What to look for when hiring a vet nurse

Registration tells you whether a candidate can practice as an RVN. It does not tell you whether their recent experience, their confidence with clients or their plans for the next few years match the job you are filling.

In the RCVS’s 2024 survey of the veterinary nursing profession, a quarter of respondents planned to leave veterinary nursing within five years for reasons other than retirement. The reasons they selected most often were pay, not feeling rewarded or valued, poor work-life balance and dissatisfaction with career opportunities. Those findings point beyond the initial qualification, toward how the role is designed, supported and developed.

What does the role involve?

Start with the job, not the candidate. Write down how the nurse will spend a typical week:

• theater and anesthetic monitoring
• ward and inpatient care
• nurse clinics and client education
• Schedule 3 procedures under direction
• supervising student nurses, or leading part of the team

Nurse clinics are a substantial part of the job for many RVNs. In the 2024 survey, post-operative checks, nail clipping and vaccinations were the most common clinic types, and dental, senior wellness and behavior clinics the least common.

Dr Nick Lloyd, Lupa’s Chief Veterinary Officer and a former practice owner, found that client communication mattered more in some nursing roles than he had first allowed for. When he started hiring nurses he screened mainly for clinical skills. One hire that did not work out was a nurse who was skilled with the animals but could not communicate with clients, in a role that needed both. It is a useful prompt to decide how client-facing the role is before you advertise.

How do you check registration and Schedule 3 experience?

Check the register first. To practice veterinary nursing, a candidate must be registered with the RCVS, and the RCVS Find a Vet Nurse search shows current status. The generic title “veterinary nurse” is not yet protected in law, so someone can describe themselves that way without being registered. That is one reason the check matters.

Registration also brings Schedule 3 to the Veterinary Surgeons Act 1966. It allows a registered veterinary nurse to give medical treatment and carry out minor surgery that does not involve entering a body cavity, under the direction of the vet who employs them. The directing vet must be satisfied the nurse is qualified to carry out that treatment or procedure.

Registration sets the professional baseline. Whether you can delegate a given procedure still depends on that nurse’s current experience, competence and confidence with it. Two RVNs with the same qualification may have spent the last five years very differently, one monitoring anesthetics on a busy ops list and the other mostly in nurse consults.

Ask each candidate which Schedule 3 tasks they performed regularly in their last role, and which they would want support with. Student veterinary nurses can also carry out Schedule 3 work in training, but under supervision that must be direct, continuous and personal for minor surgery. If you are hiring a student, plan that supervision time into the rota.

How do you make the interview fair and comparable?

Prepare a set of core questions and ask every candidate the same ones where possible. Acas recommends this. It also advises having more than one interviewer, and basing the decision on how each candidate met the job description and person specification. You must also ask candidates whether they need reasonable adjustments to attend.

A client scenario works well if you use the same one for everyone and score it against set criteria. For example, an owner who cannot afford the recommended treatment. Look at whether the candidate:

• listens to the client before explaining
• explains the options clearly
• recognizes when to involve the vet
• avoids making clinical or financial decisions outside their role
• stays professional under pressure

Score the same behaviors for every candidate, rather than judging whether you liked the answer.

Dr Lloyd used client role-plays in his own interviews. Behavioral questions add to this. “Tell us about a time you had to explain a clinical or cost-related issue to a client. What did you say, and when did you escalate?” is easier to compare across candidates than a general question about values.

He also handed the clinical questions to his experienced head nurse, who knew the team she wanted to build and could judge whether answers came from experience. Including an experienced RVN on the panel tests role-specific clinical knowledge, and a second assessor reduces the risk of a decision resting on one person’s impression.

Team behaviors belong on the scoresheet too, but as things you can observe. Dr Lloyd describes the question as whether a new nurse will be “disruptive or additive”. In recruitment terms, that means assessing how a candidate communicates, responds to feedback, asks for help, escalates concerns and works within agreed processes.

How should you run a work trial?

Dr Lloyd used trial shifts to see how candidates worked with the team, how confident they were with practical skills and whether they showed initiative.

Acas gives two hours or a shift as examples of a reasonable trial length, and says unpaid trials should not usually exceed one day. Minimum wage entitlement can arise if the trial goes beyond what is reasonably necessary for recruitment. That is more likely where the candidate does productive work of value to the practice, is not observed, or does tasks outside the role. Some practices choose to pay for every trial as a simple policy. If you are unsure, take HR advice.

Do not use the trial to test Schedule 3 procedures. Schedule 3 covers nurses directed by the vet who employs them, and a candidate on trial is not yet your employee. Use discussion, simulation and observation of handling, communication and teamwork instead.

How should you take references?

Use a defined process. Acas advises asking for references at the final stage, when making a conditional offer, and says that before approaching a current employer you should have the applicant’s permission and have made clear at application stage what references you need.

Some employers will only give a basic factual reference. Where a referee is willing to say more, ask the same role-related questions for each shortlisted candidate. Avoid informal calls to people who once worked with a candidate, which bring in hearsay and information you should not be using.

Will the role use their skills?

The other hire Dr Lloyd describes as not working out was a nurse whose experience went beyond what the role needed. They became frustrated and moved on. The useful question is whether the job gives a candidate enough scope for the skills they already have and the ones they want to develop.

An analysis of the RCVS surveys of veterinary nurses found that, in both 2014 and 2019, nurses who believed the profession offered good career progression were around 70% less likely to intend to leave. In the 2014 data, nurses who regularly ran nurse clinics were also less likely to plan to leave.

Ask candidates what work they want more of, which skills they want to keep using and which they want to build. Not everyone wants a management route or an advanced certificate, and that should not count against them. What matters is whether the role you are offering matches what they are looking for, and whether your practice can support it.

Why keep to the criteria when the rota is under pressure?

In Dr Lloyd’s experience, a recurring mistake was recruiting mainly to fill an immediate rota gap, without checking the candidate against the role criteria and the behaviors the team needed. He is also candid that what he screened for at interview historically did not predict how a nurse performed six months later. That is why practical assessment and the views of the team carried more weight in his process over time.

The nurses who settled well, in his experience, were looking for opportunity, took feedback on board and changed what they did.

Where you can, do not drop the agreed selection criteria because the rota is stretched. Our article on the hidden cost of vet staff turnover covers what repeated recruitment costs a practice, and our guide to staff recruitment in veterinary practice covers the advert and the first ninety days.

What might VSA reform change?

Defra’s White Paper, published on 9 July 2026, proposes a license to practice for veterinary professionals, with veterinary nurses among the first professions to be brought into the new framework. It proposes protecting the veterinary nurse title and creating a framework for a broader scope of practice. The regulator, rather than a fixed list in legislation, would decide which activities each profession can carry out.

The detail of that scope has not been set, and the government says a new Act will come forward as parliamentary time allows. Until then, Schedule 3 applies as it does today.

A scorecard for vet nurse recruitment

Offer reasonable adjustments for interview or assessment where they are needed, and record why the successful candidate met each criterion, judged against the role rather than assumptions about disability or health.

To see how Lupa supports day-to-day work across the veterinary team, book a demo.