Energy Vets - Taranaki - New Zealand | REAL+STORY
A recent graduate’s view of support, mentoring, and staying in the profession

When new graduates talk about support, they’re not talking about slogans.  They’re talking about what happens in the moments that matter.

In this episode of Veterinary Voices, Julie South continues the Energy Vets REAL+STORY series with Jade, a recent graduate mixed animal veterinarian who has been working at Energy Vets in Taranaki for just over two years.

Jade shares why she chose to return to Taranaki after graduating from Massey University, what stood out about Energy Vets as a student on placement, and how support actually shows up day to day — from surgeries and after-hours, to asking questions, building confidence, and knowing someone has your back.

This is an honest conversation about mixed practice, mentoring, after-hours realities, team culture, and what helps early-career vets not just cope — but enjoy the job and want to stay in the profession.

Here’s how Jade describes that support in her own words:

In This Episode

00:00 – Introduction and where this episode fits in the Energy Vets REAL+STORY series
 01:02 – Jade’s background and returning to Taranaki after graduating
 02:42 – What “supportive” really means for a new graduate
 04:01 – How Energy Vets felt different from other student placements
 05:01 – Mixed animal caseloads and how the year ebbs and flows
 05:59 – Longer consult times and why they matter on busy days
 06:17 – Dairy, lifestyle, and equine work in practice
 07:09 – After-hours equine support and not being left alone
 07:58 – Building strong relationships with clients
 08:31 – Privately owned farms and what that changes
 08:52 – Living in Taranaki: outdoors, community, and lifestyle
 11:16 – Favourite equipment and learning to use ultrasound
 11:54 – A concrete example of support during early surgeries
 13:13 – Unexpected friendships and team closeness
 14:14 – After-hours as a new grad and how readiness is handled
 16:48 – A memorable early case and calling for help
 18:00 – Who fits best at Energy Vets and what being a team player means
 19:01 – Closing reflections on mentoring, support, and staying in the profession

If you’re an experienced small animal veterinarian thinking about your next step — particularly if you enjoy mentoring and supporting early-career vets — Energy Vets is currently looking for someone ready to step up into that role.

About Julie South

Julie South is the founder of VetClinicJobs and host of Veterinary Voices.

She works with veterinary clinics that want to show what working there is really like — not just list job requirements. Through culture storytelling, Julie helps clinics attract vets and nurses who recognise their kind of people and their kind of clinic before a vacancy appears.

Could Your Kind of People recognise Their Kind of Clinic?

A job ad may catch a vet’s or nurse’s eye. But it’s their own due diligence that determines whether they apply—or keep in touch.

Culture Story Centres turn real experiences from inside your team into credible, discoverable recruitment evidence, giving vets and nurses meaningful reasons to choose your clinic.

Explore Culture Story Centres for veterinary clinics

When Big Numbers Don’t Matter

When a clinic needs to advertise, the decision often feels obvious.
 Choose the platform with the biggest database. The most traffic. The largest audience.

But what if those numbers aren’t measuring what actually matters?

In this episode of Veterinary Voices, Julie South explores why big numbers can feel reassuring — yet still leave clinics stuck advertising for months. Database size, website hits, and subscriber counts might look impressive on paper, but they don’t guarantee recognition, fit, or applications from the right vet or nurse.

Julie unpacks why recruitment fails when clinics outsource discovery to platforms and algorithms — and what changes when clinics shift from being listed to being recognised.

This episode closes the recent run of conversations on culture storytelling, network expansion, and recruitment momentum by asking one uncomfortable but essential question:  are you attracting the kind of vet or nurse you actually want on your team?

In This Episode

00:00 – Introduction: why the numbers everyone chases may not be the right ones

 01:13 – A familiar scenario: needing to advertise and choosing platforms by database size

01:56 – Posting the ad, waiting, upgrading, and still not getting the right response

02:56 – Why big databases and high traffic don’t guarantee the right applicants

03:29 – What Google actually measures: behaviour, not hits

04:53 – The one number clinics really need: one right vet or nurse

05:44 – How recognition forms before a vacancy appears

06:54 – Why recognition can’t be measured in traditional metrics

07:45 – Culture Story Centres and arriving warm instead of cold 

08:56 – Being recognised versus hoping to be discovered

09:46 – The question clinics should be asking instead of “which platform is bigger?”

