Episode Transcript
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Jonathan (00:30):
My guest today is Dr.
Jacob Bradley.
Dr.
Bradley has his doctorate in OBMand is the founder, CEO, and
executive recruiter for PsychTalent.
His firm specializes in ABArecruiting for BCBAs,
psychologists, SLPs, OTs,operational positions,
leadership positions, and muchmore.
He lives in Appleton, Wisconsin,and he is still an avid Green
(00:51):
Bay Packers fan.
Welcome back to the pod, Jacob.
It's great to see you, dude.
Jacob Bradley (00:55):
Thank you,
Jonathan.
Thank you.
Good to be back.
All
Jonathan (00:59):
right, Jacob.
So it's been like a year sincewe've chatted on the pod and,
you know, recruiting was such achallenge a year ago, and I got
to say, it feels like it's evenharder now.
So this is nuts.
Help.
Give us a lay of the land here.
what's the state of recruitingan ABA right now?
And how has it changed as wechatted a year ago?
Jacob Bradley (01:17):
Yeah, well, it,
the way it changed is it's the
same, but only worse since, uh,since a year ago.
So I think that's probably notgoing to come as news to most of
the listeners here, but.
What we're seeing in the ABAspace is that the demand for
services far outpaces the supplyof BCBAs.
(01:38):
So, there's a shortage thatwe've got.
The BACB put out their annualjobs report, and it shows that
just to meet current demand, weneed to have two times the
number of BCBAs, or just overtwo times the number of BCBAs.
in the field just to, uh, justto meet the open jobs that are
(01:58):
out there.
So there are currently more jobopenings than there are BCBAs in
our field.
So it's a, it's a tight market.
Jonathan (02:07):
So what are some of
the biggest challenges that you
see ABA providers having inrecruiting right now?
Yeah.
So
Jacob Bradley (02:14):
there's the two
big challenges are your BCBAs
and then your RBTs, behaviortechs.
The BCBA recruiting, it's, therearen't Nearly enough of them.
This is impacting company'sability to grow, impacting the
length of wait lists, thingslike that.
So we're seeing that just getstighter and tighter and more and
(02:38):
more companies are coming to ussaying that their job postings
aren't, aren't producing anyclicks or any candidates from
them.
And, uh, really have to turn toactive outreach to find those
people.
Then on the other side withbehavior techs, there's a little
bit more reason for optimismwith the behavior techs because
behavior techs, it's not adefined pool of candidates that
(03:01):
you're working from.
With BCBAs, there's a verydefinite number of BCBAs that
exist um, and then there's, youknow, 10 to 20 percent more
added every year with new, um,certificates.
But with behavior techs, you canactually go outside of ABA and
get people who have maybe neverheard of ABA, never worked in
(03:21):
the space, and recruit them in.
So it's...
There, there isn't a hardceiling on the number of
behavior techs that areavailable because you can, you
can create them in house orBCBAs to create them in house.
It just takes four years.
So there's a little bit moreroom for optimism on the
behavior tech recruiting front.
Jonathan (03:39):
Well, Jacob, have you
seen like of the ABA providers
who are doing this really well?
I mean, I know there's no silverbullet to just.
Blanket solve the recruitingproblem.
But I mean, what, whatstrategies and techniques are
they using?
Jacob Bradley (03:52):
Yeah.
So there are companies that aredoing this.
really well.
The key is, the key differencethat we see in companies who do
this well versus those who don'tdo it well, is how they treat
the recruiting function in theirteam.
Do they take an HR approach torecruiting, which has been the
standard approach to recruitingthat almost every industry has
(04:14):
taken?
Or do you take An activeapproach to recruiting and
really treat it more as a salesand marketing function of your
company and use sales andmarketing strategies to reach
out to your candidates, to BCBAsand bring them in.
So the companies that take thismore online marketing approach.
To it and this active outreachapproach to it do far better
(04:37):
than those who take more of atraditional HR post the job Ask
around see if you know anyoneand you hope someone comes in
Jonathan (04:47):
So I like this a lot
and and when you describe sales
and marketing, this is not likethe sleazy salesman This is like
an active recruiting team thatis focused on building relations
Not just actively outreachingbut like building relationships
trying to provide value.
Is that right?
Jacob Bradley (05:01):
Right?
Yeah, you're not you're not Justout there slinging jobs, right?
You're not a sleazy salesperson.
You're someone who's, you've gota good mission for your company.
You're doing really good workfor these kids and their
families.
You know, there's a huge needthere.
And there's also BCBAs in thisfield who want to be doing that.
So it's a matter of going outand actively finding those
(05:22):
people and starting theconversation and relationship
with them and building it upjust like you would through a
marketing and sales process intoa conversation about working for
you instead of about buyingsomething.
So that's, I mean, that's thebig difference, but you see the
strategies are pretty similar.
You still have.
You're recruiting candidatefunnel, just like you'd have a
marketing funnel.
You have different activities ateach layer of the funnel.
(05:44):
On the top of the funnel, you'regoing to be doing a lot of
outreach and getting as manypeople as possible in there.
Then use your funnel to warmpeople up and then engage, like
build that relationship, havethe conversation and you see
where you can go with it.
It's, you know, posting jobs.
Just by themselves and hoping,putting all your eggs in that
(06:06):
basket, hoping that people applyfor it.
There's not enough to see it andthey're being actively recruited
anyway.
So most BCBAs don't even have togo to a jobs board to, to find
what they're looking for.
You need to go out and findthem.
Jonathan (06:18):
This is really
important, this idea of a
funnel.
And I just want to paint apicture for the audience.
I mean, imagine a literalfunnel.
That's like, um, you know, anupside down triangle.
And you think about the numberof candidates you get to apply
and then that gets winnowed downto a number that meets some
basic criteria that you'llfollow back up with.
And then there's certain numberthat actually show up when you
invite them to a first roundinterview and then it gets
(06:39):
narrowed further.
