
Jason Szumski:
Sure. I think the number one most important thing that you can do with regards to mentorship is be flexible. Every single vet student that's coming out of school is different and their experience is different and what they want is different, so be flexible. Don't go in with the standard, “We're going to do hour appointments for the first six months and then half hour appointments after that.” Be flexible. Meet with your vet student weekly, biweekly. Get the get gauge on how they're doing comfortability wise. Do they want to move up? Do they want to see more sick patients? Do they want to see less sick patients because they're not comfortable yet? So those are the kinds of areas that you can really get a leg up, in terms of the competition and being flexible because you have that flexibility as a smaller practice to be able to leverage that.
We ask that question, what is mentorship? What does that mean to you? And we got so many different answers. Everyone answers it differently. And the great thing is that we have tons of ideas on how people are thinking. So some people like to walk through cases, just, “Hey, for the first three weeks, let's just walk through some cases. Let's make sure that I'm thinking about things correctly.” Like you mentioned earlier, the security blanket, “I know how to do things. I just want someone to be there in case something goes wrong.” And then after a little bit of time, you realize that you know what you're doing and that security blanket is less and less and less. Some people like that.
A big one, comfortability, asking questions, you have to be open to receiving questions from new grads. And I know that's time consuming, but that's what new grads want and they want to be able to, “Hey, I'm struggling with this lung pattern. Can you help me out and help me differentiate a couple of things that I'm looking at here,” and being able to, “Oh, of course. Let's go look at it right now,” is huge for vet students. That's what we're looking for. We're not looking for someone to do the cases for us. We're just looking for someone to help us along in areas that we're not super confident in quite yet.
Andy Roark:
Yeah. I'm working with a recent grad in practice right now and I think the world of her. I'm so I really like her a lot. I think she's going to be such a great doctor. And I was asking her recently, “So how are things going? Are you struggling with anything?” And she said, “Honestly, would you listen to me do some phone calls, because my phone calls take forever.” She's like, “I feel like I'm on the phone all the time and I don't know if I'm not doing it right. I don't know …” It was funny. I was talking to her. And so she's on the phone all the time or for a long period of time and she's like, “I can't get out of here. I'm on the phone all the time,” and she was asking me about it. And I said, “Yeah, I'll listen to your calls,” and we started going through it and talking through it together.
One of the things I think is fascinating is she thought that she was on the phone for a long time because she was slow. The truth is, I think the other doctors in this practice have been there for a long time and they have an established clientele. And so they get all these wellness appointments when people come in and say, “I want to see this doctor. I want to see this doctor.” And because she's the new doctor, she's picking up all the walk-ins and the emergencies and the people who are like, “I don't care, just get me in,” and that's just part of being a brand new grad. And so she's going, “Man, I'm spending so much time on the phone,” and I say, “But my friend, it's because you are doing these deep, hard cases,” and her whole day is full of sick things because she hasn't built a clientele yet, where she just has people asking for her to do wellness things.
I am overstating as far as her whole day, but you get the point of she thought she was not doing it right. But the truth is like, “No, no, you're doing fine and there's some dials we can turn and some nuts and bolts we can crank down,” but I was really impressed that she figured that out and said, “Well, this is what I think,” but now that we're going through it, I see that this is the pattern.
I say that just to your point of everybody's different and she does not want you to do the case for her. She's a very competent, impressive doctor. There's just stuff like that she goes, “Check me on this and make sure I'm not doing something wrong that's making these phone calls go on much longer than they should.” I think that's really insightful. Let me circle back around. Let's talk about some language here. Let's say that I'm a practitioner. I'm really trying to convince a new graduate to come and to be mentored and to grow in our practice and things. For a long time, there were practice management gurus who were saying, “You need to have a mentorship plan, a mentorship program.” I still agree with that to some point. You can't blow this off. You have to be serious about mentorship, but I think what you said really resonated with me before about, don't just say you're going to do hour long appointments because maybe that's not what I need or maybe I've seen that before.
People say for the first six months, hour long appointments, and there's a very gung-ho veterinarian who, six weeks in, is dying. And they're like, “Come on, You're killing me here. Let me do some things.” I think it's a balance, isn't it, of having a plan of saying, “This is how we're going to start out and we're going to have an assessment period in four to six weeks. And depending on how you feel, we're going to make some adjustments to that and it's going to grow with you.” I don't think I've ever heard that really laid out that clearly, but as you said that, it made a lot of sense to me. Does that sound correct in your ears?