10:56 – From being listed to being recognised — and why attraction changes everything

About Julie South

Julie South is the founder of VetClinicJobs and host of Veterinary Voices.

She works with veterinary clinics that want to move beyond reactive job advertising by showing what working there is really like. Through culture storytelling, Julie helps clinics become recognised over time — so when they do advertise, the right vets and nurses already know they belong.

Could Your Kind of People recognise Their Kind of Clinic?

A job ad may catch a vet’s or nurse’s eye. But it’s their own due diligence that determines whether they apply—or keep in touch.

Culture Story Centres turn real experiences from inside your team into credible, discoverable recruitment evidence, giving vets and nurses meaningful reasons to choose your clinic.

Explore Culture Story Centres for veterinary clinics

Energy Vets | Culture Stories in Action (Part 2)

Staying in a clinic long-term isn’t just about the work you do.
It’s about how you’re supported, how leadership shows up, and what happens when things don’t go to plan.

In this episode, Julie South continues her conversation with Greg Hall, Managing Director at Energy Vets in Taranaki, shifting the focus from day-to-day life to what it takes to build a team that lasts.

They talk openly about leadership, succession planning, ageing vet teams, and the moments that reveal what a clinic’s culture really looks like — including how people step in for each other when it really counts.

This is Part Two of a two-part conversation with Energy Vets, and a grounded look at what working there is like beyond the first impression.

In This Episode

00:00 – Introduction
01:20 – What leadership actually looks like in practice
03:10 – Succession planning and an ageing workforce
06:00 – Supporting teams when things go wrong
09:10 – How people show up for each other
12:30 – Profit, efficiency, and staying viable
15:10 – Shareholding and long-term pathways
18:30 – What success looks like after 12 months
20:45 – Closing

If you’re an experienced small animal vet exploring your next step, you can find out more about current opportunities at Energy Vets at:
vetclinicjobs.com/energyvets

About Julie South

Julie South is the founder of VetClinicJobs and host of Veterinary Voices.

She works with forward-thinking veterinary clinics that want to show what working there is really like — not just list job requirements. Through VetClinicJobs, Julie helps clinics make their culture visible and recognisable, so vets and nurses can tell whether a clinic is Their Kind of Clinic long before a vacancy appears.

Could Your Kind of People recognise Their Kind of Clinic?

A job ad may catch a vet’s or nurse’s eye. But it’s their own due diligence that determines whether they apply—or keep in touch.

Culture Story Centres turn real experiences from inside your team into credible, discoverable recruitment evidence, giving vets and nurses meaningful reasons to choose your clinic.

Explore Culture Story Centres for veterinary clinics

Recruitment Momentum: Why Starting From Cold Keeps You Trapped

Most veterinary clinics don’t realise they’re stuck in a recruitment cycle — they just feel the exhaustion of it.

In this episode of Veterinary Voices, Julie South explores recruitment momentum and why starting from cold every time you need to advertise keeps clinics trapped in an expensive, effort-heavy loop that never really gets easier.

Through a simple but familiar comparison, Julie shows the difference between recruiting from cold — urgent, interruptive, and stressful — and recruiting from warm, where vets and nurses already know your clinic and recognise it as their kind of place.

This episode follows directly from last week’s conversation on network expansion, and explains why momentum isn’t about speed or volume — it’s about familiarity built over time, while you’re fully staffed.

Stay to the end for a question that reframes what clinics should really be measuring when they think about recruitment success.

In This Episode

00:00 – Introduction and why recruitment momentum matters 
01:18 – What starting from cold actually looks like for clinics 
01:37 – Urgent job ads, interruption, and the “post and pray” cycle  
02:09 – Two clinics, two approaches: cold vs warm recruiting 
03:09 – Why most clinics reset to cold every time they hire 
03:36 – The toll of recruiting from cold on time, money, and belief 
04:13 – Why vets and nurses scroll past unfamiliar clinics 
04:46 – Groundhog Day recruiting and losing momentum while fully staffed 
05:47 – Cold start recruiting vs recruiting with momentum 
06:25 – Recruitment momentum as a long-term deposit, not a quick fix 
07:43 – What’s changed: filtering interruptions, trust taking time, and passive watchers 
08:34 – Why continuous culture stories matter even when you’re fully staffed 
09:34 – Recruiting from warm with calm invitations, not urgency 
10:10 – How VetClinicJobs supports recruitment momentum through Culture Centres 
11:15 – Closing reflections on sustainability, momentum, and recruiting from warm

About Julie South

Julie South is the founder of VetClinicJobs and host of Veterinary Voices.

