How OVG Cracked Rural Hiring and Added 3 DVMs

When you spend your days navigating a job market as tight as veterinary medicine, it’s easy to feel like you’re trying to hire on “hard mode.” But every so often, there's a moment—a spark—where everything just clicks. For O’Brien Veterinary Group (OVG), that moment happened on Hound.

This is the story of Toby Boeckman and Sarah Kudrak, two seasoned recruiting leaders who turned a notoriously difficult hiring landscape into a string of wins that changed the trajectory of their clinics.

The Humans Behind the Hiring

Toby Boeckman carries 14+ years of recruiting expertise, spanning technical staffing, executive search, consulting, and internal TA leadership. The last year and a half? Fully immersed in veterinary medicine: learning the rhythm, the challenges, and the heart of this profession.

Sarah Kudrak brings 12+ years of Talent Acquisition experience, including seven years at Charles River Laboratories building and leading TA teams. She started her career in consulting, recruiting across diverse industries before honing her craft in veterinary medicine.

Together, they make up OVG’s recruiting powerhouse.

Who OVG Is and Why They Needed a New Approach

O’Brien Veterinary Group owns and manages community veterinary practices across the U.S., often stepping in to relieve DVMs from the operational load that weighs heavily on small clinics. Many of their hospitals sit in rural communities where the need for veterinary care is high but available talent is limited.

They had the mission, the passion, and the practices. What they needed was reach.

Why Hound Entered the Picture

Hiring in rural markets is a challenge that can stump even the most experienced recruiters. Toby and Sarah needed:

• A bigger pipeline
• A way to reach candidates beyond traditional job boards
• A tool that didn’t require weeks of onboarding or training
• A platform built specifically for veterinary medicine

Hound checked every box.

“Hound gave us the opportunity to review profiles and post priority roles in the practices we manage. It also helped us build and refine our database of veterinary professionals,” they shared.

That combination of visibility, precision, and features specific to veterinary medicine was exactly what they needed.

First Impressions: Simple, Fast, Intuitive

For a team juggling dozens of open roles across multiple states, nothing matters more than speed.

Their first reaction to Hound?

“The user interface is simple and one of the easiest software to use. There was little to no training needed to get going.”

When software becomes invisible (when it just works) that’s when teams do their best recruiting.

The Results: Three DVM Hires, Countless Connections, and a Much Warmer Pipeline

2025 brought a milestone: three veterinarian hires directly through Hound.

For OVG, that wasn’t just a number. It was:

• Three clinics finally fully staffed
• Three communities gaining access to care
• Three DVMs stepping into roles where they felt confident and supported

One unexpected advantage? Hound’s transparency. When candidates viewed their employer profile, the OVG team received alerts which turned cold outreach into warm, contextual conversations.

“Notifications when candidates view our profiles transform initial outreach from a ‘cold call’ into a ‘warm call,’ substantially improving our response rates.”

For rural hiring especially, that’s a game changer.

And with messaging built directly into the platform, initiating conversations with job seekers felt natural and immediate.

The Human Side of the Partnership

When asked about working with Hound, Toby and Sarah didn’t hesitate.

“The product is great, but working with the people at Hound is better.”

For us at Hound, that’s the magic: when hiring stops being transactional and becomes collaborative. We’re in the trenches together. We build together. We win together.

Their Advice to Other Employers Using Hound

Their recruiting wisdom distilled?

• Lean into feedback: both giving it and asking for it
• Experiment with different messaging and approaches
• Understand that every role and region may require its own strategy

In other words: treat Hound like a living tool, not a static job board.

Magic Moments on the Platform

For OVG, the magic moments on Hound weren’t just the hires even though those were huge. It was the connections.

“The countless number of connections we have made with veterinary professionals and the hires we have made from the platform.”

And even when a role wasn’t filled? The brand affinity we built mattered.

Hound helped OVG show up consistently, confidently, and visibly so future candidates knew who they were long before hitting “apply.”

A Final Word

Hiring in veterinary medicine is hard, especially in rural communities where talent is limited and every open role impacts patient care. What makes the difference isn’t flashy tools or big promises, but systems that respect how people actually hire and how veterinarians and staff actually choose where they work.

When hiring feels more human, conversations happen faster, relationships form sooner, and the right matches last longer.

For teams ready to rethink how they connect with veterinary talent, there’s a better way forward.

Sign up for Hound and start hiring in a way that feels human again.