Jason Szumski:
Exactly. And that's a great way and that's exactly what vet students look for and that's a great way for you to leverage your practice is, everyone should have a mentorship program and you should be advertising that you have a mentorship program, 100%. But what's within your mentorship program is what's really important and you have to be able to communicate that to the new vets, because if you look on ads on all those websites that have the ads, every single one of them's going to say mentorship, but what is that mentorship? So if you can articulate well what your mentorship program looks like … It's flexible. We meet weekly and talk about your goals and your comfort level and we go out to lunch and we talk about the cases that you had the previous day and make sure that you're comfortable with follow-ups and make sure that you're comfortable with your client communication or that your phone calls are taking too long and you want someone to overlook you there.
That's exactly what we're looking for and it's really flexible. So to have a super structured mentorship program, where every single new vet does the same thing, I don't think that's going work. I think that you should definitely make it flexible and adjust it as needed. Like you said, gung ho veterinarians are going to just take off and hit the ground running, but there are some people that need that reinforcement right away and that's okay, too. Some people just need that little extra, “You're doing great. Keep going. I'm here if you need me.”
Andy Roark:
Well, I think you just called out one of the real truths in all of this, is the talk is cheap. And every advertisement for a recent grad out there is going to say mentorship. We do mentorship. It's ubiquitous. Everybody says it. Most practices don't really have it. I have a strong suspicion that if you asked the practices, “Do you mentor your new grads?” and you recorded how many said they do, you would get a wildly different answer than if you went to those grads and said, “Do you feel that you were well mentored?” Those are just very, very different numbers, I think. I think a lot of us practices go, “Oh, no. They're getting what they need,” and the person is saying, “Hey, I'm really not being engaged this way.”
These are skills that were never taught to doctors in vet school. At no point in vet school coming through do they say, “This is how you're going to invest into new graduates when you are a seasoned doctor.” And of course, there's only so much time in vet school. How do you even teach that? Most of us are flying by the seat of our pants.
Let me give you a hard question here, Jason, and say let's pretend for a second that you have a vet practice and you are 3, 4, 5, 6 years out of school. You've got your own little startup now. You are trying to hire your second doctor or maybe your third doctor and you're talking to a new graduate and you say to them, “Hey, I'm really serious about mentorship.” And she looks at you and says, “Yeah, buddy, you and everybody else says that they're really serious about mentorship. What do you mean when you say that and how can I know that you are telling me the truth when you say this is important?” And so role play that scenario for me, Jason.
Jason Szumski:
Sure. I think first things first, if you are hiring a new grad so that you can get time off, you're hiring a new grad for the wrong reason and new grads will pick that up very quickly, very quickly. That is number one big red flag, as you're saying, “Oh, yeah. You're going to get all the time and whatever hours you want,” and then you leave, “I'm going to go on vacation because I have a new grad,” big red flag, so I'm going to make sure that I am very clear that I will be there as long as you need me there. And I know that can be frustrating, but in order to develop your practice and to get it bigger and better and to develop this new grad into someone that you're proud to have in your practice, you have to put in that time and effort, so I'm making that very clear.
And one other thing that you can do is not just new grads. You can get vet students in the door through externships during their first or second year. Especially like I talked about that jump from second to third year, that summer of your second to third year is a great time to get vet students in the door, bring them into your practice, let them see what the culture is like really before they're job hunting. Let them get used to who you are. Teach them, start to mentor them, give them little nuggets here and there about, “This is what I like to do in a surgery. Do you want to scrub in so that you can feel what an ovary feels like so that when you go into junior surgery, you're prepared for it?” Stuff like that really, really helps.
And one other thing that's a little bit small but it's really helpful, paid housing for externs. I mean, there's a lot of externs that would be like, “I'd love to go to your clinic, but I'm in so much debt right now that I can't afford to go to your clinic.” And if you pay for their housing and their travel, so many more vet students will flock your away. So that's just a little thing and it's not too much of a hit to the pocket, but that's a little thing that could definitely get a little bit of edge and get someone in the door.
Andy Roark:
And an Airbnb can be a good investment and probably pretty darn reasonable. It's just something that I think a lot of people don't think about, but that's the difference between me getting a student to come and not getting a student to come. That's a small price. That's some play money that I'm hoping pays off, but I can put it up, even if it doesn't work out.