She works with veterinary clinics that want to move beyond reactive job advertising by building recruitment momentum through continuous culture storytelling — so when they do need to hire, they’re never starting from cold again.

Could Your Kind of People recognise Their Kind of Clinic?

A job ad may catch a vet’s or nurse’s eye. But it’s their own due diligence that determines whether they apply—or keep in touch.

Culture Story Centres turn real experiences from inside your team into credible, discoverable recruitment evidence, giving vets and nurses meaningful reasons to choose your clinic.

Explore Culture Story Centres for veterinary clinics

Energy Vets Taranaki NZ | Culture Stories in Action (Part 1)

Most vets and nurses know within a few minutes whether a clinic feels like their kind of place — long before they ever see a job ad.

In this episode, Julie South is joined by Dr Greg Hall, Managing Director at Energy Vets in Taranaki, for a grounded conversation about what day-to-day veterinary life there actually looks like.

They talk about the work, the people, the pace, and the place — from small animal caseloads across two clinics, to after-hours, weekends, lifestyle, and living in a close-knit community.

This isn’t a recruitment pitch.
It’s a real conversation about whether you can picture yourself working there — with your kind of people, in your kind of clinic.

This is Part One of a two-part conversation with Energy Vets.

In This Episode

00:00 – Introduction
01:10 – Why place and community matter in veterinary work
03:00 – What day-to-day life looks like across Energy Vets’ clinics
05:20 – Small animal work, variety, and real caseloads
07:50 – After-hours, weekends, and how rosters actually work
10:40 – Lifestyle, commute, and living in Taranaki
13:00 – Trust, relationships, and working in a tight-knit community
15:30 – The kind of vet who tends to fit best
16:38 – Closing

If you’re an experienced small animal vet and what you’ve heard here resonates, you can find out more about current opportunities at Energy Vets at:
vetclinicjobs.com/energyvets

About Julie South

Julie South is the founder of VetClinicJobs and host of Veterinary Voices.

She works with forward-thinking veterinary clinics that want to show what working there is really like — not just list job requirements. Through VetClinicJobs, Julie helps clinics make their culture visible and recognisable, so vets and nurses can tell whether a clinic is Their Kind of Clinic long before a vacancy appears.

Could Your Kind of People recognise Their Kind of Clinic?

A job ad may catch a vet’s or nurse’s eye. But it’s their own due diligence that determines whether they apply—or keep in touch.

Culture Story Centres turn real experiences from inside your team into credible, discoverable recruitment evidence, giving vets and nurses meaningful reasons to choose your clinic.

Explore Culture Story Centres for veterinary clinics

Network Expansion: How Culture Stories Amplify Beyond Your Reach

Most vet clinics don’t struggle to hire because their roles aren’t appealing. They struggle because the right vets and nurses never see them.

In this episode of Veterinary Voices, Julie South explores network expansion — and why job ads keep clinics trapped under their own follower-count ceiling, while Culture Stories travel through networks clinics can’t access directly.

Julie breaks down how culture stories move differently through social and professional networks, why peer sharing matters more than clinic claims, and how vets and nurses increasingly discover clinics long before a vacancy appears.

This is a conversation about amplification, not reach — and why the clinics that build familiarity while fully staffed aren’t starting from cold when it’s time to hire.

Stay to the end for a simple but uncomfortable question every clinic should be asking about the vets and nurses they’re failing to reach.

In This Episode

00:00 – Introduction and why this episode focuses on network expansion

01:11 – The follower-count ceiling: why clinic posts only reach who already follows you

02:15 – Why job ads can’t travel beyond your own network

02:54 – How culture stories move differently through personal networks

03:58 – Network amplification vs addition and multiplication

04:47 – Why job ads stay locked under limited reach

05:51 – What’s changed: recognition before application

06:46 – Why starting from cold keeps clinics at a disadvantage

07:25 – Trust comes from peer voices, not clinic claims

08:43 – How permanent, shareable culture stories amplify through extended networks

10:07 – Being discovered before recruiting begins

11:51 – The question clinics should be asking instead of “How do we get more reach?”

