Transforming Veterinary Hiring: The Design of Scout
Scout was created to address the inefficiencies in veterinary hiring. Traditional job platforms failed to connect practices with the right talent, leading to slow hiring, high turnover, and staffing shortages. This project aimed to streamline the recruitment process, improve candidate quality, and foster an engaged veterinary community through targeted UX research, product strategy, and monetization models.
ROLE:
HEAD OF DESIGN
COMPANY:
HOUND INC.
SCOPE:
UX RESEARCH, STRATEGY,BRANDING,DESIGN SYSTEMS, PRODUCT DESIGN, PROTOTYPING
PROJECT:
SCOUT - A VETERINARY HIRING PLATFORM
TEAM:
LED THE DESIGN AND THE DESIGN TEAM AND COLLABORATED CLOSELY WITH PRODUCT MANAGERS, ENGINEERS AND CX TEAMS.
FULLY REMOTE
DATE & DURATION:
NOV 2020 - ONGOING
INTRODUCTION
Veterinary hiring is slow, inefficient, and lacks industry-specific solutions. Traditional job platforms do not cater to Practice Managers and Veterinary Group Practice Managers, making it difficult to find and retain qualified professionals.
As Head of Design at Hound, I led the research, strategy, and design of Scout, a platform built to streamline hiring, improve efficiency, and foster a strong veterinary community. By creating an industry-tailored experience, Scout has become the largest veterinary job search platform, connecting thousands of practices and job seekers.
THE UX/UI PROCESS
Discovery &
Problem definition
User Research & Insights Gathering
Journey Mapping &
UX Strategy
Prototyping & Usability Testing
Validation &
Continuous
Improvement
Discovery &
Problem Definition
This phase helped us uncover core pain points and validate the need for an industry-specific hiring solution. This phase also helped me understand the goals and needs of the stakeholders. Without understanding the true scope of the problem, we risked designing a solution that wouldn’t address real user frustrations.
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Conducted 30 stakeholder interviews with practice managers and veterinary professionals to understand hiring challenges.
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Analyzed industry reports and hiring trends to validate the market gap.
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Studied existing hiring workflows in veterinary clinics to identify inefficiencies.
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Brainstormed with the co-founders, investors and advisors to understand the needs of the company and the stakeholders.
LET'S LOOK AT SOME DATA!
25-30% of veterinary practices are owned by large corporate groups
over 160 million pet dogs and cats in the US
Pet healthcare spending has reached $40+ billion annually
There are approximately 32,000 veterinary practices in the United States
~124,000 veterinarians and over 200,000 veterinary technicians and support staff
DEMAND VS SUPPLY
Demand for veterinarians is outpacing supply, with an estimated 15,000+ vet vacancies by 2030 if trends continue.
HIRING BOTTLENECKS &
TIME TO FILL
The average time to fill a veterinary job is 3-6 months, leading to increased workloads and burnout for existing staff.
IMPACT OF BURNOUT &
JOB DISSATISFACTION
Over 40% of veterinarians consider leaving the profession due to stress, long hours, and emotional strain
MANUAL RESUME SCREENING &
POOR JOB MATCHING
80% of practice managers report spending hours sorting through unqualified applications due to poor filtering on general job boards.
SCHEDULING INTERVIEWS IS
A MAJOR PAIN POINT
55% of hiring managers say scheduling interviews is one of their biggest challenges due to conflicts and back-and-forth emails.
CANDIDATE DROP OFF &
LACK OF ENGAGEMENT
50% of veterinary job seekers abandon applications mid-process due to slow response times from clinics.
ONBOARDING DELAYS
30% of veterinary hires face onboarding issues such as unclear job expectations, paperwork delays, or lack of structured training, leading to early turnover.
SCHEDULING INTERVIEWS IS
A MAJOR PAIN POINT
Turnover rates remain high, with 30-50% of veterinary professionals changing jobs within three years.
CANDIDATE DROP OFF &
LACK OF ENGAGEMENT
50% of veterinary job seekers abandon applications mid-process due to slow response times from clinics.
"Veterinary practices struggle to hire qualified professionals due to inefficient hiring platforms and a limited talent pool. Existing job platforms are not tailored to veterinary hiring, leading to high turnover, long hiring cycles, and staff shortages. Clinics, especially small and independent ones, find it difficult to compete with large corporate chains that offer better salaries and benefits. Without a streamlined and veterinary-specific hiring solution, the industry faces ongoing recruitment inefficiencies, affecting clinic operations and patient care."