So there's this like narrowingprocess.
Do you have any metrics, Jacob,or like benchmarks around, what
does good or great look like inthat funnel process?
Jacob Bradley (06:50):
Good question.
The top of market funnel is.
That's a difficult one to get,you know, a solid number on.
It's going to be different for,for each company, I think, and
really depending on what youroutreach is and what you
consider, you know, is a viewtop of funnel or is the first
action top of funnel.
But what we see is from.
Candidate conversations, atleast for our company.
(07:11):
to BCBA starting somewhere is a10 to 1 ratio.
So we need to have 10 interviewsof BCBAs for every one placement
that comes through.
So we see about 70 percent ofthe interviews that that we
have.
You'll get to move forward inthe process.
You might consider a broadstrokes fit.
(07:32):
And then typically it'scandidates that lead the
process, not companies thatdisqualify candidates.
Because candidates are typicallyin two, three, four different
interview processes at the sametime.
And we see across the industry,it's about a 50 percent offer
acceptance rate for BCBAs.
So if you think You just howmany BCBAs you need to get two
offers out to get one hire.
(07:54):
For most companies in the a b aspace, it's, uh, it's, it's
tight all the way through thethe end of the funnel.
So just because you have fromthe top of the funnel doesn't
mean they're not in the top offive other funnels at the same
time.
And that's where, you know, theonly magic ingredient in this
process is speed.
Uh, can you get them from top offunnel to bottom of funnel?
(08:18):
quickly and without skipping anyof your quality steps.
So instead of you don't skipyour second or third interview,
you still do your fulldiligence.
You just try to skip all of thedays in between all those
interviews.
Instead of saying, Hey, we'regoing to take two, three days to
consider if we're going to makean offer, have that decision
making process figured out whereyou can all meet right after the
interview and make that decisionbecause then you can get them to
(08:42):
the last stage of your funnelwhile they're still in the top
stages of other companiesfunnels.
So that's, that's the onlysecret sauce that we know of to
really, help beat thecompetition.
And that is once you've got themin front of you, can you move
through quickly while stillbeing fully diligent on hiring
the right person?
Jonathan (09:01):
We were just looking
at this data in our strategic
planning, um, and But you know,over the last, gosh, I think it
was like six or eight months atAscend that is, we had an 85
percent acceptance rate.
And I, I want to just echo whatyou said.
So yeah, I mean, it's good, it'sgood to hear that we're like a
little bit above, uh, um, youknow, our field's average, but,
um, it's like table stakes thatyou've got to be as absolutely
(09:21):
as efficient as possible.
And, um, I mean, tell me whatyou think of this, what we've
found over the last few years aspart of our magic sauce is just
make the interview processactually really hard because
most.
ABA providers are solving forgetting through quickly and get
an offer.
Whereas to differentiate,certainly we're going to drive
home our values.
Certainly we're going to askthem to be interviewing us.
(09:44):
Certainly we're going to betelling our story, like all of
those things.
And when we make it that muchharder, there's like a
perception that it's a morevaluable position.
But I are your thoughts on that?
Is that a valid
Jacob Bradley (09:55):
strategy for ABA
providers?
Well, you know, it seems to beworking for you guys.
Now tell me, how do you make it,how do you make it harder while
still keeping the speed intact?
Yeah.
Jonathan (10:06):
The kinds of questions
we ask, we do a lot to ask them
about, how they have approachedsomething based on their prior
experience, as opposed to justlike theoretical questions of
what would you do in thissituation?
It's like, tell me about a timethat tons of ours start like
that.
we've got, we have a wholevariety of people like all up
and down, from colleague BCBAsto clinical directors to, you
(10:27):
know, VPs that interview themand we'll ask different kinds of
questions and then weintersperse our values.
We're very repetitive aboutdescribing out values and
putting questions in the contextof those values.
Those are some of the ways we doit.
Jacob Bradley (10:41):
I love it.
Well, so you're, you're probablydoing a couple of things.
You do it kind of panel styleinterview as well, right?
You're, you're doing back tothat.
Yeah.
And that's, that's key to it,you're still able to get that
amount of number of interviewsor that number of conversations
and touches still in a shorterperiod of time, and you're
(11:01):
getting people to be bought inon your mission and values,
which is a huge distinguishingfactor for employers.
And I'd recommend any employerin this space.
To be really good atunderstanding why and how you're
different from other ABAcompanies.
Especially in your mission andhow you implement or live out
(11:22):
your values.
And the way you do that is byhaving very specific examples of
how you live them out.
Because every ABA company sayswe're a mission ABA company, big
on values, big on culture.
And when we're talking withcompanies, when we're onboarding
them to working with us, wespend an hour with the companies
going through mostly those typesof questions.
What makes you different?
(11:44):
Give me some examples about yourculture.
And if they can't come up withconcrete examples about why
they're different, how they'redifferent, we can't go talk to
candidates about that.
So it's gotta be something elseor, you know, Hey, we're really
good at growing people'scareers.
Awesome.
How do you invest in people?
How do you grow those careers?
Who's moved up in your company?
How many people have done this?
And if you start to ask yourselfthat as a leader in an ABA
(12:07):
company, and you have somereally good concrete examples.
That needs to be somethingyou're sharing with your
candidates.
And if you're looking throughthat and you can't really think
of good concrete examples.
Well, that's just a, you know, agood opportunity to say, Hey,
how do we start implementingsome of this and actually making
these changes that we become thecompany that we want to be.
And that BCBAs want to work for.
We're, we're seeing quite a bitof that, you know, being a
(12:27):
decision making factor,especially in BCBAs wanting to
leave.
a company.
Um, so BCBAs can be paid verywell, but in a company that
doesn't live out the values thatthey talk about.
And those are the BCBAs thatwe're typically able to help
find a different company to workfor.
Jonathan (12:46):
Yeah.
It's a great point.
