Jobs/experience timeframe

[wildvet]

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Ok, so I heard this 3rd-hand, and I just want to see what you guys think about this. I already applied and everything, but I've been thinking about this a lot.

So someone in my family talked to the vet she goes to and has discussed vet school admissions with them to see what it takes. She relayed the information back to me that it's really bad to jump from job to job and that vet schools are looking for someone that can hold a job for a very long period of time. And then she got angry at me for doing too many jobs. 😕

If it's true that this guy said this to her, I don't know if he has the wrong idea of today's admission standards, or if I just screwed everything up all these years lol. In my situation, I've usually gotten a new job each year. My reason for doing so in most cases was to get a variety of experiences. There was a lot of liability involved with these jobs, as they were with my university, so they did not accept volunteers (so it was not possible to stay in one job and then try volunteering everywhere else). Also, I used to have a few research jobs, which ended when the projects ended. But I have held volunteer positions for years at a time, and there are quite a few that I never did actually stop doing, so it's not like I have bad work ethic. When the admissions committee (for Illinois) came to my school to talk about vet school, they said that it's a lot better to do a lot of different experiences rather than working at the same clinic for 5000 hours.

So I guess that my question is, what is the better way of going about getting vet/animal experience? Does the focus on what is important for admissions (many different experiences vs. a lot of hours at a single clinic) vary between schools?

 

[Skillet9886]

Obviously I can't speak for any admission committee, but I would think that there is a distinction between using your time to gain a variety of experience and "job-hopping." Going from small animal practice to small animal practice every year might not look great (though I have worked at two different hospitals in the same town and think it definitely enhanced my experience..), but if you have spread out your experience over many different types of medicine, I don't think that reflects poorly on your work ethic. I feel like if it raises questions, they would ask you about it. It sounds like you have valid reasoning behind all of them, so just explain it if you're asked.

I've worked at a bunch of different places, some for a relatively short period of time, and I think it's helped me to gain different types of experience, and see different aspects of veterinary medicine, so I definitely don't think you've shot yourself in the foot, if your experience is anything like mine's been.

 

[wildvet]

Well the employment that I have had recently has been really diverse--it wasn't from small animal clinic to small animal clinic. In the past 4 years, I've been paid for working at a poultry farm, then a small/exotics clinic, and then wildlife field research. Then this past fall, I started at a dairy farm while doing other wildlife field projects under the same professor as before.

And I've had a lot more discontinuity and "job-hopping" with unpaid internships, volunteering, and shadowing that I've done, but that's probably normal for anyone. Sometimes it isn't feasible to shadow someone for 3 years or whatever... there was one vet I shadowed that would only allow 3 days of shadowing maximum for any student!

Yeah, this was why I asked this... I mean I know that it's more important when we actually have *real* careers to keep our jobs for a while. But right now, it seems like it's just more important to "sample" out our options and see which field is best for us.

 

[Pandacinny]

I was kind of told the opposite after my first time applying to VMRCVM. They said it's better to have breadth, not depth. I don't think having the same job at one vet for five years and only that same job looks as good as having diverse experience. I think your experience sounds good, personally.

Also, a lot of older vets I speak to don't seem to be on top of vet school admissions, and why would they be? I've been told countless times to "just say you like cows! You'll get right in!" or that if I go to school anywhere overseas, my degree will be worthless because there's no way to practice in the US unless you go to school here. Obviously, neither of those things is quite true.

 

[wildvet]

I was kind of told the opposite after my first time applying to VMRCVM. They said it's better to have breadth, not depth. I don't think having the same job at one vet for five years and only that same job looks as good as having diverse experience. I think your experience sounds good, personally.

Also, a lot of older vets I speak to don't seem to be on top of vet school admissions, and why would they be? I've been told countless times to "just say you like cows! You'll get right in!" or that if I go to school anywhere overseas, my degree will be worthless because there's no way to practice in the US unless you go to school here. Obviously, neither of those things is quite true.

Lol yeah, you're right. And most of my family still doesn't understand anything about my situation b/c I'm the first one to stray away from human medicine/biology (no matter how much I tell them, they keep comparing vet med to being a kennel caretaker or zookeeper), so either the poor vet's words got twisted when my family was playing the telephone game with me, or he's just out of touch with admissions nowadays like you said.

