To hire a good veterinary technician, post a specific listing with a real pay range, respond within a day or two, run a short paid working interview, and put the full offer in writing. Credentialed techs usually have more than one option, and they choose the practice that's clearest about pay, schedule, and how it uses techs.
This guide is for practice owners, medical directors, and practice managers. Most of it also applies to hiring assistants and client service staff.
Decide what you're actually hiring for
Before you write anything, settle three questions with your team.
Credentialed tech or assistant? If the job includes inducing and monitoring anesthesia, placing catheters, dental radiographs, and lab work, you need a credentialed tech (CVT, LVT, RVT, or LVMT, depending on your state), or a new graduate of an AVMA-accredited program who is scheduled for the national exam. If the job is mostly restraint, kennel care, cleaning, and stocking, hire an assistant and write the listing for one. Your state practice act decides which tasks an uncredentialed person may perform, so check it before you decide.
Which department? Surgery, dentistry, appointments, treatment, ICU, or a rotation. Candidates want to know where they'll spend most of the day.
What schedule? Four 10s, five 8s, rotating weekends, overnights. The schedule is often the first thing a candidate checks, and it can win or lose a hire on its own.
Set a pay range you can defend
Start with public data, then adjust for your market. For May 2025, BLS reports these annual wages for veterinary technologists and technicians nationally (BLS OEWS profile):
| Percentile | Annual wage | Hourly wage |
|---|---|---|
| 10th | $35,710 | $17.17 |
| 25th | $38,910 | $18.71 |
| Median | $47,380 | $22.78 |
| 75th | $57,650 | $27.72 |
| 90th | $63,180 | $30.38 |
State medians vary a lot. The highest in May 2025 were in the District of Columbia ($61,270), California ($60,630), Washington ($59,740), New York ($59,010), and Minnesota ($57,270). Use the BLS state and metro data for your area rather than the national figure.
Two cautions. BLS figures lag, since the May 2025 survey was published in 2026. And they cover everyone in the occupation, from new graduates to 20-year ER techs with a VTS. If you want an experienced anesthesia or dental tech, price the job near the 75th percentile for your area, not the median.
Pay is also where techs feel shortchanged. In NAVTA's 2024 member survey, 39% named low pay as the biggest challenge in their job (NAVTA, 2025).
Write a listing techs will answer
Put the details candidates look for in the listing itself.
- Pay range. Post a real range. Many states now require one. Colorado, California, Washington, New York, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Vermont, Hawaii, and Washington, D.C. have pay transparency laws covering job postings, and more take effect through 2027. Employer-size thresholds and details differ by state (Jackson Lewis, 2026). Even where it isn't required, "competitive pay" reads as "below market" to most techs.
- How you use techs. List the tasks: anesthesia monitoring, dental radiographs, catheter placement, lab work, client education. Only 36% of techs in NAVTA's 2024 survey felt fully utilized, so a listing that shows real tech work stands out.
- Team size. The number of doctors, techs, and assistants on a typical day. A four-doctor hospital with eight techs is a very different job from one with three.
- Equipment. Digital and dental radiography, in-house lab, ultrasound, anesthesia monitors. Techs notice when a practice invests in its tools.
- Benefits that matter to techs. CE allowance, paid credential renewal, health insurance and the employee's share, retirement match, paid time off, scrub allowance, and pet care discounts.
- The right title. NAVTA asks employers to use "veterinary technician" and "veterinary nurse" only for credentialed staff and to say in the posting that the credential is required (NAVTA). Some states protect the title by law.
On VeterinaryHire you can tag the practice type and required clinical skills, so candidates filtering for anesthesia or dentistry find your listing.
Verify the credential
Check the license or registration before the working interview. The AAVSB's license lookup points you to each state's verification tool. For a new graduate, confirm the program is on the AVMA's accredited list and ask when they're scheduled to take the VTNE.
Run a paid working interview
A working interview lets both sides see the fit, and it's common in veterinary hiring. Keep it fair and legal.
- Pay for the time. Under federal wage law, work an employer requires or allows is generally hours worked, and it has to be paid (U.S. Department of Labor). If a candidate restrains patients, runs lab work, or monitors anesthesia for your hospital, treat them as a paid, temporary employee for that shift. State law can add requirements, so check with your employment advisor.
- Keep it short. Half a day to one day is enough to see how someone handles patients, clients, and your team.
- Don't throw them into a solo anesthesia case. Have them assist on a surgery day instead of running a case alone in an unfamiliar hospital with unfamiliar equipment.
- Let your techs talk to them without a manager present. Candidates will ask about workload, turnover, and management. Your techs' answers will decide a lot of hires.
Interview questions that tell you something
- Walk me through how you monitor a patient under anesthesia. What makes you call the doctor over?
- Tell me about a difficult client conversation and how you handled it.
- What's a skill you want to get better at in the next year?
- What made you leave, or want to leave, your last practice?
Listen for specifics. Someone who has run a lot of anesthesia will talk about blood pressure trends, end-tidal CO2, temperature, and recovery, not just "watching the monitor." The last question tells you what they're trying to get away from, and whether your practice has the same problem.
Make an offer they accept
Techs compare offers on more than the hourly rate. Put the whole package in writing: pay, schedule, CE budget, benefits, paid time off, and the date of the first review.
If you can't match another offer on pay, a four-day schedule, a larger CE budget, or paid credential renewal sometimes closes the gap. Make sure the time off is real. In NAVTA's 2024 survey, only 41% of techs said they consistently used all their paid time off, and 9% weren't offered any (Today's Veterinary Nurse, 2025).
Move quickly. A tech who is interviewing at three practices will often take the first solid offer.
Next steps
Post your vet tech job on VeterinaryHire. You can write and preview the listing before you choose a plan, and it goes live as soon as checkout finishes. To benchmark pay across roles, see our veterinary salary guide. For the candidate side, read what vet techs do and how they're credentialed.
Sources
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, OEWS profile for veterinary technologists and technicians, national percentiles and state medians for May 2025, and Occupational Outlook Handbook pay data.
- American Veterinary Medical Association, Veterinary technology programs accredited by the AVMA CVTEA.
- American Association of Veterinary State Boards, Look up a license.
- U.S. Department of Labor, FLSA Hours Worked Advisor: suffer or permit to work.
- Jackson Lewis P.C., Navigating 2026: Pay Transparency Laws and Employer Obligations.
- NAVTA, 2024 Demographic Survey results (1,404 member responses), the fuller survey analysis in Today's Veterinary Nurse, and veterinary nurse and technician title guidance.
This is practical hiring guidance, not legal advice. Wage and hour rules, pay transparency requirements, and scope of practice differ by state, so confirm them with your employment advisor and state board. Sources checked September 27, 2026.