I mean, I think every ABAprovider says we're mission
driven and we live by ourvalues.
And, and I think at some point,as leaders in the field, we have
to stop and say, hold on, we'renot so special.
That a candidate can see, wehave to go out of our way to
help them see why we're special.
And to your point, how
Jacob Bradley (13:02):
exactly, exactly.
And there are ABA companies whothey don't pay, they can't pay
really well.
They don't pay really well, butthey have really good other
features about the company.
If we have a real family fieldto us, and here's three examples
of that.
And here's, you know, so and sohad a family situation.
So we just gave her an extraweek of PTO.
(13:23):
No questions asked.
and said, we're going to helpyou through that.
And then we adjusted herschedule when she came back.
So that's a concrete examplethat we can go and take and say,
Hey, this is how they live outthis family value that they
have.
They're not the highest paying,but you know, if you go there,
you can be treated well.
And when something happens inyour family life, you're not
just a number on a spreadsheetto them.
you're a person, you're gonna betreated well.
(13:43):
So that, that's a hugedifferentiator.
And there are a lot of BCBAs whoWho want to see that and want to
go to a place where they canexperience that because there's,
it's not just ABA, but in, inhealthcare in general, it's
very, very difficult to actuallygo out and build those things
into the way that, that youoperate into the way that, that
(14:06):
your team operates.
There's just so many things setup naturally that are kind of
getting away of that.
And it really needs to be a topof mind focus for the company to
actually do those things out.
Jonathan (14:17):
Well, let's get tactic
on some of this, this idea of
actively outreaching.
Um, and what does that look likewhen it's done?
Well, is it like sendingLinkedIn in mails and needed
mails?
Is it other stuff?
What, what are you, what
Jacob Bradley (14:28):
are you doing?
Yep.
So Indeed and LinkedIn, greatplaces to start.
If, if you, if you have not doneany outreach at all, your first
step is you should have someoneon your team, get LinkedIn
recruiter light, you know, thefull blown recruiter packages,
LinkedIn recruiter light, andstart Targeted searches and
reaching out to people.
(14:49):
And you have to understand thatyour numbers are not going to be
great.
It's about a 10 percent responserate when you reach out cold on
LinkedIn like that.
So you got to send out 10messages to get one back.
And then the most common replyis no.
Uh, and then you do get someyeses.
So there's, there's a lot ofwork to be done, but you can
start there.
That's really easy to do.
other steps are looking outsideof LinkedIn, going to Indeed and
(15:15):
you can do the same thing.
you can go onto the BACB websiteand see, Hey, how many people
are in my area?
You know, am I finding them allon LinkedIn?
Am I not finding them onLinkedIn?
There's no way to contact themreally.
That's appropriately anyway,through the BACB.
So, don't go spamming themthrough that, but see if you can
find other people that you canreach out to and go on that
road, once you get a bit moreadvanced, you need to start
(15:37):
getting into email marketing anddrip campaigns and things like
that to take all of the BCBAsyou've ever interacted with, who
have ever applied for a job foryou.
And you keep yourself kind offront of mind there.
And when the time comes and thatperson's life.
Where they need a new job andsay, Oh, that's right.
I got that email from, fromSusie at ABA company.
(16:00):
let me check out thatopportunity.
And that's where you have an inthat no one else had.
And before that person goes outand looks at a job board and
starts applying, you're rightthere.
And anything you can do to makethe communication back very
easy, where they don't have tofill out an application, they
just need to.
Reply to an email, reply to amessage to set up a call with
you and use that conversation asthe thing that you're going to
(16:23):
qualify with instead of
Jonathan (16:25):
application.
You know, Jacob, someonereferenced this recently to me
that we are no longer in an agethat currency, is it true that
money is the currency?
The true currency is attentionbecause we have so many things
that are distracting us.
And so how do we even getsomeone's attention in the first
place?
But speak a little more to that.
(16:45):
Like, one, is that yourexperience?
And then two, if it is how doyou differentiate and actually
get someone's attention?
Jacob Bradley (16:52):
Right.
So getting someone's attentionis, it's not an easy thing.
And keep in mind, if you'rerecruiting someone, the type of
content that you're up against,is not just what else is out
there in the recruiting space,but what else is out there on
TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, andall these things.
Uh, and unless you have a reallygood content team and content
(17:13):
strategy, you're probably notgoing to compete with what
they're already interested in.
So the approach that you have totake is get in front of them and
in other ways, ways that theymight.
Uh, expect it more.
So one way is through textingthem.
So if you think about a LinkedInresponse rate or open rate and
(17:34):
email open rates are quite low,the upper single digits, you
know, low tens, something likethat.
But a text campaign, if you gettheir number validly and
everything, I mean, it's like a98 percent chance you're going
to see that text.
Which is huge, right?
I mean, you see every text thatcomes up on your phone.
There's no text that comes onyour phone that you don't see.
(17:54):
So that's another way to, to getin front of them.
And as long as you're notspamming them, being obnoxious
about it, but you have alegitimate opportunity and this
is, could be a legitimateinterest to them.
That's a great way to reach outto them and at least get their
eyes on it for literally twoseconds.
That's about how long you havebefore they decide that they're
not interested or it could besomething they'll think about.
(18:15):
And then multiple points ofcontact.
You can't just say, Hey, I sentan email or I sent an email or I
sent a text and then you getback to me.
Of course they did.
Right.
Do you get back to people whoyou don't know who messaged you
once or text you once?
No, but if you go through with acoherent message for that person
and it's personalized and youget in front of them three, four
(18:35):
or five times.
Chances of them getting back toyou are much, much better.
Jonathan (18:41):
Let's pivot to, RBTs.
And I know Psych Talent doesn'tspecifically do RBT recruiting,
but what are you seeing outthere around what's successful?
Or even like some of thosefunnel ratios, do you have a
sense for those?
You
Jacob Bradley (18:52):
know, I am not as
in touch with the, the metrics
on the RBT recruiting side.