13:11 – Closing reflections on discovery, familiarity, and network visibility

About Julie South

Julie South is the founder of VetClinicJobs and host of Veterinary Voices.

She works with veterinary clinics that want to move beyond reactive job advertising by showing what working there is really like. Through Culture Storytelling, Julie helps clinics become recognisable across networks — so vets and nurses discover them through people they trust, not just job boards.

Could Your Kind of People recognise Their Kind of Clinic?

A job ad may catch a vet’s or nurse’s eye. But it’s their own due diligence that determines whether they apply—or keep in touch.

Culture Story Centres turn real experiences from inside your team into credible, discoverable recruitment evidence, giving vets and nurses meaningful reasons to choose your clinic.

Explore Culture Story Centres for veterinary clinics

CareVets Gisborne | REAL+STORY

When vets and nurses think about changing clinics, they’re not just choosing a role.

They’re choosing the people they’ll work with — and the support around them when things get busy or unpredictable.

In this episode of Veterinary Voices, Julie South continues the CareVets Gisborne REAL+STORY series with a different perspective — stepping back from day-to-day clinical roles to hear from the Regional Manager who supports the clinic.

Julie is joined by Alice Dawson, Regional Manager at CareVets, who looks after Gisborne alongside Wellington and Napier. Alice has been with CareVets for ten years and worked as a veterinary nurse for seventeen, so what she shares here comes from long-term, lived experience.

They talk about what makes CareVets Gisborne work as a team — the family feel, the support behind the clinic, professional development, equipment, and the kind of vet who tends to fit best.

This isn’t a recruitment pitch.
 It’s an honest conversation about what working at CareVets Gisborne is really like — and whether it feels like your kind of clinic, with your kind of people.

In This Episode

00:00 – Introduction and where this episode fits in the CareVets Gisborne REAL+STORY series
 01:04 – Alice’s background: ten years with CareVets and seventeen years as a veterinary nurse
 02:17 – The “family feel” and growing people from within
 02:59 – Why CareVets isn’t a corporate in the way people assume
 03:43 – Staying connected to Gisborne despite its geographic remoteness
 04:03 – What stands out about the CareVets Gisborne team
 04:40 – The impact of degree-qualified veterinary nurses in the clinic
 05:18 – How CPD is used across nursing and veterinary teams
 05:49 – The kind of vet who fits best at CareVets Gisborne
 06:20 – Investing in equipment and diagnostics to support the team
 07:04 – Gisborne as a place to live and work
 07:31 – Case variety and why no two days are the same
 07:54 – Closing reflections and recruitment invitation

If you’re an experienced small animal veterinarian considering your next move, CareVets Gisborne is currently recruiting.

You can find out more at vetclinicjobs.com/CareVetsGisborne.

About Julie South

Julie South is the founder of VetClinicJobs and host of Veterinary Voices.

She works with veterinary clinics that want to show what working there is really like — not just list job requirements. Through VetClinicJobs, Julie helps clinics tell their culture stories so vets and nurses can recognise their kind of people and their kind of clinic before a vacancy appears.

Could Your Kind of People recognise Their Kind of Clinic?

A job ad may catch a vet’s or nurse’s eye. But it’s their own due diligence that determines whether they apply—or keep in touch.

Culture Story Centres turn real experiences from inside your team into credible, discoverable recruitment evidence, giving vets and nurses meaningful reasons to choose your clinic.

Explore Culture Story Centres for veterinary clinics

Vets and nurses scroll past job ads — not because they think vet clinics are lying, but because they’ve seen the same claims repeated over and over again.
“Great team. Supportive environment. Work-life balance.”

The words didn’t become untrue.  They lost meaning through overuse and under-delivery.

In this episode, Julie South unpacks why claiming culture through job ads keeps clinics invisible — and why vets and nurses now decide which clinics feel like their kind of place long before a vacancy appears.

