What is the hiring process like at VCA?

-Opportunity to gain exposure and basic experience, especially for entry-level roles. -Hiring process is relatively easy, which can be helpful for getting your foot in the door.

-Training and onboarding felt inconsistent; requests for guidance or additional training were often not supported. -Workplace culture felt unwelcoming at times, with noticeable cliques and a “high school” social dynamic. -Management appeared to show favoritism, which impacted morale and fairness in opportunities. -Staffing levels were frequently low, which added stress and limited support for new employees. -Collaboration and team support were lacking, making it difficult for new hires to succeed.

Decent pay and good benefits

Upper management less supportive over the past few years. Autonomy has been taken out of the hands of hospital managers. Too much focus on one number… labor, with no consideration for other factors. Current hiring freeze and you can’t even attempt to get an ad approved until you are struggling with staff shortage. This causes further staff loss as they all get more burnt out. So your labor looks good, but at the expense of good staff members, patient care, and client satisfaction.

Most of the staff very easy to get along with Fast-paced & busy er/GP hybrid practice Learn new things every day Management is easy to approach Not the worst job I’ve had

Work-life balance Not respecting set schedules Can be extremely exhausting On a hiring freeze but employees are being stretched thin

-The doctors & clinic staff at my hospital are top tier (though this is location dependent). -Online training videos are a great resource for someone brand new to the field. -Offer classes for CE or for anyone wanting to learn. -Discount on enrolling & taking classes at Penn Foster. -Employee discount is pretty nice, especially if you work with chill doctors. Although, most medications can be found cheaper elsewhere, even with your discount applied. Diagnostics are also still pretty pricey too.

-Extremely overpriced services, especially compared to other clinics in the area. -Frequent price increases (usually one every few months). -Even with the outrageous prices for services and frequent price increases, the pay is abysmal. -If you get a raise, it’ll only be a few cents once a year. -No raises based on knowledge or skill level. You’ll get hired on making the same if not less than a new hire with no experience & be expected to train them without a pay increase. -Company only cares about profits, not about staff, clients, patients, or anything else. -Doctors can’t practice best medicine due to prices being so outrageous for clients. -No opportunities for growth within the company. -Clinics are run off a skeleton crew. -New change has 30 minute appointments come in every 15 minutes for each doctor, and you’re expected to run everything without issue even though you had a skeleton crew beforehand. Also, no opportunities to hire new people or have current staff go into overtime to account for this. You and DVM’s are also expected to run rooms without issue or getting behind, hour long spots for clients known to take a long time aren’t allowed. When issues were brought up to regional manager, we were all gaslit by someone who has never worked in medicine their entire life. -All corporate higher-ups have never worked in a vet clinic, nor do they have any experience or understanding what it’s like. These same people are allowed to make the rules for how DVM’s can practice medicine. -Higher-ups refuse to listen, will gaslight you and your entire clinic when concerns are brought up, instead of actively trying to do good. They don’t care about us. -Some buildings have safety hazards and higher-ups won’t do anything to address anything unless a client gets injured and there’s a possibility of a lawsuit. -The workers comp coverage is atrocious. Barely covers anything. When you fill out an incident report, the only options you have to choose from are why it’s your fault you got injured and not the companies. -You are forced to ask everyone to sign up for their wellness plan which is a waste of money for a majority of owners. You are also forced to get clients to sign up for the online pharmacy. If your numbers aren’t good enough, you’ll get written up by management. -Hospital manager that may or may not have clinic experience has more decision making power over everything. They even have power over the Medical Director. -The EMR system made by MARS that you’re forced to use sucks. -Forced to send out labs to Antech (since it’s also owned by MARS of corse) which has been severely dropping the ball lately in every way you could think of and more.

Being able to help animals

Culture is condescending and management will consistently undermine employees. Witnessed an applicant be turned down because management made a judgment based on the applicants appearance, stating that she “did not seem like she really needed a job.” Push selling and making money over care. They do not value you, which leads to burnout. Gave a months notice for my departure only to receive petty comments upon leaving despite being begged to stay. Even if you work there, your pets care will be put on the backburner in order to fit in as many appointments as possible. Constantly was bringing in my dog for help with skin sores and received no help - tried the same thing over and over with no improvement. Then took him to another vet and the problem was immediately solved.

VCA was once an amazing company with a culture that cared for it's people through it's actions.

Under new ownership, VCA now makes decisions rooted in spreadsheets, not people. It's sad to see such a warm and supportive culture be dismantled.