I know that it's not great, butthe RBT recruiting strategy is
different.
Then BCBA recruiting.
BCBA recruiting, again, it's,it's a defined market.
You can find out if someone hasa BCBA or not very, very quick.
And you know, if they have aBCBA, they are potentially
qualified for your job.
With RBTs, the majority ofpeople that you're going to
(19:14):
hire, most companies are goingto hire are not RBTs when you
hire them.
They are people who will bebehavior techs for you that you
will train and have them becomeRBTs.
As the field gets larger,there's more RBTs that you can
hire as RBTs, but if you need tobring on people.
In mass, you need to be lookingout into the local talent
(19:35):
population, people that could beworking at an Amazon warehouse
or a convenience store or thefront desk at a dental office or
at a daycare.
Daycares are great.
Um, parapros at schools aregreat.
Those people who have alreadyhad some experience working with
young kids and know how tointeract with them, that's,
that's a great starting spot tolook for.
So you need to be much more intune with that with young kids.
(19:57):
That level of the talent market.
So it's a lot less targeted inyour searching and it's much
more volume.
how can we get as many people aspossible into our funnel and
then have a good way ofqualifying them and
disqualifying them in thatprocess.
All
Jonathan (20:11):
right.
So that gets us to maybe what Iam most excited to talk about in
this conversation, Jacob, andthat is, your new retain
assessment that you've recentlyreleased.
You and your partners have builtit, release it.
So tell me more about this,dude.
Jacob Bradley (20:28):
So a year, year
and a half ago, Jonathan, you
and I talked and we're talkingabout the turnover problem in
ABA.
And I had mentioned just from mybackground in business
psychology that you could buildselection assessments that
predict work outcomes.
Usually it's performance.
So it's really common for maybelarge companies, large
(20:48):
international companies to dothis for their sales team.
So you can improve salesperformance just by hiring
people who are better at sellingand looking at aspects of their
personality.
And so we said, well, I think wecould probably do that with
retention in ABA where we couldget better at hiring the right
people who are likely to stay.
with your company and stay inthe field and good at screening
out the people who are likely toleave in the first few months of
(21:11):
working with you, which is oneof the biggest pain points that
the entire industry has.
It's because we're bringing somany people from outside of ABA
into the field and they thinkthat they could be good at it
and they think that they willlike it, but they actually
aren't good at it and don't likeit and choose to leave.
And they leave early on is whatwe see.
So, we went out and spent thepast year or so working with two
(21:33):
other industrial organizationalpsychologists to build an
assessment that actuallypredicts retention in ABA,
specifically to solve thisproblem.
So, we're at the tail end ofthat.
It's in the tech, build upphase.
The assessment is done.
It's just getting put intoplatform right now.
And should be ready to go byMay.
Jonathan (21:55):
What have you learned?
And full disclosure, Ascend isone of the beta testers on this,
but what did you learn aboutthose qualities that tend to
lead to higher retention,especially up front those
critical first 90, you know, 180days?
Jacob Bradley (22:08):
Right.
So we, the way we built out theassessment is it's a personality
assessment, which I know for abehavior analyst can be.
Something that, that makes youpause for a second, like, Oh, is
this, is this real or not real?
Uh, it is real.
It's a really robust sciencethat we're basing it off of.
It's very evidence based the waythat our assessment is
developed.
(22:29):
The way that we went out and didit is we created a personality
assessment with several hundredquestions, gave it to a test
group.
Of 1200 people and had them takethe assessment.
And then we went through andstatistically analyze all the
responses and saw what answersand questions correlate with
each other.
(22:49):
And we found that there's fivedifferent groupings.
That correlate with each other.
And this is a very commonfinding in real personality
psychology.
that's statistically based isthese five groups come up and
they're the different factors ofpersonality.
So we found those and we didour, reliability study to make
sure that it's a good measure ofthese things.
(23:10):
It measures it over and over andover again, and we have a good
reliable measure.
So we took that and whittled itdown from the 200 some questions
that we had down to about 40questions.
And that's all that we need toactually find out those five
different factors, uh, from thisassessment.
So we took our 40 questions andwe went out and worked with a
(23:32):
few different ABA companies andgot about 350 participants who
are, behavior techs, RBTs, andBCBAs to participate in this and
take the assessment.
And then we correlated theassessment scores in the
different categories, thedifferent factors.
With work outcomes and thebiggest one being retention.
How many days are they employedwith the company that they're
(23:55):
working for?
And so we were able to see thatcertain outcomes on our
assessment, certain scores inour assessment actually predict
how long someone stays with.
The company is retained by acompany.
It also, we found, predictsburnout, especially well in
BCBAs.
So this, the same assessmentpredicts retention and burnout,
(24:18):
and then also job satisfaction.
We're able to predict all threeof these, or BCBAs and RBTs.
So we've got a pretty robustassessment.
That's going to hopefully whenwe launch it, help a lot of
companies reduce turnover atthat behavior tech level, and
then burnout in BCBAs.
Jonathan (24:36):
All right, so I'm on
the edge of my seat and I don't
want you to spill the secretsauce, but maybe start telling
me what are these like fivegroupings generally of different
factors of personality and whatare the other insights about
kinds of questions or thingsyou're learning about someone
that could predict a burnout orretention or job satisfaction?
Jacob Bradley (24:53):
Yeah.
So, so each of the fivedifferent factors that, that we
came up with out of thisassessment, they each weighed
differently on predicting eachoutcome.
So each outcome.
Has like a specific formula.
That's the secret sauce for howthe question responses, uh,
predict that, that outcome.
So it's a different combinationfor each one, but we have things
(25:14):
like, agreeableness is a hugefactor of people's personality,
but the more agreeable they are,the more likely they are to stay
longer with your company, themore likely they are to have
less burnout, the more likelythey are.
To, to have higher jobsatisfaction.
