Are you able to undertake some of the basics more confidently like neutering, dentals and lumpectomies?

Would you like to take more time with clients and animals to deliver better care with longer appointments?
 

Have you had some setbacks, but have been able to learn from them rather than be crushed by them?

Are you looking for a role where you have time to do your job well, learn and grow, but also downtime to enjoy your life and find direction?

If so, then read on, we may have the role for you.
 

About You
 

We are looking for someone who can fit our team culture and values. Those values and how they influence our behaviour are why we have such a special team vibe. So here’s what matters most to us as a team:

1. Being honest.

2. Being kind.

3. Being conscientious.

4. Working as a team.

5. Growing & Learning.

6. Having fun.

If these things matter to you too, there’s a very high chance we’ll get along well.

Some other things about you….

Even at this early stage in your career, you’ll have worked out that communicating well with those around you is a huge part of being a good vet. You’ll have some natural talent at doing this, but you’ll be keen to develop this side of your game a lot.
 

You’ll be able to perform dentals, basic soft tissue operations and medical work-ups. You’ll be able to use imaging like X-rays (we don’t imagine you’ll be perfect at any of this, but you will be good enough that you don’t need your hand holding all of the time. Plus you’ll have a sense of where your limits and be able to ask for help when you reach them.
 

You’ll be the type of vet who is OK with working with and helping to advance our standards of care. (Not all vets like this, which is fine, but we like to have some basic guidelines to work with to improve outcomes and client consistency.)
 

You’ll be a person who can manage time, priorities and gets the work done each day.
 

You’ll also be one of those people who can build trusting relationships with ease. Someone who can help clients understand what the right thing to do is. More than likely people think of you as a good storyteller.
 

We’re not looking for someone who will work themselves into the ground, you should know how to look after yourself first and foremost because if you break, no-one wins. We’re trying to change the mould for veterinary medicine by creating a great working environment where we care about each other as much as we care about pets and clients. Profit matters, but it’s not the most important thing to us. Our people come first, then pets, then clients - if we get this stuff right, then we know that money will look after itself. So we want someone who understands that life is about balance and being a vet, while important, is not the be-all and end-all.
 

There are a few other things we’d like you to feel good about:
 

• "us" - your vet tribe.

• Your clients - if you can do clients then you can do vet med. If you can't then you are in trouble.

• Your patients (obvs).

• You.

• Really, YOU in quite a big way.

• Money and not be embarrassed or ashamed of it. It'll never come first, but it is there and we all need to work on this.

• We want you to be willing to learn and grow.

• We want you to help others in the team learn and grow.

• We want you to be willing to be amazing.

• We want you to leave your ego at the door.

• We want to laugh and cry with you at the crazy stuff we have to deal with.

• We want to be able to have a beer/wine/soft drink of your choice with you. (We’re not raging alcoholics, honestly).

• We want you to understand that the owners of this practice care very deeply about helping you get where you want to go and helping you become what you can be.

• We want you to accept that you are not perfect, that none of us is and that's OK. Failure is OK. Just as long as yo0u can pick yourself up and learn so you get better.

• We want you to be happy.
 

If you can do that, we'd be very, very proud to call you a teammate.
 

(And if you can be that, or be willing to work towards it.... could you also never leave?)
 

About The Role
 

OK, Let’s talk about this role. The position is initially a 12-month internship role. But there will be an option to extend into a full-time permanent position on completion of the year if we've worked well together.

The work you’ll be doing includes the following (it’s not a totally exhaustive list as our roles are very varied)
 

1. Four 8-hour shifts each week, plus a Saturday morning every third weekend.  

2. You’ll be consulting, performing dentals, work-ups and medical/surgical treatments, mostly this will be your own caseload, but we’ll put together a training plan to improve.

3. Working within our standards of care guides - or helping to develop them where we don’t have them.

4. You’ll also have a growth day each week where we will pay you to focus on learning new skills. (More about that at the interview.)

5. There is no on-call and only very, very occasionally do we have inpatients that require overnight care - which is done on a roster after hours.

6. You will be working with two other vets most days, though one day per week and your Saturday morning you will be the only vet. If that freaks you out, don’t apply.

In return for being a great part of this team for 40 hour each week, we offer a great package including:
 

• Base salary of £30,000-34,000 depending on experience.

• Medical health insurance. (Value £500/year).

• CPD budget (Minimum £1000/year by agreement and alignment with shared objectives).

• VetX:Thrive community membership. (Value £200/year)

• Discounted pet care package.

• Travel allowance (£500/year).

• Participation in our annual and monthly bonus scheme.
   

About Roundwood Vets
 

We love pets and we love our jobs, that's why we come to work each day. And we're now on a mission be the leading independent vet in London, delivering care that extends and improves the lives of pet. We also want to do this in a way that is sustainable for all of the team as well.

We have grown by focussing on looking after clients, each other and pets. We’re a tight-knit team. And now we have an opening to begin one of our original objectives which is to give a recent graduate a good to work alongside our experienced vets. 

​

When you join us you can expect great training. We work to a high standard. So, for example, to perform our anaesthetics, we use the best drugs and everything gets fluids. We use anaesthetic monitors, we use safe heating blankets, we train, we record incidents and we review our practice and process in a no-blame way. So it’s the safest it can be for our patients.

With our dentals (we do a lot of these - so if you hate dentistry we're not your team), we take radiographs and photos of everything. We use the best, well-maintained equipment. We have access to brilliant online training materials. We practice our skills on cadavers.
 

This is the way we try to approach our work, and we’re a long way from getting it perfect every day. But we try, and a lot of days we get close. Which makes us happy, because safe happy, healthy pets and safe happy people are why we get out of bed.
 

You can also expect a friendly, welcoming and open culture from top to bottom. Ego isn’t a welcome guest here. We want humble team-mates. But that doesn’t mean meek, our team are great fun and have a good laugh. None of us is the finished article, we’re all learning, growing and moving forward. And we want to work with people who push us to get better, who call us out when we might be wrong, who gently steer us back in the right direction. With compassion, kindness and love.
 

Again, do we get this right each day? Of course not, but when we get it wrong we are smart enough to say sorry and fix any issues fast. Team harmony matters.

COVID-19 has been a huge disruption to our world, and we'd be lying if we didn't say that it hasn't dramatically changed the way we work - we've all had to adapt to new ways of doing things. This trend is likely to continue, so if change freaks you out and you cannot handle it, then again, this roll is not going to be a good fit. We will try to offer as much stability as possible, but being adaptable and open to trying new things out is flavour of the year. We want someone who has a "let's give a go" attitude.
 

Finally, you can expect a fair wage. We’re a small practice, but we want to pay our people fairly. So we have a package that includes pet care, medical health insurance, salary and perk box access. As a member of the team, you’ll have access to these benefits.

What’s the next step?

If after reading all of this you might be interested, then please go to this page and complete the application form. https://eu.jotform.com/roundwoodvets/employment-application-form 

Thanks for reading. :)

Meet Becky one of our veterinary nurses.