Questions to Ask a Vet in an Interview
These are questions to ask when interviewing a veterinarian for a school career project, an article, or your own decision about applying to vet school. There are 53, in the order a good conversation goes: easy openers, training, the working day, clients and cost, the hard parts, then career and advice. No vet has time for all of them, so take one or two from each group and spend the rest of the slot on follow-ups.
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The questions
Each question, and why to ask it
Opening
What kind of practice is this: small animal, large animal, mixed, or exotics?
Why ask it
These are close to four separate careers with different hours, income, and physical risk. Settle it in the first minute, because a mixed-practice vet driving between farms has almost nothing in common with someone in a feline-only clinic, and every later answer depends on which one you are hearing.
How long have you been in practice, and where did you work before here?
Why ask it
The dates give you a timeline to hang every later answer on. A vet three years out of school and one thirty years out are describing different professions, so write the year down and use it when you get to what has changed.
What made you choose veterinary medicine rather than human medicine or research?
Why ask it
Most vets have been answering this since they were fifteen and have a smooth response about loving animals. The useful part is the follow-up: what did they believe about the job then, and which of those beliefs turned out to be wrong.
Was there one animal, person or summer job that settled it for you?
Why ask it
A career project or an article needs a scene, and this is where you get one: a calving at four in the morning, the family dog, the vet who let a teenager watch a surgery. If the answer stays vague, ask how old they were and where they were standing.
How would you explain your job to a ten-year-old?
Why ask it
It forces plain language out of someone who spends the day translating medical terms anyway. The sentence that comes back is often the best quote you will get for the top of a poster, a presentation slide or an opening paragraph.
What is your role here: owner, partner, associate or relief vet?
Why ask it
An owner carries the payroll and the building as well as a caseload, while an associate or a relief vet (a locum, in some countries) mostly carries the caseload. Knowing which one is in front of you tells you whose view of money, hours and staffing you are about to hear.
Which animals do you see most, and which do you wish you saw more of?
Why ask it
The first half is the caseload as it is, which in many clinics means dogs and cats with sore ears, bad teeth and upset stomachs. The second half is where their interest lies, and it often explains a side qualification or a Saturday spent at a wildlife center.
Training
What does it take to get accepted to vet school these days?
Why ask it
Requirements shift, and the answer tells you about veterinary and animal experience hours, prerequisite courses, and how many schools people apply to. Ask directly whether they think their own route would still work for someone applying now.
What did you study before vet school, and would you pick the same subjects again?
Why ask it
The route is not the same everywhere: in some countries vet school follows a first degree, and in others students go in straight from secondary school. Treat their answer as one path, then check the entry requirements of the schools you could apply to yourself.
What experience with animals did you have before you applied?
Why ask it
Listen for the range: a clinic, a farm, a shelter, a stable, a lab. Then ask which placement they think won them the offer and which one taught them the most, because those are often two different answers.
Which year of vet school was the hardest, and what made it hard?
Why ask it
Some people name the early years, when the difficulty is the sheer volume to memorize. Others name clinical rotations, when it is being tired and responsible for a living patient at once. Whichever they pick, what got them through it is the part a future student can use.
Which part of your training turned out to matter most once you were working?
Why ask it
Do not expect the subject students worry about most. The answer may well be communication, anesthesia monitoring or the business teaching they nearly skipped, and whatever it is makes a fair guide to where a student should put effort.
After you graduated, what did you have to pass or register for before you could practice?
Why ask it
Licensing exams and registration bodies differ by country and often by state, and the rules may have moved since they qualified. Get the name of the exam or the regulator from them and look up the current requirements yourself.
What was the first year out of school like?
Why ask it
This is the year a vet becomes the person who makes the decision with nobody checking it first. Ask who they could phone at two in the morning, because the answer tells you how much mentorship that first job really came with.
What have you had to learn since qualifying that was not taught when you trained?
Why ask it
A new imaging technique, a drug that replaced an older one, a species that started turning up in the waiting room. The answer makes the point that the degree is a starting line, and the natural follow-up is how they learned it: a course, a colleague or an evening with a journal.
