We didn’t even know what outbound recruiting was until we had interviewed and hired a recruiter from Modern Health over 2 years ago. I didn’t even know how helpful it could be or the impact it could have. Over a dozen of my colleagues were hired because of outbound recruiting. Let’s first define what it is. Outbound recruiting is proactively engaging a passive candidate (someone who has not already applied to a job post) to apply for your open positions. We will delve into strategies that have worked for us, what hasn’t worked, and leveraging tools to enhance your recruiting success.

Table of Contents

1. Understanding Outbound Recruiting
2. What Worked for Identification
3. What Hasn’t Worked for Identification
4. What’s Worked for Others
5. What Education Strategies Worked
6. Conclusion

Understanding the Outbound Recruiting Landscape

ABA therapy has a two or three-tier staffing model (depending on the state). For simplicity’s sake, we’re going to treat it like a two-tier model: (1) behavior technicians and (2) behavior analysts. Each role is equally important but finding them is quite different. Also, consider that there are two real stages to outbound recruiting: (1) identification and (2) education. You need to get a target list of potential candidates to reach out to as well as determine how to properly educate the candidates about your company, what makes the job rewarding, and why it’s worth applying now.

What Has Worked for Identification

Leveraging LinkedIn for BCBA Recruitment

BCBAs are far more likely to have a LinkedIn profile. We recommend paying for the recruiter talent solution as you get 150 InMail messages/month per license and bulk messaging. You will get responses if you provide the right messaging (see suggestions below). Also, if you don’t hear back, you can take back the message and use one of the 150 messages with a different prospective BCBA candidate.

Leveraging Indeed for BT Recruitment

Most BTs don’t have LinkedIn profiles so our most effective strategy to reach passive BT candidates was to get an employer account on Indeed and message up to 100 BTs per month.

What Has Not Worked for Identification

• Trying to recruit BTs on LinkedIn
• Trying to recruit BCBAs on Indeed
• Mass Email Service through the BACB (https://www.bacb.com/mass-email-information/)
• Specialized Job Boards
• University Partnerships

What Has Worked For Others for Identification (Not Us)

• Become an ACE provider and provide webinars with free CEUs
• Buy booths and sponsorships at ABA conferences

Education: Crafting Outbound Messaging

Connect Personally

Generic cold messages have not converted well for us. Tell them why you’ve reached out (we know they applied or worked in similar roles). The extra effort does yield results!

Put Genuine Effort to Answer Questions

If the therapists are BT candidates, there’s a chance they may not have provided ABA for very long and need a lot of information. Give them the knowledge they need to enter the field with eyes wide open. How often do you pay? What’s it like working with a supervisor? How many cases do I get to take or need to take?

Hold Info Sessions

For prospective candidates, it gives them a chance to interact with our Clinical Directors, see how staffing works, and get an intro to the tools we use at Teamwork.

Provide Valuable and Relevant Information To Activate

The best way to get someone to apply is if the position is actionable and if it will pay them quickly. For our part-time BT and BA candidates, we are able to share a list of nearby cases that are ready to start within 30 minutes from their home. We use our staffing and scheduling platform to provide that information instantly. See mock image below! For full-time staff, show them what a potential schedule could look like with breaks and lunch as well. Giving therapists the visibility into highly realistic, personalized caseloads is what really gives candidates the confidence to apply.

Conclusion

Recruiting ABA therapists is more than just processing inbound job applications; with reasonable effort, you can proactively increase your applicant pool and build a better therapist community. Outbound leads also typically breeze through the recruiting process as well since they’ve already bought in and know more about the company and know the company is interested. Remember, including outbound strategies is key to building a strong talent acquisition function! Also, if you’re interested in learning what staffing and scheduling solutions are available for ABA providers, we’d love for you to reach out by scheduling a demo!

Interested in Teamwork? Schedule a Demo!

At Teamwork, we pride ourselves on being different from our competition. Teamwork is built specifically for ABA providers with a focus on clinical quality. We automate manual work associated with matching, staffing and scheduling so your team can focus on what’s important: delivering quality care to your patients.

Interested? Fill out the form below to sign-up for a demo of our tool!

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