I think you're you're spot on. I think your answer's really simple, as it stunned me in that way to say, “Well, the best way to convince them what you mean by mentorship is to get them in for two weeks and show them what you mean,” because talk is cheap. But if they came for two weeks and they said, “Oh, he's really easy to ask questions to and he sticks around and he walks me through cases and he lets me try things and he does and he doesn't get irritated when I ask him questions. He's open and happy and genuinely makes me feel comfortable asking him,” that's really smart. And again, it's so simple and I go, “Oh, that sounds right.” I was waiting for some, “Okay. Well, you show them this and you tell them that.” And they're like, “No, you just get them to come for two weeks and then do what you're going to do and then they see it,” that makes a ton of sense.
Jason Szumski:
Exactly.
Andy Roark:
Hey guys, I just want to jump in here real fast and give a shout out to Banfield, the pet hospital, for making our transcripts available. That's right. We have transcripts for the Cone of Shame Vet Podcast and the Uncharted Veterinary Podcast. You can find them at drandyroark.com and at unchartedvet.com. This is part of their effort to increase inclusivity and accessibility in vet medicine. We couldn't do it without them. I got to say thanks. Thanks for making the content that we put out more available to our colleagues. Guys, that's all I got this time. Let's get back into this.
Talk to me a little bit about externships. How do you think that vet students become aware of externships? How can veterinarians, who are like, “Hey, I am totally open to having a student for an externship. I think I would have a good program,” how do that students find these programs?
Jason Szumski:
Sure. And as a completely separate survey, I wanted to get the gauge of what my graduating class before me was doing, how they found their first job, and answers were widely different. No one found their first job the same, so there's no real way that these are what the good people are doing. The best thing that I can say is get into schools and talk to students, whether it's through clubs, like the VBMA. We at Illinois, our VBMA brings in speakers all the time and our goal is to set up students and speakers together, students that like speakers, speakers that like students, and then get them matched like that. So you can go into schools, give a little lunch lecture, buy some lunch for some students, get your name, your foot in the door, and get those students thinking about you.
That's a great way to get your foot in the door and get some students to come see. And then once your foot's in the door and you have these students interested in you and your clinic, you can bring them in for that externship. And when I talk about externships, I'm just talking about one to two weeks, get them in your clinic, let them do some things, make them think like a doctor, but support them. Those are great things that you can do and during that summer is the perfect time to do it. Bring out a vet student for a week, pay for their housing, and show them what your clinic's all about. And if they're a good fit for you and you guys will hit it off and they'll be looking to come back.
And at the end, this is big and so small. Again, these are just small little things that are really helpful. Make sure you tell them how you feel. If you really enjoyed them, tell them that you enjoyed them and that you would really like the opportunity to continue moving forward and talking. Make sure you are saying those things out loud, because you might think, “Oh my gosh, that student was awesome,” and you're telling the whole hospital how great it was, but unless you tell the student that, they don't know that you're thinking that. And they might think, “Oh my gosh, that one answer I missed, he probably doesn't even want to think about me anymore.” But if you say, “Hey, you did a great job. I really enjoyed you. Let's keep this conversation going,” great way to get in the door there.
Andy Roark:
Yeah. Recruiting is a lot like dating, I found out early in my life, and everybody wants to be wanted. That is a huge thing. I have been really blessed and lucky in my career for making fantastic hires. And you know this from working with the Uncharted team, I have great, great people that work for me. And I go, “Man, that's been amazing.” The greatest strategy that I have had is going to those people and saying, “I see your potential. I see what you do well. I want you to be on our team and this is why I want you to be here with us.” It's an approach that has always worked for me and it comes from the heart and I'm always honest.
But everyone, they love to have someone come up and say, “I see what you're good at. I see your potential. I see how well you work here. I see what your talents are and you're going to fit well here and I would be really happy to have you.” That sounds so simple again, but man, it really does make a big difference. And especially you've got vet students coming in and they're a bit insecure in their talents and they want to work with someone who wants them to be there. Not just tolerates them being there, not who says, “Ah, we really need a vet and yeah, you're a new grad, but I mean, we're going to take the long view and hope this pays off.” Man, that's not attractive. That's not the dating opening that you want, like, “Ah, you're a six, but I'm pretty desperate and we'll see if this works out.” That's not what you want.
Jason Szumski:
Exactly. Red flag. Those are the red flags we're talking about.
Andy Roark:
Red flag. Red flag. Yeah. I think that totally makes sense to me. I love the ideas of getting into the vet schools. That does make sense. I love that you mentioned some specific ways that people can get in there. More and more of the vet schools are having job fairs. Have you seen these? Have you attended some of the vet school job fairs?
