The one and only, Jessica Lukow
Jessica has spent most of her life in Virginia, and received her Animal Science degree from Virginia Tech. She has over 10 years of experience as a technician, and dove straight into emergency medicine after graduation.
She enjoys saving pets and keeping them healthy. But she has also struggled with compassion fatigue and burnout, so healthy culture and a supportive employer is very important to her.
Jessica is big on family and when she’s not saving pets’ lives, she spends most of her time with her two kiddos.
How did you hear about hound?
I actually heard about hound on Instagram. Snout School was talking about solutions for culture, leadership, and employee empowerment. It was so timely for me, since I was struggling with burnout and compassion fatigue.
I saw how much hound is promoting positive culture and leadership and actually building solutions to help people. It was a no brainer to sign up and build a profile.
What was the job search experience like on scout?
I really liked that I was able to make my own unique profile and list what I’m actually interested in and what I’m specialized in.
It felt nice because it wasn’t just another resume dump. I felt like the whole experience was tailored and meant for vet med. It was refreshing to see that all the jobs were truly relevant to what I was looking for.
I was able to see information about the practices, pictures of the facilities, volume of appointments, shifts, pay, and more.
When I first created my profile, hound wasn’t launched in my area yet. But a few weeks went by and I started receiving notifications.
When I logged back into scout I saw a ton of new openings and messages. The messages back and forth with Courtney at Encore were great and super convenient on hound. I wasn’t even looking for a job, but it was relevant, something I was interested in, and the pay made sense for me. So I interviewed, completed their process, and landed this new job!
What are some magic moments you've had using scout?
Being able to make my own unique profile and communicate through scout was great and easy. I liked looking out for hound's special notifications, they were always exciting.
When Courtney contacted me, she already knew what I was looking for and I didn’t feel like another number in a huge mass recruiting email. It felt like the conversation was relevant and personal.
I liked being able to see pictures of the facilities, the benefits up front, hours I would be working etc.. It was really refreshing to see transparent and nice looking job posts.
I really liked that scout was completely different than what I was used to seeing.
What excites you the most about what hound is building for veterinary medicine?
I think your culture and retention platform is going to be huge.
I worked at a hospital for 12 years, and I left because the culture wasn’t great. Once I left, I realized how much stress I had with that job and how much less stress there is now that culture is a priority.
If you could tell veterinary professionals one thing about hound, what would it be?
I’d say it’s amazing because it's so unlike the others since hound is a veterinary-only platform.
If you’re looking for a job in vet med, this is the go-to place. For employers, people are leaving vet med in droves, so you definitely want to find a place where the professionals are, and that’s hound.
Anywhere else, you’re going to have to sift through a bunch of people and opportunities that aren’t veterinary. Certain keywords may not match on other platforms when you search but with hound, you don’t have to worry about that because everyone on here is veterinary.
How would you feel if we took hound away from Vet Med?
If something like this was taken away, I think it would be detrimental to the health of our workforce.
I feel like everything hound is building is exactly the direction vet med needs to go. If you took away hound, it would be a huge step backwards for our profession.
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