Daily work
Can you walk me through what you actually did yesterday, hour by hour?
Why ask it
Asking about a typical day invites a rehearsed answer about variety. Anchoring to one real day surfaces the phone calls, the record writing, the surgery that ran long, and the lunch that did not happen, which is the true ratio of the job.
How many hours do you work in a normal week, and how much of that is after closing time?
Why ask it
The opening hours on the door are not the working week. Records, lab results, calls back to owners and stock orders often wait until the last patient has gone, so get both figures and ask which of them has grown.
How many patients do you see on a normal day, and how long do you get with each one?
Why ask it
Two numbers turn a vague picture of the job into arithmetic. Once you have them, ask what happens to the rest of the schedule when an emergency comes through the door at ten in the morning.
How much of your day is spent talking to people rather than treating animals?
Why ask it
Almost everyone underestimates this, including students who have already shadowed. The answer usually includes explaining costs, delivering bad news, and handling an owner who arrived with search results, which is the skill set the job quietly selects for.
Which procedures do you do most often?
Why ask it
The routine work is the job, far more than the rare case that makes a good story. Expect neutering, dental work, lump removals and vaccinations from a small animal clinic, or herd visits and lameness from a farm vet, and note how the week divides between them.
How does a day in surgery differ from a day of consultations?
Why ask it
Many practices split the two, and they ask for different kinds of stamina: hours of concentration standing at a table, against a new owner and a new problem every time the door opens. Most vets know at once which of the two they would keep.
What was the most interesting case you saw this month?
Why ask it
Vets light up here, and you get a story with a beginning and an end. Ask what the first clue was and what they ruled out along the way. They can tell all of it without naming the owner, and you should not ask them to.
What part of the job do you look forward to most?
Why ask it
A career project needs the good side as well, and asking what they like best tends to get 'helping animals'. Looking forward is narrower, so the answer comes back smaller and truer: a morning of surgery, a litter's first check, one farm they enjoy the drive to.
How do you examine a patient that cannot tell you where it hurts?
Why ask it
This is the plainest difference from human medicine and a strong question for a younger audience. Good answers start before the hands do: how the animal walked in, how it is breathing, what the owner noticed at home.
How often do you have to tell someone you do not know what is wrong?
Why ask it
Tests cost money and the owner decides which ones to pay for, so working without a firm answer is part of the routine and not a failure. If they say it rarely happens, ask whether that comes from their specialty or from sending the puzzling cases on to someone else.
What do you do when an animal is frightened or aggressive?
Why ask it
You will hear about towels, muzzles, sedation, quiet rooms and sometimes sending the patient home to try another day. It leads naturally to whether they have been bitten, kicked or scratched, and what they do differently since.
Who else in this building makes the practice work?
Why ask it
Veterinary technicians and nurses do far more clinical work than outsiders realize, and how a vet describes them says a great deal about the place. It also opens up a route into the field that many students have never seriously considered.
Clients and cost
What is the most common thing owners get wrong about their pets?
Why ask it
You get concrete clinical detail here: weight, dental disease, doses stopped early, the puppy fed the wrong thing. It is also a low-stakes question that loosens an interview up before you move to the harder ground.
How do you explain a diagnosis to someone with no medical background?
Why ask it
Rather than accept a description of their approach, pick a condition and have them explain it to you as they would to an owner. What comes back is a working demonstration, analogies and all, and it quotes well.
What happens when the right treatment costs more than the owner can pay?
Why ask it
Money comes into the exam room far more often than people outside the job expect. Listen for how they present the choices to an owner rather than whether they have a tidy solution, because there usually is not one.
How are prices set here, and who sets them?
Why ask it
The answer tells you whether the practice is independently owned or part of a larger group, and that can decide how much say the vet in the room has over what is charged. It is also the shortest route to a candid conversation about commercial pressure.
Has pet insurance changed the medicine you are able to offer?
Why ask it
How common insurance is varies a lot between countries, so ask roughly what share of their clients have it. The telling detail is how the conversation in the exam room differs when the owner is insured and when they are not.