So that's one that we kind ofsee the same shift across all
those factors.
And then we have other aspectsthat, uh, you know,
(25:36):
competitiveness is anotherfactor where, it's helpful
predictor of, retention.
And burnout, but not of jobsatisfaction.
So we have these differentfactors that kind of map on
differently to the categoriesand the assessment software
takes care of all that in theback end and just shows you
percentile wise where eachcandidate falls.
(25:56):
Are they better than 70 percentof the candidates taking this
assessment in the field at beingresilient against the burnout or
likely to stay with you a longtime or likely to enjoy their
job.
Jonathan (26:08):
Can you define.
What agreeableness is?
Jacob Bradley (26:13):
So, uh, yeah,
good question.
So agreeableness, has to dowith, being able to go along
with someone else's idea andbeing able to follow through
with, other suggestions andother directions.
so there's other aspects to it,but that's when it's most work
related and relevant here.
So if you...
If you had someone who'sdisagreeable, they're going to
(26:34):
be someone who doesn't want togo along with the plan.
Someone who, who kind of kicksback against the plan of action
or the direction that someoneelse puts in place.
So we want someone who's higherin agreeableness.
They're also typically morefriendly.
we would suspect that they'rebetter at interacting with kids
than someone who's highlydisagreeable.
So that's one example.
Jonathan (26:55):
I know that the caveat
here that you describe is like
for any personality assessmentor any tool you use, use this as
one of many data points in theinterview process.
Exactly.
That kind of the idea,
Jacob Bradley (27:06):
right?
Yeah.
The way that selectionassessments that are validated
work are is as a key data pointin the decision making process.
only very few circumstancesshould they ever be used as like
a rule in rule out, checkpointin your hiring process.
There's only very fewassessments that are ever
designed to do that.
And this one is meant to be doneafter you've screened that
(27:29):
candidate.
They fit the location.
They fit the general pay.
They get a little bit what thejob is, but they haven't been
interviewed clinically yet.
You give them this assessmentbefore that clinical interview.
So in that clinical interview,the person who's doing that
interview can see how likelythey are to stay with the
company, how susceptible theyare to burnout.
in ABA, and if they're likely toenjoy the job, their job
(27:51):
satisfaction score.
The other thing is that thisretain assessment, gives
customized interview questionsbased on their scores, so that
the person who's doing thatinterview, if this person, let's
say, has a high retention scoreand a high job satisfaction
score, but a low burnout score,they're very susceptible to
burnout, it's going to give youa list of questions custom for
(28:14):
that candidate.
about their susceptibility toburnout, actually based on the
factors of personality that ledto them having the low burnout
score.
So you're going to get this,this list of questions you can
go through so that you can makea good judgment call on Is this
someone that we think canovercome this?
Or do we think that it's maybedifferent than what the score
said?
Or does this confirm the highsusceptibility to burnout so you
(28:38):
can make the best choice foryour company?
Jonathan (28:41):
So were there any
findings from the assessment
that surprised you or that youdidn't think would be important
or you thought were importantand then turns
Jacob Bradley (28:49):
out not?
So the two other researchers Iworked with are completely
outside of ABA, but they work inbuilding these types of
assessments.
And the finding that we allindependently came across that
was the most interesting, wekind of called it the jaded
factor.
It said the longer you're inABA, obviously the more
(29:10):
susceptible to burnout you are.
The less likely you are to staywith one company for a long
time, and the less likely youare to have job satisfaction.
So, all three of those scorestend to decrease.
as a factor of how longsomeone's been a BCBA.
So that's this jaded factor thatwe found or kind of came up
(29:31):
with.
So it doesn't predict everythingcompletely, right?
Just that factor alone, justthe, how long they've been a
BCBA, but it really is telling,and it matches up with a lot of
the narrative that we hear onsocial media and hear at the
conferences and hear maybewithin our own teams about
burnout and about how new BCBAsfeel like they're becoming.
(29:53):
worn out, so to speak, andthat's proved out in the data.
Jonathan (29:58):
Dude, so like, what
the hell, Jacob, unfortunately,
like, you know, that absolutelyrings true.
and what I hear out in thefield, the question is like, is
our field ever going to solve,not just the recruiting
challenge, right?
But this flip side of it that'sso important is the retention
challenge.
And what has to be true for usto get beyond where we are
Jacob Bradley (30:16):
now?
Exactly.
So the retention challenge, youcan break down the causes of
retention or the causes ofturnover for someone into a few
different buckets.
One is, and this is one that'stalked about the most, is what
are the company policies?
What is the company culturelike?
What are the company factorsthat influence retention?
(30:37):
Turnover.
And those are real, right?
Pay probably has a relationshipto it.
The benefits, the work hours,caseloads, those things have
real impact.
But then there's the person'sindividual life situation.
What's their family situation?
And what's the health status oftheir in laws, right?
I mean, that has an impact withsome people making a decision to
leave the company.
(30:58):
All of these outside factorsthat are just about their life.
But then there's this thirdcausal bucket.
Who is this person?
Is this someone who is likely tobe successful in this field?
Are not likely to stay in thisfield or not.
And that's what our assessmentis all about.
It's all about predicting usingthat causal bucket and
predicting there on, do we havethe right people in this space?
(31:21):
And that's really helpful at thebehavior tech level, because
you're bringing people who havenever been in ABA before, only
been in ABA for six months or ayear.
And.
they don't know enough about ABAto know if it's the right fit
for them, or they might not knowabout themselves enough to know
if it's the right fit.
And our assessment's pretty goodat helping companies make that
decision and make better hiringdecisions at the front end so
(31:43):
that the people you are hiringstay around longer and reducing
retention or reducing turnoverand boosting retention just
through a better hiring process.
And we picked that because itreally is the simplest way, the
easiest way to reduce turnoverin ABA.
is just through a five minuteassessment on the front end and
making a better hiring decision.
