Questions to Ask a Vet in an Interview
Questions for interviewing a veterinarian, whether it is for a school career project, a piece of writing, or your own decision about applying to vet school. They cover the real shape of the working day, the client conversations that take up more time than anyone expects, money and debt, euthanasia, and how the profession has changed.
20 questions, each with the reason to ask it · includes a conversation guide
The questions
Open any question to see why it works.
- 1
What kind of practice is this: small animal, large animal, mixed, or exotics?
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.
- 2
Can you walk me through what you actually did yesterday, hour by hour?
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.
- 3
What made you choose veterinary medicine rather than human medicine or research?
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.
- 4
What does it take to get accepted these days?
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.
- 5
Which part of your training turned out to matter most once you were working?
Graduates rarely name the clinical subjects students obsess over. They tend to name communication, anesthesia monitoring, or the business teaching they nearly skipped, which is a good guide to where a student should put effort.
- 6
What was the first year out of school like?
New graduates describe a specific fear about being the person who signs the decision. Ask who they could phone at two in the morning during that year, because the quality of mentorship in a first job shapes everything that follows it.
- 7
How much of your day is spent talking to people rather than treating animals?
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.
- 8
What is the most common thing owners get wrong about their pets?
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.
- 9
What happens when the right treatment costs more than the owner can pay?
This is the daily moral weight of the profession and the part students are least prepared for. Listen for how they present the choices to an owner rather than whether they have a tidy solution, because there usually is not one.
- 10
How are prices set here, and who sets them?
The answer tells you whether the practice is independently owned, part of a group, or corporate, which affects how much clinical freedom a vet has. It is also the shortest route to a candid conversation about commercial pressure.
- 11
How often do you have to tell someone you do not know what is wrong?
Diagnostics are limited by what an owner will authorize, so uncertainty is routine rather than a failure. A vet who says this rarely happens is either heavily specialized or not being straight with you.
- 12
What does an on-call or emergency shift look like?
Out-of-hours arrangements vary enormously and are one of the main reasons people leave clinical work. Ask how often it comes round, how long it lasts, whether it is paid separately, and what the day after looks like.
- 13
How do you approach euthanasia, and has that changed over your career?
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.
- 14
What support is there for vets when the work gets heavy?
The profession has spent recent years taking its own mental health more seriously, but what exists on the ground ranges from formal programs to nothing at all. Whatever they name, or fail to name, describes the culture of that particular workplace.
- 15
How does the debt from training compare with what vets earn?
That ratio is the number that decides whether the career is workable, and it is different from the equivalent ratio in human medicine. Ask how it shaped their own choices about specializing, where to live, and how many hours to take on.
- 16
Would you specialize if you were starting again?
Internships and residencies mean several more years of low pay before higher earnings, 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.
- 17
Which part of the job would you remove if you could?
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.
- 18
Who else in this building makes the practice work?
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.
- 19
What has changed in the profession since you started?
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.
- 20
Knowing what you know now, would you do it again?
Ask it last and let the pause happen. Many vets answer yes with conditions attached, and the conditions are the actual advice you came for.
Interviewing a veterinarian well
Practical guidance for the conversation itself.
Setting up the interview
Setting up the interview
- 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.
Getting past the rehearsed answer
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.
What to avoid
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 about a specific client or patient. Confidentiality applies, and pressing on it ends the goodwill.
- Running long. Practices work to a schedule and the person who finishes early gets invited back.