Jason Szumski:
I have. That's another great way. A lot of our vet school fairs are within our state. So people travel down for the day, meet tons of vet students, and these can be … Make sure that you're open and clear that you're looking for first and second years to do externships. That's a great way. But yes, of course, meet with the fourth years and try to get them to come to your clinic too, but those first and second years and upcoming third years are great people to recruit to come check out your clinic as well and that's a great way to get your foot in the door and get an initial conversation going. That's an excellent point too, Dr. Roark.
Andy Roark:
So you've seen these, and I know you and I have talked about them before a little bit in the past. Give me a quick prep run through what I should do to be ready to come to these job interviews because everyone thinks of them like speed dating. They seem super awkward. They're really intimidating, because you're like, “I'm going to go talk to these people and they're not going to want to hear about my little practice.” I think we get up in our heads and there's a lot of insecurity about having these conversations.
I think the point you already made about one really great play is going there not trying to hire someone that you just met in this awkward environment, going and trying to get them to come for a week, come up and just check out our practice, see what I'm doing. Come for a weekend. Come up, work Friday afternoon and spend a Saturday with me and just see what we do.
Again, I go back to dating. I keep going back to dating. It's really a great analogy, I think, as far as how you build relationships is. You don't ask someone to go on vacation with you the first time you meet them. Ask them to go to lunch and just, “Can we get some coffee?” That's basically what we're trying to do here. It's just too weird to, I think, walk these places and say, “Hey, you never heard of me. I've got a three vet practice 200 miles from here. Want to come and spend years of your life there?” It seems like too much of a jump for me. So beyond that, beyond smaller starting point, other advice that you have for people going in here? What do they need to have in their mind? Are there things that can bring with them that students actually find value and are going to take away, they're going to consider? Anything like that?
Jason Szumski:
Sure. And now that you've heard this students are looking for mentorship. You could hit them hot with something about your mentorship program right away. “Come out. Hey, this is how we train our new grads. This is what we like to do for new grads.” And understand that yes, you're going there as a small practice a little bit insecure, but these students are also a little bit insecure. They're nervous that they're not going to find the right first job. They're nervous that they're just going to be another number. Let them know that they're valued and that you would really appreciate the time to bring them into your clinic. And that you have a great mentorship program and that this is what it looks like and you can have examples of …
And another great way is if you are, I know some of the one doctor practices, it's a little bit harder, but if you do have a new doctor that you did mentor, bring them with, too. Have a little two person attack. “Hey, this is my mentee. Ask them whatever you want to ask them.” And then there you go. Now your mentee is talking about, “Oh yeah, he had a great mentorship program. I'm two years out and now I can do spays in 15 minutes and I'm starting to do cystotomies and I'm doing this and my client communication is … And it's all thanks to him.” And then now I'm like, “Wow. That's awesome. I've seen that firsthand that you do know how to mentor someone and that you have mentored someone and that it worked well enough to the point where they're coming with you to these job fairs.” So mentorship, we've talked about it the whole time, but it's so, so, so important to vet students right now. And the imposter syndrome is so real in vet students and making sure that you're acknowledging those feelings and making them feel comfortable, that's a huge, huge way to start.
Andy Roark:
Yeah. That totally makes sense. It's funny you say that. I think bringing another doctor that you've had that you have mentored along, I think it's a great idea. It's funny. When you were saying that, I was thinking about it. It feels like testimonials could be really valuable. So for example, if you had a doctor who was mentored, even if you just said, “Hey, is there a testimonial that we could say …” If I'm going to do a leave behind say, “Hey, Dr. Soandso, hey, I started my job here. It was the best decision I've made. I really got this great mentorship,” I think that's awesome.
If you have vets in your practice, this is the only job they ever had, so they came as a new graduate and they've stayed along, I think featuring those doctors, talking to those doctors, bringing those doctors along if you can, to say, “Hey, I got what I needed here. I grew here. I really felt very good about how I was supported,” I think that stuff is irreplaceable. There's nothing else other than them actually coming and participating, that I think works that well, so all of that totally makes sense to me.
Let's see. Anything else? I think that makes a ton of sense as far as resources, setting these things up. The last thing I want to ask you is, what pitfalls should vet practices look out for? What are the things that you have seen, don't name names, for God's sakes, don't name any names, but what are things that you have either seen or have heard that are mistakes that practices have made to try to recruit new graduates?
