Free veterinary careers advice: Hear from our trained CPD advisors about what they offer
It’s likely that you had some careers advice at school, and maybe even some at university. But that was all designed to get you as far as your first job. What about after? Well, at Improve Veterinary Education we offer veterinary careers advice for vets after graduation, whether you’re not confident in your first job or you want a change after 20 years. Our team of CPD Advisors will chat to you about your problems, conduct a skills gap analysis, help you decide where you want to go – then suggest how you can get there.
Today, we’re going to talk to Jennifer Goncalves DVM MSc, one of our CPD Advisors, about their role at Improve, how they help vets, and just what a ‘skills gap analysis’ entails.
What is a CPD Advisor?
Hi Jennifer, thanks so much for taking the time to chat with me today! First question – can you tell me a little bit about your role? What is it that you do? How long have you been doing it?
Well, I think the first thing to explain is that I’m a vet myself. The way I see it is that my day is spent helping my vet colleagues – and vet nurses and vet techs, depending on the region – to achieve their career goals and to go after their dreams and what they want for their lives and their careers. I’ve been doing the CPD Advisor role at Improve since about 2018, and it’s been growing and is now the main part of my role here at Improve. I just love helping fellow professionals trying to improve the quality of the services they provide to people and animals.
Ok, so that’s it in a nutshell – can you share a bit more about the process you go through when giving careers advice?
I try to help vets and nurses/techs find the best option that suits their needs and their wants. I try to help build a career pathway for them that involves progression in the areas they want to invest in, and that fit them best as a person and as a clinician. So, I talk to them about where they see themselves, where they want to get to, and then I help them plan how to get there by chatting to them about their skills, what they find difficult, previous CPD – it’s just a conversation really.
Sounds like fun! And you mentioned skills there. I’m dying to know – what actually is a skills gap analysis? How does it work?
It’s really done by listening to the person on the end of the phone. A bit like a veterinary careers counsellor, I help people to dive down into what they really want, and by looking at what they’re good at and what they’re maybe missing, I can help people identify the skills they need to build to get where they want to go.
People are sometimes just so focused in their lives, they can’t step back and look at the bigger picture. But because we’re not that close to someone, we can help them take a step back and look forward. We’ll say things like “where do you see yourself in five years” or “what do you do most in your practice? Is that the area you like the most?”, “is there a gap in your practice you think you could fulfil?”.
Well, that doesn’t sound too painful!
It’s really relaxed. Another thing is that we can actually talk to employers and apply this to a whole practice. So, we can talk to a practice manager or a clinical director and see what they’ve already got, skills-wise, within a practice (or even in a region of a corporate group!) and then help them work out what CPD they’d like to send their veterinary teams on. It’s a great way to build a veterinary practice team that have complimentary skills – instead of just saying ‘you can’t do that certificate because so and so has one’ you can help people find a complementary certificate in an area that interests them.
That’s like a whole new level of veterinary careers advice! And what are the next steps?
There’s absolutely no pressure to take a course with us. Sometimes people do, and sometimes they don’t. Obviously, I can facilitate it if people want to get started straight away, I can help them make payment plans or do whatever I can to help them fulfil their dreams, but often I’m just giving them information so they can make their own decisions. Sometimes, they need tools to help them compare providers, too, so I might help them work out what’s most important to them – whether that’s the delivery method, or the assessments. And even when they do want to buy from us, we’re often working to really long timescales – we’re talking 5 or 10 years in the future, so there’s really no pressure during the CPD advice session to buy anything there and then.
Some people might start down their veterinary career plan but then something else comes up and things change – interests change, life changes, jobs change. People have kids and want to press pause. Whatever it is, I often have people call me again looking for more veterinary careers advice – maybe last year it was CT, now they’re more into ultrasound, so can we start again and make some new plans. Or maybe they took a certificate after the last session and now they want the next step. We look again at where they’re trying to go and help them build that plan.
Building a relationship
It must be really rewarding, seeing people develop professionally. Is that your favourite part of the job?
Oh absolutely. It’s not just about selling courses, it’s about building a connection and building a relationship. We aren’t asking people to make a decision here and now, we’re just giving veterinary careers advice and guidance to help people make the most of their careers. And I love it when I get the same vet back, and we can catch up, and they tell me their plans have changed because they’ve had a baby, and we look again at their new priorities and build a new plan – that’s the best feeling, just helping other vets build careers they love.
International veterinary careers advice
You mentioned earlier veterinary nurses and veterinary technicians – do you do offer this veterinary careers advice internationally?
Yes, to an extent. We speak to so many people, and we’re an international company, so we do get a bit of insight into what working in other countries is like, and what qualifications and certificates can mean from country to country. Like we try to look forward in people’s plans and check – are they planning on using their postgraduate certificate in this country? For example, if they’re in Spain but thinking of moving back to the UK, we might advise them to take the PgC as well as the GPCert, and then explain they’ll have to wait until at least a year after graduation to make sure they’re eligible, and that way they’ve got the best chance of getting a good job when they get where they’re going.
Conclusion
Lastly, what would you say to anybody who is struggling with their next step for their veterinary career?
I would tell people to listen to their hearts, what really drives them, what they really want… and to speak with us. We’re here to listen and to guide them through, and give them the knowledge and the tools to make a wise decision and to pursue their dreams.
Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me today!
So there you have it – free veterinary careers advice from trained CPD Advisors here at Improve Veterinary Education. If this sounds like something you’d benefit from, you can book a call with Jennifer and her colleagues.
Or, if you think you could help other veterinary professionals use CPD to build the careers they deserve, keep an eye out for roles at Improve International.
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