Top veterinary recruiters share the best interview questions to ask veterinarian candidates to gauge fit, skills, and expectations.
During an interview, it can be hard to know what to ask to get a good sense of the candidate & how they’ll fit into the team, especially when recruiting veterinarians who can have wide ranges of expertise and expectations coming into the interview.
Inversely, interviewing can be a daunting task, especially for veterinarians who will be tasked with helping lead a brand new team in a brand new practice culture. With flexible scheduling and hybrid roles now common across the profession, it also helps to ask questions that surface how a candidate actually wants to work, not just whether they are qualified.
To give you a starting point, we teamed up with some of the best recruiters in vet med to walk through their interview questions:
Essential Veterinarian Interview Questions:
These questions are pretty standard questions for any interview. With these questions, you should be able to uncover if, at a base level, expectations are aligned for this role.
| Question | Suggested by |
|---|
| What interested you in this position? | Sarah, Western Veterinary Partners |
| What do you feel will make you an excellent fit for this role? | Sarah, Western Veterinary Partners |
| What are you looking for in your new position? What is most important in your job hunt? | Katie, Rarebreed |
| What do you feel like you’re missing in your current position? | CareVet |
Motivator Veterinarian Interview Questions:
These questions dig deeper into what motivates & energizes the candidate. With these questions, you should be able to answer: do these motivations match our culture? Will this person be able to thrive here?
| Question | Suggested by |
|---|
| What energizes you to do your best work? | Sarah, Western Veterinary Partners |
| What would your ideal schedule look like? | Sarah, Western Veterinary Partners |
| Tell me about something you’re passionate about- it can be unrelated to this position/field. | Sarah, Western Veterinary Partners |
| Tell me about the best supervisor you ever had. What do you feel made that person so successful in their position? | Sarah, Western Veterinary Partners |
| What are some of your passions in the field? | Katie, Rarebreed |
| What are the top three things that you feel you excel at in the clinic? | Katie, Rarebreed |
| What are your key motivators? What drives you to do your best at work and motivates you to be the best veterinary professional you can be? | Katie, Rarebreed |
Growth Veterinarian Interview Questions:
These questions help uncover the candidate's career goals & aspirations. With these questions, you should be able to answer: will this person be able to grow & gain a sense of achievement in our practice?
| Question | Suggested by |
|---|
| How can the company/clinic support you in your career growth? | Katie, Rarebreed |
| What are some different tasks or procedures in the clinic you would like to work on and become more comfortable with? | Katie, Rarebreed |
| How can the team mentor and support you in an upcoming role? What would be an ideal mentorship situation look like? | Katie, Rarebreed |
| What are your future career goals? Where do you see yourself going in your career? | Katie, Rarebreed |
| How important is continuing education? | CareVet |
| What does mentorship look like to you? | CareVet |
| Do you have any special interests or anything you’d like to learn more about? | Sarah, Western Veterinary Partners |
Challenge Veterinarian Interview Questions:
These questions dip deeper into how the candidate handles conflict & problems. With these questions, you should be able to answer: how does this person handle conflict/hardship & does that align with the way we handle it in our practice?
| Question | Suggested by |
|---|
| What do you anticipate being the most difficult part of this position/what have you found to be the most challenging part of this position in your previous experience? | Sarah, Western Veterinary Partners |
| Tell me about a time that you had a difficult situation and how you overcame that - was the situation resolved? | Katie, Rarebreed |
| What actions do you take when coping with clients who are in distress? | Blue Pearl |
Position-Specific Veterinarian Interview Questions:
These questions are catered specifically to the veterinarian position. With these questions, you’ll get a better sense of why this position & if this candidate is up for the job.
| Question | Suggested by |
|---|
| What do you feel like you can contribute to this position that someone else might not be able to? | Blue Pearl |
| What do you value in an employer? | Blue Pearl |
| If you could create your perfect hospital environment, what would it look like? | CareVet |
| What type of environment do you want to be in to practice medicine? Examples of helpful information include team size, scheduling, equipment, technology, culture, people, operations, etc. | CareVet |
| What fills your DVM cup? Examples of helpful information include caseload, equipment, surgery, facility, etc. | CareVet |
| How can we help you hit your personal financial goals? | CareVet |