Applied For A Job!

I just applied for a job at a vet's office. It's for a receptionist/technician, apparently 3/4 receptionist duties and 1/4 light technician duties. I am not really qualified for the technician part as I haven't taken any courses on it, but from the description I have a feeling that it's mostly for things that you don't have to be certified to do. I am really hoping that I at least get an interview, I've applied for receptionist positions as vet's offices before but I've always been overlooked. I'm hoping that I replied to this posting early enough, it was only posted on the 20th. Even if I get the minimum wage posted for the job, I'd still be making almost $5 more an hour than I make now at my fulltime job. 

I really want to get out of retail, it's incredibly stressful and every shift I work I hate it more and more. I love my job at NV, but it's only part time. I don't think working at a vet's office would be a conflict of interest because I wouldn't actually be advising clients in regards to pet nutrition. 

Applying was a long shot, but if you can all spare some "get an interview" vibes I'd appreciate it!

Oh honey, I hope you get it!!!

 Lots of  from here too! Good luck!  

:cross::cross::cross::cross: that you get it!

Good luck!

Good luck on getting the job!  Sounds like it would be perfect, and also give you an opportunity to learn more about the vet tech area.

Let us know what happens!

So far I haven't heard anything back, but I submitted my resume around 3am on Friday morning and I'm not sure if they're open on Saturdays or not. I suppose they are also waiting a bit to contact people so that they can get more resumes in... we'll see. I've been telling as many of my friends as possible that I applied for it, just incase any of them know someone that works there that could put a good word in. I think if I can get an interview, I stand a better chance. 

It's a field I really want to get into, but I can't take the course to get the actual degree without having a placement in the field. I talked to a lot of people that have taken the course, many of them have said the hardest part is finding a placement, so I would like to have that taken care of before I invest so much money into it. I can take most of the course through correspondance, but I still have to go to the actual school for, I think, 6 weeks in the summer. I can't afford to take the course and then be out of work for that length of time and with my current jobs, I don't make enough money to be able to save enough to have that much time off. I do have about 3 weeks of vacation pay saved up, but there is no way that my fulltime job would allow me to take that much time off. 

To be honest, if I can get into a vet's office as a receptionist that would be just fine with me and I wouldn't necessarily want to take the vet tech couse. The pay is about the same around here, although there is probably a cap on the max salary for a receptionist and the tech one would probably be higher, but that's not a big deal to me. I just want a job that I'll actually like!

Good luck! Usually they can train you if you have to help clean kennels you don't have to be certified if that's what the tech part of it is because some vet offices have kennel techs. Only if you want to be a vet tech or assistant I think you have to have a degree. I think you'd be great for it. Best of luck, it may take them awhile to get back to you to set up for interviews.

I saw the job was still posted on Monday so I sent my resume in again. I was going to wait until Thursday, when it would have been three weeks since they posted the job, but decided to just go ahead and do it on Monday. It's still posted today, so I don't think they've hired anyone. 

I was a little worried that maybe because of the time I sent my resume in it got sent to spam email or missed. That's the one thing I HATE about applying for jobs through email, you don't know if the recipient got it or not. 

I have one friend that takes his cat there, but she's just a kitten and he's only been there a few times. He really likes the clinic, but since he's only been there a couple of times I didn't bother asking him to put a good word in for me. I know this would be a great job for me and I'd be very good at it, but getting in the door (at any vet clinic) is going to be very hard. It's getting really frustrating. 

I also noticed on the website where the job was posted (OVAT website) that there are jobs posted from back in December. Most of them are for RVTs, the job I can't do... it seemed weird to me because when I checked about a year ago the jobs would go fast and were never up there for more than a week or two. We're really close to a college that teaches the RVT program, so it surprised me quite a bit to see them staying up there so long. 

I also noticed this one:

XXXXXXXXXX Hospital in London seeks a registered veterinary technician or a veterinary assistant with formal training or experience to fill in for a mat leave, then to add to our team as a permanent position to the right candidate. All our wonderful staff are cross trained and very friendly, professional, dedicated, capable of serving clients and patients in all areas of the hospital. Remuneration dependent on experience and education and includes pet insurance, gym membership, break vouchers, uniform and CE allowances. Please e mail your resume and cover letter with references to XXXXX     

I might apply to it. It says "or experience" and since I worked with rescue and had a diabetic cat for so long, I'm familiar with giving shots and working with difficult animals. The only problem is that it's to cover a mat leave, so after a year I could very well be out of a job if they don't see me as a good fit for the permanent position. I think I'll apply anyways, in a few days, and then if I get it deal with everything else a year down the road. At the very worst, it would give me the experience that I would need to get somewhere else, my lease would be up at my apartment and I could move back in with my parents if I had to, assuming the job market doesn't pick up here in the next year. 

Keep fingers and paws crossed that I hear back from one of these positions. I really need to get out of the field I'm in now, I am really starting to hate it and dread going into work. To make matters worse, hours are being cut so I'm getting the bare minimum to be fulltime which just covers my rent and car insurance for the month. 

Interviews vibes coming your way!!

Have you gone right into the vets office and talked to them?

That's the one thing I learnt that REALLY seems to help. Send in resume, wait a few days and then go in and see them. Meet them, explain that you're really interested in the job and you just wanted to touch base.