What do you say first when the news is bad?
Why ask it
Asking for the first sentence gets you something far more exact than asking how they deliver bad news. Many vets have settled on an opening line over the years, along with small habits such as sitting down or closing the door, and they can usually say where each one came from.
How do you deal with an owner who is angry with you?
Why ask it
Complaints and harsh online reviews come with the job now, and most vets remember one in detail. Ask for the instance without the name, and what they would say differently if that owner walked in tomorrow.
Where is the line between an owner's choice and an animal's welfare?
Why ask it
Owners make the decisions, within limits, and a vet sometimes has to carry out a plan they would not have picked. Ask about a time they disagreed and what they were able to do about it. What a vet may or must report differs from place to place, so ask how it works where they practice.
Which clients do you still remember years later?
Why ask it
Vets get asked about difficult owners far more often than about the good ones. The answer here is often a family seen through several pets over many years, and it shows the part of the job that keeps people in it.
Hard parts
What does an on-call or emergency shift look like?
Why ask it
Nights and weekends are covered very differently from one practice to the next: shared among the vets, handed to an emergency clinic, or carried by one person. Ask how often their turn comes round, how long it lasts, whether it is paid separately, and what the day after looks like.
How do you handle a euthanasia appointment, and has your approach changed over the years?
Why ask it
Ask this plainly and then stay quiet. Most vets have a considered answer covering both the technical side and the part people never picture, which is walking into the next appointment ten minutes later.
What is the hardest call you have had to make about a patient?
Why ask it
Let them choose the case and do not steer toward the dramatic. The detail to listen for is who else was in the decision: an owner, a colleague on the phone, or nobody at all in the middle of a Sunday night.
Is there a mistake you made that changed how you work?
Why ask it
Only ask once the conversation is warm, and offer to leave the answer out of whatever you write. What matters is the second half: the check they now run every time, or the question they now always put to an owner.
What support is there for vets when the work gets heavy?
Why ask it
What exists ranges from a formal program or a helpline run by a professional body, to a colleague who notices, to nothing at all. Whatever they name, or fail to name, describes the culture of that particular workplace.
What are the physical risks of this work?
Why ask it
People picture bites, but the list is longer: kicks from large animals, scratches, lifting, needle sticks, X-ray exposure, long drives between farms. Ask which precaution they never skip, however busy the day.
Which part of the job would you remove if you could?
Why ask it
This usually surfaces something structural that a question about challenges never reaches: after-hours calls, insurance paperwork, online reviews, or being short a technician for eighteen months.
How do you leave work at work when the day is over?
Why ask it
Some vets have a concrete rule, such as no checking lab results from the sofa or a walk before going indoors. Others will tell you they have never managed it, which is just as honest and worth writing down in their own words.
Career
How does the debt from training compare with what vets earn?
Why ask it
The ratio varies widely by country, school and decade, so ask for their own figures and the year they date from. Then ask how it shaped their choices about specializing, where to live, and how many hours to take on.
Would you specialize if you were starting again?
Why ask it
The route to a specialty differs by country, but it generally means more years of training on lower pay, and vets who did it and vets who did not both hold firm views. The reasoning is worth more than the verdict, so ask what they were weighing.
What can a vet do with the degree besides clinical practice?
Why ask it
Public health, food safety, research, teaching, industry, government work and wildlife are all possible answers, and few students hear about them early. Ask whether they know someone who made that move and would be willing to talk to you.
What has changed in the profession since you started?
Why ask it
Expect consolidation of practices, better imaging, pet insurance, and clients arriving pre-diagnosed by the internet. Their tone about each of those is more informative than the list itself.
What do you expect to be different about this job in ten years?
Why ask it
This is a forecast, so label it as their opinion when you write it up. Staffing, who owns the practices and new technology tend to come up, and the interesting part is which of them they welcome and which they dread.
What do the best vets you have worked with have in common?
Why ask it
Grades rarely make the list. You are more likely to hear about staying calm, being curious or being at ease with people, and a single habit of one colleague is worth more than a string of adjectives.