And you should be able to seeturnover change pretty quickly
(32:05):
in your company.
It's hard to say you shouldn'talso focus on the company
culture stuff, but that's a muchheavier lift, right?
To go through a full cultureassessment or engagement
assessment and get that feedbackand prioritize.
Hey, uh, here's what we need tofocus on in our company.
You change a pay scale,implement this type of system,
change our benefits, and how doyou change company culture?
(32:29):
That that's so difficult toactually do.
It's a worthy and noble cause.
But it's not a lever you canreadily pull and make a change
in retention and turnover inyour company.
But this assessment on the frontend is something you can do
right away.
It's plug and play.
It's five minutes of thecandidates time.
And you look at a report sheetto help you make a better hiring
(32:50):
decision.
Jonathan (32:51):
So Jacob, if you and
your partners are just
ridiculously successful withthis retain assessment, what is
our ABA field going to look likein five years?
Jacob Bradley (33:00):
Well, that's why
we set out to build it is so
that we could be reallysuccessful in impacting the
field in this way.
So we would hope that we couldreduce.
Turnover by a third with ourassessment.
So it's not that part isn'tproven out yet.
I'm going to get to the nextpoint here, but that's what we
think we can be in thatballpark.
(33:20):
And we're going to continuouslyimprove our assessment and add
on a couple of other things intothe selection process so that
you can be hiring the rightpeople and be very confident
that everyone coming into yourcompany is someone who's likely
to stay in your company and notlikely to leave.
In the first few months, and youhave that huge impact on, on,
you know, client care and havethat huge impact on culture and
(33:42):
that huge impact on your bottomline, frankly.
Jonathan (33:47):
and one of the things,
you know, I'm, I was in
economics and Asian studiesmajor in college, so I love
everything economics and I liketo zoom back to like the macro
picture and one factor, um, Ilove your feedback on, but
generally in recessions, youhave the unemployment rate go
up.
So people are looking for work.
Health care tends to be morerecession resistant, right?
(34:07):
We always need health care inexactly the last demand.
So, um, we, and there's lots oftalk these days, right?
About a potential recession.
What would happen, you think, inour field if there was a
recession?
Is that good for ABA providers
Jacob Bradley (34:22):
and for
recruiters or bad?
So when you have a recession,what you typically see is that
there are fewer jobs.
This is just across the industryor across the economy as a
whole.
As you see fewer job openingsbecause fewer companies are
hiring and they're hiring fewerpeople.
And it really switches who hasthe upper hand in, uh, the
(34:45):
talent acquisition relationshipfor a long time, it was
companies have the upper handand this is going back 15 years
ago, right?
When people were, there weremore people looking for jobs and
there were jobs available.
But in the past, about 15 yearsfor our whole economy, and then
certainly in ABA, there are farmore job openings than there are
(35:06):
people to fill them.
So just like you said, you know,healthcare has this inelastic
demand.
ABA is the probably going to bethe same way.
Uh, just because there's arecession doesn't mean that
there are fewer kids who needservices.
Um, just because there's arecession doesn't, it doesn't
take away the, the payers don'tdisappear out of the space.
(35:27):
Um, so you still have thedemand, you still have the
payers in place.
So we probably won't see a hugedrop off in the demand for
hiring BCBAs and you won't see.
Uh, a huge immediate change inthe supply of BCBA here, so I
would expect this trend tocontinue.
What's interesting is that with,uh, with nurses, when a
(35:48):
recession happens, there areactually more nurses come into
the workforce because there aremany nurses, if you just think
about the demographics ofnurses, right, skews females,
skews younger, uh, there are alot of nurses who are outside of
the workforce, maybe at home,um, taking care of your kids.
And when a recession happens andtheir spouse.
(36:10):
You maybe loses a job or thepromotion isn't there anymore
and you see, you know, inflationhappening in prices go up and
up.
So that family budget isstretched.
So there's the need for thatsecond income earner back in the
family.
So the nurses, the nursepopulation actually increases
during a recession, a little bitbecause these nurses come off
(36:31):
the sidelines, so to speak, andback into the workforce.
So the times when we've seenthat relationship of demand for
nurses to supply of nurseschange the most over the past
few decades is actually duringthe recession is when they come
back into the workforce.
So perhaps there'll be a similareffect, uh, in ABA, right?
We know that demographically.
(36:54):
Workforce is 85 percent female,younger.
So there definitely are BCBAswho you could find themselves in
that same situation.
Um, it's not one that we're,we're hoping for.
I wouldn't put all the eggs inthat basket, but it's a reality
that we've seen play out innursing, the healthcare space.
(37:14):
And there's enough similaritiesto think that.
Something similar to that couldhappen in ABA.
Jonathan (37:21):
Well, that's okay.
I totally get your point.
Let's not be rooting forrecessions for a lot of reasons.
Um, and I mean, just, just thinkof this.
I can think of many recessionsthat I've been through over the
course of my career, let alonemy life.
Right.
but even the Recessions we'vehad recently, to your point,
it's been like 15 years since wetruly like it, the great
financial crisis, right?
(37:41):
The great recession.
That, but our field is evennewer, at least when it comes to
Medicaid and insurancereimbursement, even newer than
that.
So much of our field hasn't yetseen this, but that's
interesting that maybe there'sgoing to be this similar nursing
effect, um, where maybe moreBCBAs come back into the
workforce, but I guess we won'tknow.
Right.
Jacob Bradley (38:00):
So another thing
happened 15 years ago with the
last recession, I don't think itwas caused by the last
recession, but, the doctorshortage in healthcare has been
around for decades and decades,and there are ways to solve that
problem.
You convince more people tobecome doctors, you make it
easier to become a doctor,easier to pay for school to
become a doctor.
Um, those things tried and itstill wasn't enough.
(38:23):
So what did they do?
They gave nurse practitionersthe ability to do some things
independently.
doctors didn't all love this,like the American Medical
Association wasn't a fan of thismove because there's different
training requirements involved.