Both positions stated very clearly not to contact them prior to them contacting you. I know the one is a pretty busy clinic. The other one has all the equipment to do specialized things (like heart echos)  so I would imagine that they're pretty busy too, at least it was when I had to take a foster dog there... we had to wait two weeks for an appointment. 

Both jobs for the vet tech positions are still posted online, but I haven't heard anything from either of them. It's started to get to crunch time for me, I'm nearly out of savings and I need to get either another parttime job or a different fulltime job where I will get more hours to be able to afford to live on my own. As it is now, I'm around $400 short almost every month and have had to go into savings for that for the past 4 months due to hours being cut at my current fulltime job. I've gone from 38 hours a week down to 28 most weeks, if I'm lucky I get 34 hours a week. 

Tomorrow I'm applying to one of the Pet Valu stores here in London, so cross your fingers that I get it. They're hiring for management, full and part time staff, either would be fine with me. If I could get fulltime with hours the mesh with my hours at my current job that would be perfect and I could go down to part time where I am now. 

I have over six years of retail experience as a cashier/merchandiser/photolab tech and a year of experience in the pet food industry. In addition to all of that, I also have five years of experience with dogs from the rescue, three years of experience with dog breeding, a lifetime of experience with my own cats, dogs and small animals, six years of independent study in canine nutrition and about two years of independent study in feline nutrition. I've stated all of that in my cover letter but I'm hoping they don't take one look at it and say that I'm over qualified. I had applied for a few jobs before and have been told that I'm over qualified, it sucks. I mean, if I didn't want the job, why would I apply? 

I'm also going to apply at the Starbuck's down the street from where I live (I'm desperate! lol), so wish me luck with that too. All of the students will be leaving mid to late April, so businesses should be starting their searches for new employees now. 

This is getting to be very stressful for me, when I'm not at work, I'm looking for and applying to other jobs. When I'm not doing that, I'm stressing over money. When I'm not doing that, I'm at work and hating it because I'm so stressed, lol. 

One thing I would like to rant a bit about is emailing resumes or submitting them online. When did this become the norm? It's so impersonal and I always wonder whether the appropriate person actually got my resume or whether it went to junk mail or something like that. At least when you hand in a resume there's a reasonable chance that it's going to get to the right person and you have a chance to make an impression on them. 

I also applied online to Petsmart, both locations here in London for three different positions that were posted online. That was over a week ago and it took me a good half hour to fill out everything they wanted. I haven't heard back at all, although the last time I applied at Petsmart it was during a group interview and the manager and I butted heads a bit. He was condescending, so when he said that I probably wanted to work there for the discount on food because I had so many pets I said that I didn't feed anything they sell, lol. I knew when he started talking to me one on one that it wouldn't be a good fit for me so I didn't care at that point. That manager is no longer there, but now I'm worried that that's going to come back to bite me. 

I don't know about in England but here they want resumes in electronic format so they can run them through a software program. The program looks for certain key words along with spelling and grammer errors. You can find generic lists of the action type words they look for on resumes online. It is impersonal but it does save them a lot of time especially when unemployment is high and they get a lot of resumes.

I got an interview at Pet Valu! I go in on Tuesday at 3pm. Wish me luck!

LOTS of luck coming your way!

Good luck!

Good luck hun, emailed a cv once and they didn't receive it, I rang them just to double check.x

Thanks everyone! I'm really excited for it, I'm sure tomorrow I'll be a nervous wreck though, lol, and I have to work until 1 at my other job. 
 

Ruthyb said:

Good luck hun, emailed a cv once and they didn't receive it, I rang them just to double check.x

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When I was in high school part of one of the courses we had to take, I can't remember which one, was on resume building, interviews and what you should do when applying for a job. Of course all of this was before applying online and emailing resumes was the norm. They always told us to ask to speak to a manager when handing one in and then call a few days to a week later to make sure they got it and let them know that you're still interested. Now though, almost all of the jobs that I see posted and apply for say specifically on it "DO NOT CALL" or "NO PHONE CALLS", they want you to email it in or apply online, so you never know if they actually got it or not. It's incredibly frustrating. 

At my current full time job, we have people submitting resumes all the time. Our management has specifically told us NOT to call them down if someone is just handing in a resume and they hate it when people call to verify that management has received it. You never get that chance to make a good impression when handing one in, to show them that you're clean and well kept, know what you're talking about, etc. 

I'm also stunned at the way resumes are written by young people now. Often it's one page that says their name, address, phone number and email address, a list of jobs they had with the dates that they worked there, but no list of what they did, references are rarely attached to the resume and very few even have "references available upon request" at the bottom. We also have an application that people are supposed to fill out when they hand a resume in, it's surprising to see how many young people just write "see resume" in the different sections and how absolutely horrible their penmanship is, especially males. We have a few communication books in different departments around the store where we are to write things that were discussed in meetings, things that need to be done, what was filled, etc, and often it's like trying to break a code to figure out what they've written. If anyone that has kids that are applying for jobs, please tell them to work on their penmanship! It really does seem to make a difference when the management doesn't actually get a chance to see you. 

I am just finishing up a course in Medical Billing and Coding and correct resume form has changed a lot since I was first taught how to write one. A resume should rarely go over one page and everything is done with bullet point lists rather than paragraphs. It's actually acceptable to not use complete sentences just very short curt bullet points highlighting your experience at a job, skills acquired at school with GPA and certifications.  Also go no further back than 10 years with job experience.