THE PROBLEM
USER RESEARCH &
INSIGHT GATHERING
Direct user feedback was essential to shaping an intuitive and effective platform. Understanding how practice managers currently hire allowed us to tailor features that solve real workflow challenges.
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Collect Qualitative and quantitative data
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Competitive Analysis
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Empathy Map, Lean UX Canvas, Journey Mapping, User Persona, MoSCoW
QUANTITATIVE
Surveys and Questionnaires
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Why?
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To collect quantitative data on common hiring challenges at scale.
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Who?
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A larger sample of practice managers, veterinary group managers, veterinarians across different regions.
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How?
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Distributed via email, LinkedIn, or veterinary professional groups with a mix of multiple-choice, ranking, and open-ended questions.
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+250
PRACTICES
+500
SURVEY RESPONSES
TOOLS USED:
NOTION,JOTFORM,GOOGLE FORMS, FACEOOK, LINKEDIN, EMAILS, HUBSPOT
QUALITATIVE
In-Depth Interviews and Contextual Inquiry / Shadowing
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Why?
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Get detailed insights into hiring frustrations, workflows, and needs. Observe hiring managers in action to understand real-time challenges.
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Who?
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Practice managers, clinic owners, HR personnel in veterinary practices. Practice managers actively hiring or reviewing applications.
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How?
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30-60 minute structured interviews covering their hiring process, biggest obstacles, and desired solutions. For shadowing, spent time at a clinic, observing and asking questions as they navigate hiring platforms, review resumes, and schedule interviews.
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+20 PRACTICES SHADOWED
+ 50
IN-DEPTH
INTERVIEWS
TOOLS USED:
NOTION,ZOOM,IN-PERSON, OTTER, FACEBOOK, LINKEDIN, EMAILS, HUBSPOT
COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
In-Depth Interviews and Contextual Inquiry / Shadowing
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Why?
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Identify gaps in existing job platforms (e.g., Indeed, LinkedIn).
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Who?
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Compare general hiring platforms to Scout’s target audience.ications.
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How?
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Analyze competitors' strengths and weaknesses from a veterinary hiring perspective.
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USER PERSONAS
Scout serves two primary user groups with overlapping yet distinct hiring challenges: Practice Managers and Veterinary Group Administrators. While both personas share the need for efficient, veterinary-specific hiring solutions, Sara prioritizes speed and ease of use, whereas Mark requires scalability, hiring analytics, and long-term retention strategies.
EMPTATHY MAPPING
EMPTATHY MAPPING
To ensure Scout's features addressed real user needs, we created an empathy map for Sara Mitchell (Practice Manager) and Mark Reynolds (Veterinary Group Administrator) to highlight their thought processes, frustrations, and expectations during the hiring process.
JOURNEY MAPPING &
UX STRATEGY
Why it’s important: Mapping out the entire hiring process highlighted friction points and helped us identify the most impactful areas for improvement. It ensured our design decisions were data-driven and user-focused.
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Developed user persona and journey maps to outline the end-to-end hiring process, highlighting pain points and opportunities for improvement.
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Created service blueprints to align Scout’s platform with user needs, defining front-stage and back-stage interactions.
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Built an empathy map to capture what users think, feel, say, and do, ensuring deeper understanding of practice managers' challenges.
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Prioritized features using the MoSCoW (Must-have, Should-have, Could-have, Won’t-have) method, ensuring focus on high-impact solutions.
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Used a Lean UX canvas to align business goals, user problems, and hypotheses to streamline decision-making.
MAIN PROBLEM
DEFINITION
Veterinary clinics and multi-location veterinary groups struggle to find, attract, and retain qualified professionals due to inefficient hiring platforms, long hiring cycles, and intense competition from corporate groups. Traditional job boards do not cater to veterinary-specific roles, leading to irrelevant applicants, unfilled positions, and high turnover rates.
For Veterinary Group Administrators, managing hiring across multiple clinics is even more complex. They need a scalable, centralized system to oversee job postings, candidate applications, and hiring analytics for multiple locations. Without an efficient solution, hiring inefficiencies lead to staff shortages, operational bottlenecks, and increased costs.