But the payers liked the movebecause it decreased the cost of
a lot of different services thatthey had to provide.
(38:43):
And, the governments liked themove, generally speaking,
because it increasedaccessibility to services.
By just having a larger pool ofproviders who could do
something.
And maybe in the future of ABA,something like that takes place.
I'm not picking a side of thatbattle, but that is one of the
ways that healthcare has triedto solve the physician shortage
(39:05):
problem.
And it could be a way.
That, uh, it's tried to besolved in ABA.
And again, it wasn't thephysicians who went out and did
that.
The physicians didn't want thatto happen, but it was, uh,
insurance companies and, thegovernment together who really
drove that.
And of course the nurses were infavor of it generally.
So a change like that, you couldbe coming if, if we continue to
(39:28):
see this shortage of.
ABA providers, an increase incost of delivering care, and no
relief on the horizon talentwise at the BCBA level, just
volume, you know, numbers.
Something like that could becoming our way in ABA.
Jonathan (39:46):
Well, let's pinpoint
that further.
I mean, could this mean thatlike the time potentially of the
BCABA, so the expansion of,ability to get bachelor's level
with like then lowerrequirements to, you know, to
get the certification means wecan expand services.
Um, but it's interesting, wouldit, it would have to take
recessions to do something likethat and to create innovation.
Jacob Bradley (40:08):
Right.
it makes sense on, on one end,right?
When you see the recessionhappen, you see a bunch of your
otherwise available resources goaway.
So you have to be creative inhow to solve the problems.
And yeah, it could be somethinglike that The other thing I've
been thinking about it is justthrough the technology that is
available and becoming availablein the healthcare space that
(40:30):
might be able to, with someclinical quality measures and
checkpoints in place, be able toscale.
BCBA's reach or a BCBA D'Sreach, if there becomes a
differentiating factor with thatdoctorate level certification,
which you currently, therereally isn't.
(40:51):
And it can create a space forBBC ABAs to, you know, take on
more work and with some reallygood clinical quality.
Uh, metrics and checks in placeand the processes in place,
there might be a good clinicalcase for, for doing that and
expanding reach that way.
Jonathan (41:08):
Well, and here's where
this pattern recognition comes
into play is that to your point15 years ago, like we couldn't
just grow more doctors.
There's only so much you can doto have more graduate and.
PhD programs and to get morepeople into the workforce.
So it feels the same way in, inABA.
I don't think we can just bydecree say, let's get more
BCBAs.
Jacob Bradley (41:30):
Right.
so we're seeing this, uh, in thefield now where we want more
BCBAs and there are more gradprograms putting out BCBAs.
But we also hear the complaintsof maybe the old guard, maybe
CBAs, that the quality that'scoming out of grad school isn't
the same as when they went tograd school.
And maybe some of that's real.
Maybe some of that is, yeah,everyone always thinks the
(41:50):
generation behind them wasn'tquite as, tough or trained as
tough as they were.
Um, but there could be someactual differences there.
And our field is so young.
The, the field of ABA Uh, atleast clinically is kind of in
its teenage angst years, rapidgrowth, lots of changes to the
body.
(42:10):
It doesn't know what to do withitself, but there's other
industries that have gonethrough this and come out the
other side and been okay.
So I think that's where you goto look and say, Hey, what other
private health care industries?
have gone through this kind ofgrowth, have had this type of
professionalization take place,have had the clinician shortage,
what do they do to solve it,have had to figure out
compliance and clinical qualityon the fly during rapid growth,
(42:34):
during huge demands, and whathave they done to help solve
some of these problems?
And there are some goodsolutions to many of those
problems, but Yeah.
No one can set their fingers andjust instantly create more high
quality BCBAs.
If only it were true.
Jonathan (42:49):
Right.
If only.
Well, Jacob, what's one thingevery ABA business owner should
start doing and one thing tostop doing?
Jacob Bradley (42:56):
Yeah.
I don't know if this meets everycompany, but there's a lot of
companies in the ABA space whoare in growth mode and looking
to open up in new markets.
And It's interesting being arecruiting company.
We hear where these companiesare going next and we hear a lot
of the same places over and overand over again, right?
(43:16):
So for a while it was Phoenix.
Everyone was going into Phoenix.
And then North Carolina isanother one.
Everyone's going north to Texas.
Because we hear again, There's aprovider shortage, right?
There's all these kiddos whoneed services.
Which is true, but it's not thatthere needs to be more and more
(43:36):
ABA companies in this space.
The provider shortage is at theBCBA level.
So even if you're successful inmoving into another, um, another
region, you might not actuallybe expanding the care in that
market because you're notbringing talent into that market
and all the talent is currentlyemployed somewhere.
So you're shuffling the deck alittle bit.
(43:58):
And that's not to say you shouldnever go into a new market, but.
We hear so many times that thesesame places and thinking.
Be talent forward and talentfirst in your expansion strategy
and be thinking about how is itI'm going to get the providers
in that space and how accessibleare they?
And can I get people to movethere?
(44:20):
And having that approach isreally key.
We saw a lot of you, some biggername, larger.
ABA companies have to close downdifferent markets in different
states.
And we're going to see morethings like that as the industry
grows.
It's just a natural course ofevents, but this is one of the
causes of them is too manycompanies going into one area,
(44:43):
limited resources, and thenumber of BCBAs that are
available and not everyone.
Can staff themselves and providethe services that are in that
area.
So you're going to see somemore, companies backing out of
the markets.
So that would be, maybe in asentence, be talent first and
talent forward in your expansionstrategies.
Jonathan (45:04):
You know, what's
really important to me about
that, Jacob is to your point,it's the shortage is not at the
organizational level, it's theindividual level.
So an organization who does gointo one of those geographies
and Specifically focuses oneither a importing BCBAs right
from other maybe talent glutmarkets or be super importantly
(45:25):
growing from within.