This is a conversation about recognition, not reach — and what actually changes when clinics show what working there is really like, instead of telling people what they hope it is.

In This Episode:

00:00 –  Introduction
01:39 –   Why vets scroll past familiar job-ad language
02:47 –  The quiet decision: choosing clinics they’ve been watching
03:34 –  Post-and-pray recruiting and the questions vets actually ask
05:51 –  How culture claims lost their power
07:37 –  What’s working now: seeing culture before advertising
11:35 –   The question every clinic should be asking
12:51 –   Closing

About Julie South

Julie South is the founder of VetClinicJobs and host of Veterinary Voices. She works with forward-thinking veterinary clinics that want to shine online by showing what working there is really like, not just posting job ads. Through VetClinicJobs, Julie helps clinics build and maintain their own Culture Storytelling Centre — where real team stories, everyday moments, and ways of working are visible and discoverable year-round. This allows vets and nurses to recognise a clinic as Their Kind of Clinic long before a vacancy appears.

Links

Connect with Julie on LinkedIn
Learn more about Culture Storytelling

Could Your Kind of People recognise Their Kind of Clinic?

A job ad may catch a vet’s or nurse’s eye. But it’s their own due diligence that determines whether they apply—or keep in touch.

Culture Story Centres turn real experiences from inside your team into credible, discoverable recruitment evidence, giving vets and nurses meaningful reasons to choose your clinic.

Explore Culture Story Centres for veterinary clinics

A vet in Melbourne is scrolling job ads, actively looking to relocate.

She sees a position in Hamilton, New Zealand. Good clinic. Competitive salary. Sounds fine.

She clicks through, reads the job description, then keeps scrolling.

Three weeks later, she accepts a position in Melbourne. Not better. Just known.

What happened?

The decision didn't happen at the job ad stage. It happened earlier — at a moment most clinics never see.

In this episode, we're looking at why relocating vets and nurses so often default to what they already know, even when they're actively looking for change. And what's actually happening in that invisible moment where they close the tab and keep scrolling.

I'm Julie South. I run VetClinicJobs and help vet clinics across Australia, New Zealand and beyond build Culture Centres through Culture Storytelling. I've seen hundreds of clinics add better location descriptions to their job ads, wondering why relocating vets and nurses never apply — while their competitors attract people who've already decided they could live there.

Listen if: you've ever wondered why relocating vets and nurses never seem to apply — or why your location advantages don't seem to translate into applications.

Could Your Kind of People recognise Their Kind of Clinic?

A job ad may catch a vet’s or nurse’s eye. But it’s their own due diligence that determines whether they apply—or keep in touch.

Culture Story Centres turn real experiences from inside your team into credible, discoverable recruitment evidence, giving vets and nurses meaningful reasons to choose your clinic.

Explore Culture Story Centres for veterinary clinics

CareVets Gisborne's Clinic Coordinator Rhonda moved from London to Gisborne five years ago.

In London, her commute was 90 minutes. In Auckland, she never got out of second gear in traffic.

In Gisborne? Five minutes. Through "5 o'clock traffic" means waiting for half a dozen cars at a roundabout instead of going straight through.

"I go home for lunch," she says. Like it's nothing.

But here's what made me want to record this conversation: Rhonda isn't a vet or a nurse. She came from corporate backgrounds in big cities. And she's the clinic coordinator at CareVets Gisborne — the person who keeps the machine running, who checks in with locum vets before they leave, who listens when the team says "we need to tell people what it's really like here."

So when Rhonda talks about what makes someone stay five years, or what locums say about the nursing team, or what happens when things get busy — you're hearing it from someone who sees how the whole clinic actually works.

At the time of recording, CareVets Gisborne is recruiting for a small animal veterinarian. 

But whether you're looking or not — listen to what a five-minute commute actually means when you've spent years in traffic.

I'm Julie South. This is Veterinary Voices.

Could Your Kind of People recognise Their Kind of Clinic?

A job ad may catch a vet’s or nurse’s eye. But it’s their own due diligence that determines whether they apply—or keep in touch.

Culture Story Centres turn real experiences from inside your team into credible, discoverable recruitment evidence, giving vets and nurses meaningful reasons to choose your clinic.

Explore Culture Story Centres for veterinary clinics