This is random, but in a way, this thread seems to tie in a lot with the misconceptions thread that just popped up lol.

 

[sumstorm]

Hmmm...if job hopping is bad, then I am in trouble! I have been out of school for awhile. I left my first post college position because it was a 1 year position, the next job because Katrina/Rita demolished the zoo and destroyed the position I worked in, the next because Bush cut funding to NOAA by over 50%, which brings me to my current position at a vet! I am hoping the breadth is more important than depth.

 

[cateyes]

FWIW, when I spoke with Cornell after the application process two years ago, I was told that their major concern with my application was the fact that I had worked in the same clinic for 5 years. They recommended that I work in a variety of clinics for a brief period of time so that I could learn what different practices were like. They were very pro "job hopping"

 

[bmichs75DVM]

Along with that, I only worked for one clinic for one summer. But, over the past 2 1/2 years, I shadowed at 5 different clinics (1SA exclusive, 1 Equine/SA, 1 Large/small animal, 1 Dairy exclusive). This wide breadth of experience is one of the things I think stood out to the adcoms. More than just having a lot of experience at one clinic.

 

[LadyHitokiri]

I have the same situation, wildvet, so don't worry. My experiences are more like "job hopping" in terms of volunteering, shadowing, working, etc. I used to freak out about the number of hours of experience I have (quite low compared to an average SDNer) but then I realized that my breadth was a strong-point. I remember Mary Kelm talking about the importance of both breadth AND depth, but that the variety of experiences shows that you know and understand veterinary medicine in its many fields.

Last year, one of my friends once said, "Blah blah blah percent of people who get into vet school have 3 or more years of experience working at a vet clinic, blah blah blah." I laughed and said, "The stats may be true, but it certainly isn't a requirement. I met with Mary Kelm privately to discuss my progress and she assured me that I was on the right track with my experiences." FTW!

This is NOT to say that working 3 or more years at a vet clinic is a bad thing. Certain vet schools DO actually want a certain amount of vet experience, and whatnot. But Illinois definitely considers the diversity of work and animals that you've worked with and at least some dedication to the field you'd like to work in.

 

[hopefulvet21]

This is sort of a related question...

I too have had several different types of experience and worked in one small animal clinic for like 3 months and a different one for 7-8 months. The first one I worked at as basically a kennel attendant, and I wanted to get more involved, which is why I went to another clinic. I have also had various other non-vet related jobs for semi-short time periods. I worked as a tutor for about 6 months in between the two jobs mentioned above, and I waitressed, was an admin. assistant, and worked as a nanny during college as well. I didn't put the waitressing down on my app (although I think I should have...people skills?) It's definitely not that I can't stay committed to a job, it's just that during school when I had a different schedule each semester and summer and every other break, waitressing and nanny-work were very flexible. Do you think adcoms will put dates together and notice that I was always working 15-25 hours per week during school? Nothing is really consectutive so it's hard to piece everything together...but I want them to notice that in addition to working all these hours while taking a full science and math load I still got very good grades. Do you think they'll just see it as lack of committment, or do you think they will notice the "ability to handle work and class full time" thing?

(sorry, I think this post was much longer than it needed to be)

 

[LadyHitokiri]

hopefulvet, I'd say the latter. If anything, they'd probably take it as you exploring your side-job interests. XD If you have an open interview, they may or not ask you about it and I think they'd only do so to make sure you weren't fired from each job and that's why you worked at so many.

I wouldn't worry about it if I were you. 😉

 

[Skillet9886]

Hopefulvet21, I don't think that your experience sounds bad at all. It makes sense to go to a clinic to get more of a tech/assistant job if you can't get out of the kennel at one place. I had a lot of other experience as well (worked as a summer camp counselor and substitute teacher), and I think it's been an asset. I would suggest that you think of the non-vet experiences that you've had, and see how they give you different perspectives or how they can benefit you and how they relate to vet med. I have been asked about my non-vet experiences at both of my interviews so far this year.

To answer your question at the end, I definitely think they will look at it positively. Not every job we all have can be a vet-related job. It doesn't mean we're not committed, just that a vet job wouldn't work out at the time. I wouldn't worry about it, but definitely be able to talk about it if you're asked.