That's a huge value in the
Jacob Bradley (45:27):
field.
That's huge.
Right.
And I highly encourage anycompany out there and there's a
lot doing this.
Set up a program where you'reproviding a career path for your
behavior techs and maybe kidswho are in the, local college to
become BCBAs through yoursupport, through your tutelage,
and while you're paying them.
(45:48):
That is one of the best longterm strategies you can have,
and then when you have that BCBAwho's brand new.
Guess what?
They already know how you dothings clinically.
They already know your culture.
They're already bought into whatyou're doing.
They're not coming in cold withhaving a BCBA, but maybe not
being trained clinically how youwant them trained.
This is a great way to set thatup long term.
(46:11):
And if you grow them, right,you're doing the whole field of
service by you're shepherdingnew people into that.
BCBA position.
Jonathan (46:20):
Truer words have never
been spoken.
Uh, I love it.
Jacob.
Hey, Jacob, where can peoplefind you and Psych Talent and
this Retain Assessment
Jacob Bradley (46:28):
online?
Yeah.
So you can find our website ispsyctalent.
com, P S Y C talent.
com.
And if you go topsyctalent.com/assessment,
you'll be able to find a landingpage for our retain assessment.
If it's, you listen to thisafter it's launched, you'll be
able to get in touch with usthere.
If you listen to it before welaunched it, you'll be able to
(46:48):
join a wait list and we'll reachout to you but there's one other
thing I want to offer to people,listening here.
Our goal with this assessment isto actually solve the turnover
problem.
We can't solve all of them, butwe can solve a big chunk of it.
And to do that, we need gooddata.
On how well this assessmentworks.
(47:08):
So we're very confident.
It does predict retention.
It does predict burnout.
It does predict jobsatisfaction.
We know that, but the questionwe want to be able to answer,
and it's really the questionevery company is wondering is.
how much does it predict, uh,can it actually predict this
30%?
We think we can be approachingthat, that ballpark, or is it
(47:29):
something less than that?
And we're going to continuouslybe innovating on this to grow it
and grow it.
So, uh, listeners to thispodcast, if you want to come in
and participate.
in a study with us using thisassessment, launching it and
having us do a deep dive intoturnover in your company at the
behavior tech level, helping youtrack those numbers and seeing
(47:50):
how effective this assessment isin your company.
So you can see if it's gettingyou the ROI you want and
actually solving the problem.
We will give you a good discounton the assessment.
If you're one of the first onesto sign up and participate in
that study, if not be availablefor full price, we know it
works.
We're confident in it.
But this will really help us tofurther solve that talent
problem and really help theindustry as a whole.
Jonathan (48:12):
Yeah.
I love it, Jacob, that you'rebear hugging these intransigent
problems.
So thank you for all you'redoing for our field, dude.
Awesome.
are you ready for the hot takequestions?
And you've got the, the round
Jacob Bradley (48:23):
two set.
Cause this is your second timeon the pod.
Let's go.
Let's try.
All
Jonathan (48:29):
Smurf would you be?
I would,
Jacob Bradley (48:32):
I would probably
be a Papa Smurf.
Papa Smurf.
he's always heading thedirection for all the other
Smurfs and you're sometimesgetting irritated.
The Smurf shenanigans, whichcan, you know, reminds me of
the, I've got four kids and it'syour Papa Smurf in the house.
Jonathan (48:50):
I love it.
Which element on the periodictable do you most identify with?
Jacob Bradley (48:55):
I don't know.
This is a tough one.
I would guess maybe, maybehelium.
I've got high hopes and, I raiseup and sometimes I spread myself
thin, but, if I can tame myselfin a good space, I can lift a
lot.
Jonathan (49:08):
All right.
Well, if someone locked you in achair and forced you to watch
for 24 hours, a terrible soapopera marathon, which would it
be the love boat or Dallas?
Jacob Bradley (49:17):
I don't think
I've seen either of those soap
operas, which is probably a goodthing, but I would pick
whichever one just has thecrazier plot resolutions, the
crazier, you know, deus exmachina, solving up the, oh that
whole season was a dream, ohthat's my evil twin.
So the one that has more ofthose that I could get, so I get
a kick out of it.
(49:37):
You know,
Jonathan (49:37):
I'm going to answer
Dallas for you and, uh, the who
killed JR at the end, but I,what's the most played song on
your Spotify or Apple music for2023?
Jacob Bradley (49:49):
Oh yeah, this is
a good question.
So I'm not a big music listenermyself, but, I've got my son
loves very specific types ofclassical music.
So, uh, A Little Night Music byMozart.
You know, the dun, dun, dun,dun, dun, dun, dun, dun.
Listen to that on repeat and hegets all excited about it.
So, that's probably my mostplayed song of the year.
Jonathan (50:12):
I love classical music
too.
Can I just tell you, you knowwhat movie stands the test of
time is, um, uh, Amadeus.
Jacob Bradley (50:19):
Oh, yeah, yeah,
yeah.
Right, right.
It's so funny when you get tothe song in front of the guy.
In front of the guy who wrotethe original song?
I don't know, I think it
Jonathan (50:35):
would be better if he
did this, yeah.
What's your 2023 word of theyear Jacob?
Jacob Bradley (50:41):
Um, maybe it's a
compound word, it's problem
solving.
Yeah, we're a growing company,so there's always problems to
solve in a growing company, butit really is focused on what are
the talent problems in ABA thatwe can be solving.
We think this turnover one is agreat one for us to be doing
right now.
Later on in the year, we'regoing to focus on hopefully
getting some good talent andcompensation data for the
industry so people can startbenchmarking themselves
(51:02):
accurately in the space.
So problem solving is my 2023word.
Jonathan (51:07):
Right on.
Well, Jacob, thank you so muchfor coming on the pod, dude.
Jacob Bradley (51:10):
Awesome.
Thanks, Jonathan.
It's been great.