Veterinarian Resume: Complete Writing Guide [w/ Examples]

Most pet owners can tell you that their pets are a part of their families and that they will want the best healthcare for their animal companions. For this very reason, no doubt veterinary clinics would want to hire the best veterinarians to treat their patients.

A veterinary’s duties and responsibilities include:

• Examine animals to check their health condition
• Diagnose animals illnesses and decide the best health treatment
• Prescribe medications for animals
• Perform surgeries or operations on animals

A professionally crafted veterinarian resume is the first step to instilling a good first impression and confidence in recruiters. Before you know it, you’ll be on your way to an interview for your new veterinary journey.

In a competitive veterinary field, vets aspire to practice in reputable clinics that you would no doubt apply to as well. With the number of vet resumes they receive; recruiters can only spare a few seconds to glance through your resume before moving on to the rest. Thus, you would want to make sure that your veterinarian resume is 1-2 pages long unless you are applying for academic or research positions or have extensive experience.

You can easily help a recruiter to read through your veterinarian doctor resume by choosing a font that is easy to read. For fonts, you want to make sure that you stick to classic and not overused fonts, such as Calibri, Cambria, Helvetica, Garamond, and Palatino.

Ensure that your vet CV contains an appropriate amount of white space; this helps with its readability. A one-inch margin on all sides is the ideal margin size, as it will balance out the resume’s contents and the leftover white space.

Since your vet CV’s length and space are limited, you should ensure that you use an appropriate amount of spacing to avoid wasting and fully utilize the document’s space. A 1.15 spacing is the ideal number, it gives your vet CV extra room while remaining professional-looking.

In most circumstances, a veterinarian resume PDF is more preferable compared to a Word vet CV because of how volatile and messier the latter format can be (due to differences in application versions). Unless specifically asked, you should submit your veterinarian resume in PDF form.

A veterinarian resume title announces who you are to recruiters. It gives them a snapshot of yourself as a candidate, thus, it should be a summary of your veterinary doctor resume.

To attract recruiters’ attention, you would want to craft an intriguing and attention-catching resume title to coax them to continue going over your vet CV and what you have to offer.

To do this, make sure that your veterinarian resume title highlights your relevant achievements and your strengths. You want to use strong and catchy words to grab their attention and to insert keywords from the job descriptions to make the resume title (and by extension, your vet resume) relevant.

Your veterinary doctor resume statement should be a continuation of your resume title. After your resume title has done its job of convincing recruiters to read through your vet CV, your resume statement should go more into detail about it. Here, you should be describing yourself, your previous experience, and your relevant skills.

Lengthwise, an excellent veterinarian resume statement should be within one to two sentences long, any longer and you’ll be taking up space and you might lose the recruiter’s attention. A resume summary differs from a career objective, with the latter being more focused on your career goals. 

A veterinarian is required to possess a wide array of skills to provide the best and most comprehensive care for animals. To do this, there are four ways you can list your skills in a veterinarian resume:


1. bullet lists
2. expanded bullet list (bullet list plus basic explanation of your listed skills)
3. integrated with work experience (requires extensive work experience to fully elaborate the skills you possess, not suitable for a newly graduated vet student resume)
4. categorized skills section (requires you to possess diversified skills, also not suitable for a newly graduated or inexperienced veterinary student resume).

Carefully elaborate on the job context and the skills you possess before committing to a format.

Your past medical practice history can tell recruiters a lot regarding your skill level and qualifications for the position.

As with most sections in a veterinary CV, remember to tailor your work experience section, as not all job experiences you have may be applicable or relevant to the one you’re applying for. You should also quantify your results when showcasing your achievements, as it makes your work look more convincing and apparent in contrast to qualitative descriptions. 

💡 Tip: Remember to use action verbs as they can give recruiters more information to paint a picture of you, which may increase your chances of moving on to the next step of the recruitment process.

Veterinary is a field that requires rigorous training and education for a vet to legally practice. Thus, your educational qualifications and background are one of the most crucial sections of your entire veterinary doctor resume.

Your seniority in the veterinary field will affect the positioning of your education section. For a vet student resume, new graduate veterinarian resume, or an entry-level veterinary CV, your education section should be placed right after your veterinarian resume objective or resume summary, it should be one of the highlights of your CV. 

Some of your personal interests, hobbies, activities, etc. can highlight your personal traits and achievements. That way, recruiters can have an even better picture of your passion and qualifications as a vet.

It may seem old-fashioned, but a veterinarian cover letter can immensely help your vet CV. A vet cover letter gives you space to elaborate more on your credibility as a veterinarian in a way that your resume could not. Because of its limited space and lack of elaboration, a veterinary resume may not be fully enough to convince recruiters of your abilities as a vet.

This is where a veterinarian cover letter comes in handy; it gives you one page (the ideal length) for you to introduce yourself, to explain your motivation for applying, and to showcase your relevant experiences and qualifications. Your vet cover letter should also contain your contact details and should be opened and closed politely.

The first step to every process is usually the most crucial one, more so in a job application process. An understanding of the physical aspect of a professional resume (i.e., template, format, layout) is as important as the contents.