Jason Szumski:
Sure. Yeah. I mean, that's a tough one. I say this out loud because some people just need to hear it and be like, “Oh, yeah. That's obvious,” but I say this because it's not that obvious because I've heard stories of these things happening, where you are leaving the new grad alone, you jump into a room by yourself and say, “Oh, I don't know where the vet student went. I'm just going to hop into a room.” And now they're standing in the treatment area and they don't know anyone else because it's their first day and they don't want to step on anyone's toes but they want to be helpful, but they know that there's no liability insurance for them and now the vet is gone and now things are awkward and you're just waiting for them. So make an effort to grab the vet student and bring them into the rooms and engage them in these conversations and supervise them when you can because especially on that first day, that is a tough day.
I struggle with first days myself because I'm like, “Oh my gosh, I don't want to step on anyone's toes but I want to be helpful. How do I balance that? I want to make sure that people know who I am, but I don't want to come off overbearing and I don't want to waste people's time.” So grab these students and bring them in and then as they get more comfortable, they can start to spend a little bit more time here, spend a little bit more time here. But for those first couple days, grabbing those students and making them a part of what you're doing and making an effort to make them feel included is super valuable.
And it's way too often I just feel like I'm too busy to have a vet student follow me. If they're not with me, I'm just jumping in the room. And I'm like, “This is a person that you're going to mentor, but you can't even bring them into a 30 minute appointment?” Those are not good things to do. That's, again, just a little thing that you bring a vet student, you grab them, you bring them in the room with you not, physically grab them, but make sure that they're with you and that they know what's going on.
Andy Roark:
I just get them.
Jason Szumski:
Yeah. I know you just grab them, but …
Andy Roark:
That's why they wear white coats, just so you can just snatch them.
Jason Szumski:
Exactly. Exactly, so that's just a good one.
Andy Roark:
I think you're right. Well, I think one of the things I've seen work really well in that regard is you don't have to go this alone as the mentor either. Bring the students in. Get your techs on board, say, “Hey, don't let this person stand around without knowing what to do or where to go. If you see them, if I run off into a room or something and you see them, bring them to where I am. I want them to be there. I might have to run off and they're doing something else where I don't know where they are. When you see them, bring them to where I am. I'll introduce them and get them right back in.”
The other thing is mentorship doesn't have to be a one on one game, and I think a lot of people say that. “Well, there's a mentor and there's a mentee.” And I go, “Well, yes and no.” I think that there's value in young doctors working with multiple other doctors. I don't think that I am the one who has to teach this doctor everything. I think that working with me is great. Working with the other doctors around our practice are great. I think where people make a mistake is they don't have that clear communication with the other doctors or with the support staff about, “Hey, would you help me with this? Would you support the mentorship program? Would you be willing to take this person? And this is generally what I'm looking for,” because a lot of times people will turn to you. I mean, I remember being an associate doctor early on and somebody would be like, “Hey, we got a new grad coming. Will you mentor them?” And I'm like, “I have no idea what that means.” And it would've been really nice to say, “Hey, would you be willing to take them into the rooms with you? Make sure they know what's going on, show them what you're looking at. Walk them through these processes. Just make them feel comfortable.” Just make sure they have other people that they can turn and talk to and ask questions to, not the one person.
We've all said, and I don't know about you, I feel like I've been this person a million times, of the lost puppy who has exactly one contact and that person disappears and I'm just looking around and the techs are looking at me like, “What is this man doing standing in the back in the back of the building? I don't think he's supposed to … Sir, did you get lost?”
It can be a team game. I think a lot of people get really overwhelmed. They go, “I don't have time to mentor a person.” Well, great. You need to pull three other doctors together and you guys all get coordinated on this and tag team it and pass the person around and do a half day each for two days and they're going to cycle through and you're going to have them for half a day. Then you're going to see how that goes and then we're going to modify as we go along. It's doesn't have to be everything on one person, but I really do.
As a busy doctor, I can empathize with the people who disappear and go, “Look, I got to go,” but that's a bad, bad investment choice for sure. All right. Any final pearls, Jason? Anything that you feel like people really need to get right? Anything that you think are keys to success that people might need to hear one more time?
Jason Szumski:
Sure. I think also one of the things that you can do for mentors is if they're volunteering their time to take on a new grad, give them a little bump in pay. Make sure that they know that their time is worthwhile, so just a little something actually that you can do there. And like I said, this is all about building relationships. Get that foot in the door, build a relationship with these students, make sure that you're in it for the right reasons because if you're not in it for the right reasons, then the vet students are going to pick that out and that's not going to get into a good situation.