What should someone at my stage be doing now if they want this career?
Why ask it
Say your age or year of study before you ask, so the advice fits. Push for something you could act on this term: a subject to keep, a kind of weekend work, a person to write to.
Knowing what you know now, would you do it again?
Why ask it
Ask it near the end and let the pause happen. Many vets answer yes with conditions attached, and the conditions are the actual advice you came for.
What have I not asked that you wish people would ask?
Why ask it
Close with this one, because people who agree to an interview usually arrive with one thing they hoped to say. If nothing so far has drawn it out, this will.
Interviewing a veterinarian well
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Choosing your questions
A dozen is plenty for half an hour
Nobody gets through 53 questions in one sitting. Follow-ups take longer than the questions themselves, so ten to twelve fill a half-hour slot. Take one or two from each group and keep a few spare in case an answer comes back short.
For a school career project
Lean on Opening, Training and Daily work. Teachers usually want the route into the job and a picture of the day, and the question about explaining the job to a ten-year-old gives you a line for the poster or the first slide.
For an article or a profile
Scenes and exact words matter more than coverage. The questions about what settled the choice of career, the most interesting case this month and the first sentence when the news is bad all produce something you can quote. Agree before you start whether the vet and the practice will be named.
If you are deciding whether to apply
Spend most of the time in Training, Hard parts and Career. Ask for figures on debt, pay and hours, note the year and the country they belong to, and check anything about entry requirements or licensing against the current rules where you would study.
If you are the vet being interviewed
This list is for the person asking a working vet about the job. A veterinarian going into a job interview needs a different set, aimed at the employer: how many patients a day, who is in the building during your first solo surgeries, how on-call is shared and paid, and what the contract says about leaving. A pet owner sizing up a new clinic needs a third set, about appointments, emergencies and fees.
Setting up the interview, and what to do afterward
- 1Ask for a time that is not a clinic day if you can. Mid-morning between appointments produces short answers and a distracted interviewee.
- 2Say up front how long you need and then honor it. Twenty minutes that ends on time is easier to grant than an open-ended hour.
- 3Tell them what the interview is for and who will read it. A school assignment, a personal decision, and a published article each call for a different level of care about names and details.
- 4Ask whether you may record. Most people agree, and it lets you listen properly instead of writing while they talk.
- 5Look up the practice first. Knowing whether it is a single site or part of a group saves you a question and shows you did the work.
- 6Offer to send your main questions ahead. Keep the ones about euthanasia and mistakes for the room, where you can judge whether the moment is right.
- 7Write up your notes the same day, while you can still read your own handwriting and remember the tone of an answer.
- 8Send a short thank-you afterward, and if anything will be published, offer to check the quotes and figures with them first.
Getting past the rehearsed answer
Ask about one case, not the job
General questions get general answers. Ask them to describe a specific animal from this week and the decision they made about it, and the reasoning becomes visible.
Follow the numbers
When they mention hours, cost, or caseload, ask for the figure. Vets are used to softening these for clients and will usually give you the real one if you ask directly.
Leave silence after the hard questions
Euthanasia, money, and burnout all get short first answers followed by a better second one if you do not fill the gap. Count to five before you speak.
Let them correct your picture
Say what you assumed about the job and ask where you are wrong. 'I imagine most of your day is surgery' gets a faster and franker answer than an open question, because correcting someone is easier than describing a whole job from scratch.
What to avoid
- Opening with a question about how much they earn. Ask about debt and pay later, once the conversation has settled.
- Asking anything that assumes the job is mostly puppies. It reads as though you have not looked into it at all.
- Bringing your own diagnosis of a pet you own. It turns an interview into a free consultation and vets notice immediately.
- Asking for an owner's name or anything that would identify a patient. A case can be told without either, and pressing for them ends the goodwill.
- Running long. Practices work to a schedule and the person who finishes early gets invited back.
- Treating one vet's figures as the whole profession's. Pay, debt and entry requirements differ by country, by school and by decade, so put a date and a place beside every number you write down.