So make sure that you're in it for the right reasons, you're in it because you want to develop your practice. You want this new grad to have a great clientele in the area. You want your practice to be more profitable and you know how to develop your new grad. Take that time to do that. Build that relationship with that new grad starting in early year, especially that second to third year jump. That's a huge time where people start to really value that mentorship. Get into schools, job fairs, clubs, give lunch lectures. You could even do little wet labs, where people can come to your clinic and do some supervised spays and neuters with your doctors and those are things that can get people in the door, too.
So little things like that, and schedule flexibility. I mean when you're talking about mentorship, making sure everything is so flexible, you're checking in weekly, you're checking in biweekly. You're there if you need them. For the first couple weeks you and the new grad are on the same schedule. You're always there if you need them. Those are little things that the small guys can do that cost no money that give you a huge leg up.
Andy Roark:
Yeah. That's the last thing that I would add to this, and this is a philosophical thing, but I think it's really important. I understand when this happens. I feel like a lot of vets are overwhelmed and they're like, “Oh, we really need this help,” and they think about themselves and they think about getting someone in who can help them and help their business, and I think that's very understandable. We all know how people can get in that mentality, but it's almost this weird paradoxical trick.
If you can get past that mindset into the more Buddhist zen way of thinking, if you can really convince yourself that, “I want to hire this person because I want to work with good people and I want to grow this person and I understand that this person might outgrow our practice. They might work with us for three years and then go on.” And rather than being resentful of that or saying, “Oh, I really messed up because I had them here for two years or three years or four years and then they left,” if you can say, “I had this person here. I'm going to be proud of the time that they were with us and I'm going to feel that we did right by them and supported them in the three years that they were here,” and who knows what's going to happen in life?
We've all had spouses that got new jobs and we moved or we've had family members get sick or we've had just our general life change. I don't think you can hire someone with the idea, and I think a lot of people do and I think it's a big mistake. I think it's a mistake to hire someone with the idea that you are going to have them for 20 years. And if you don't have them for 20 years, then they somehow let you down or this was some a failure. I don't think there's anything productive in that. I don't think that's the way the world works anymore.
I think you should hire somebody because you want to work with them, because you want to grow them, because you think that you can help them and they can help you and know that they might move on at some point and you need to be okay with that. And honestly, you should feel good about that because you can feel bad about it. The outcome is still exactly the same. It's only how you feel and how you perceive this. And what I found, though, the crazy thing is that when you decide that you are taking this long view and you're just going to do your best and try to hope that it works out and you're going to feel good about it, often you end up with a much more positive, healthy, happy relationship, and the person's more likely to end up staying around. It's funny the way that works.
The last thing I would say is, I brought this up a number of times. Whenever I'm talking with Stephanie on the podcast, I'll talk about the cartoon. There's this cartoon I've seen and it's got two veterinarians and one of them looks at the other and says, “Well, what if we train these people and they leave?” And the other one says, “What if we don't train them and they stay?” And I think that's true too, so I think about that a lot as far as investing into new talent. Jason, thank you so much for being here, man. I really appreciate you.
Jason Szumski:
Yeah, of course. I'm glad I got to hang out with you and I'm really looking forward to your October conference, where we can dive deeper into this and really figure out what new grads want.
Andy Roark:
That's right. Guys, October 6th through the 8th is our Get Sh*t Done Shorthanded Conference. Get Sht Done Shorthanded. It means recruiting people too, and that is going to be one of the things that we're going to be talking about. We've got workshops. Jason is running a workshop for us. We'll have discussion groups. We'll have all sorts of things to make your life easier if you're feeling overwhelmed. So block your time off at the clinic and it's virtual, but you can do a little clinic time and then get in and work with us in the day. So anyway, guys, take care of yourself. Jason, thank you again for being here. I cannot wait to see you in October.
Jason Szumski:
Can't wait. It's going to be a blast.
Andy Roark:
And that is our show, guys. I hope you enjoyed it. Hope you got something out of it. Like I said, if you haven't registered for the Get Sh*t Done Shorthanded Virtual Conference, it is October 6th through the 8th. Get more information at unchartedvet.com. Check it out. You're going to want to block some time on your schedule at the clinic because you don't want to multitask. You're going to want to be a part of this because our conferences are super interactive. Jason's running the workshop for us on hiring new grads. It's going to be really discussion based. You're going to hear a lot more than you heard here today and there's going to be other practitioners that are talking about what they do and it's going to be really an awesome time. Don't want to miss it. Guys, thanks again for being here. Be well. Talk to you later on. Bye.
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