ABA Operator Breakthroughs: How to Attract and Hire a Flood of Exceptional RBTs

If you run an ABA company, you know how much rides on your ability to hire RBTs when you need them. They deliver most of the care. Every seat you can’t fill costs you. A family waits longer for services, or gives up and leaves. A child you could have made a real difference for goes somewhere else, or goes without services. And the hours you can’t staff are revenue you could have used to train people and reinvest in your company.

For 12 years, I ran CST Academy, which offered ABA and other therapies. We were incredible at attracting and hiring RBTs. That was not luck. It was a system we built, tested, kept refining, and kept optimizing, and everything I share below comes from running it week after week, month after month, year after year. As we grew, we often had eight, nine, or more new RBTs starting on a Monday for onboarding and training. If you want more applicants, better hires, and fewer walking out the door, I’ll share the exact approach we used so you can use it yourself.

Fill the Top of the Funnel

Think of hiring as a funnel. It is wide at the top and narrow at the bottom. Everyone who applies goes in at the top. Then each step filters: the first call, the interview, the tour, the reference checks, the offer. Some candidates aren’t the right fit, some decide the job isn’t for them, and some take another offer. What comes out the bottom of your funnel is a handful of people you actually hire.

That is why the top of the funnel matters so much. The people you hire are always a subset of the people you attract. Pour in a trickle, and you end up settling for whoever is left. Attract a flood, and your process has room to do its job: filter, sort, and find the exceptional ones. So the first job is simple. Get as many candidates into the top of your funnel as you can.

Start with your own people. Internal referrals are a great source. When your RBTs tell their friends about your company, those friends arrive already knowing what the job is like, and in my experience, they stay longer. Offer a referral bonus. Make sure it is structured to be compliant, but a $250 or $500 bonus can work wonders.

Then go where the candidates are, and use every channel you can. It is not either-or. Don’t think LinkedIn or Indeed or ABA job boards. It is all of the above. Post your jobs on LinkedIn. Post them on Indeed. Post them on industry-specific job boards. Put as many hooks in the water as you can, in as many channels and as many groups as you can find. Be proactive on LinkedIn and reach out to people directly. Join the Facebook groups where RBTs gather. Target people headed for adjacent careers such as future speech-language pathologists, occupational therapists, physical therapists, psychologists, and social workers who want hands-on experience with children.

Write Ads That Cast a Wide Net

Run the obvious ads. Say you are hiring an RBT or an ABA therapist. But hardly anyone searches for those titles unless they are already in the field or have heard about ABA and know what they are looking for. Who else could be a great RBT and hasn’t discovered the field yet?

Write ads those folks will find. “Aspiring speech pathologist? Get experience in ABA.” “Aspiring OT? Work with autistic children.” “Future counselors and special education teachers: get experience with children with developmental disabilities through ABA.” Each one speaks to a goal the candidate already has.

Each one should say plainly that the job is ABA therapy, and connect it to the related goal that drew the candidate in. You are expanding your net. If you offer speech or occupational therapy alongside ABA, say so. A future speech pathologist who can do ABA therapy and get real exposure to ST or OT at the same time has a reason to choose you over the clinic down the street.

At our clinic, we made a point of looking for aspiring clinicians in adjacent fields, and we made sure they got exposure, development, and learning that included ABA and more. We curated opportunities for them to observe other sessions and to meet senior clinicians from the fields they were interested in. That set us apart. It wasn’t about delivering an hour of therapy for an hourly rate. It was part of a broader professional development program.

Respond Quickly and Show You’re Excited

Once someone applies, responding quickly can be a huge advantage and a differentiator. Many ABA companies are out there, and good candidates are also being pursued by companies that respond quickly. Our rule was the sooner, the better. Contact them within 20 minutes, or an hour if you can, and no later than the same day. If someone applies overnight, they should hear from you the next morning.

Don’t let applications sit. If a candidate could be a good fit, reach out to them right away. Every hour you wait is another company's chance to hire them before you do.

Connect personally. Establish a personal connection over a phone call, a Zoom call, or a visit. A conversation moves faster than a thread of impersonal messages, and it tells you far more about the applicant.

Tell them you’re interested. If they could be a good fit, say so. Let them hear that you are excited about them. Candidates go where they feel wanted and needed.

Gauge personality fit. Is there good chemistry? How is their energy? Are they warm and easy to talk to? Would they fit the culture you have built? A résumé can’t tell you that. A personal interaction, by phone, on Zoom, or in person, can.

Paint a bigger vision. Give candidates more reasons to join than a rate per billable hour: a team, a high-quality organization, the training, the support, and the relationships. If you want to hire great people, make what you offer as attractive as possible, based on what they bring and the other options they have. Do everything you can to create a situation that attracts top candidates.

Many times, we spotted an exceptional candidate, contacted them immediately, brought them in for a tour the next day, and checked their references that same day. The candidate was hired and already working with us when, two weeks later, other companies they had applied to were only now following up. The candidate was shocked. Why did those companies even bother? By then, the candidate had already been hired and was making a difference for children. To that candidate, a company that took two weeks to follow up didn’t seem to care.

It cuts the other way too. We once had a good candidate slip through the cracks because we were busy and distracted. By the time we followed up, someone else had hired him. That was a critical miss.

Your First Reply Sets the Tone

How you respond tells a candidate what kind of organization you are. A speedy response time matters. So does the message itself. Does it build a personal connection? Does it mention something you noticed on their résumé? Does it offer clear next steps? Is it free of misspellings and grammatical errors?

These things seem obvious if you already do them. But when our own people told us about their past job searches and showed us some of the responses they had received from other companies, what we saw was mind-boggling. A slow, sloppy, generic reply telegraphs to a candidate how they’ll be treated. A fast, warm, specific one conveys the opposite message.

Rigorously Assess Your Candidates

Applicants vary widely in what they bring, and in the quality of care they are likely to provide. It pays to have a system to assess each candidate. We sorted candidates based on several key factors. Let’s consider them.

The proven RBT: An experienced RBT working toward becoming a BCBA with good references. This is your top candidate. They know the work, they have shown they can do it, and they have a reason to stay and grow with you.

ABA experience: Someone who has worked in ABA. Ask what they did day to day, what kinds of clients they worked with, and why the techniques work. You'll quickly learn whether they understood what they were doing. They should know the job and be able to be effective more quickly.

Disability experience: Someone with experience working with children who have developmental disabilities, such as a job at a special needs camp. A brother, sister, cousin, aunt, or uncle with autism counts here too; those candidates already know something about what daily life with autism looks like.

Experience with children: Babysitters, nannies, preschool workers, and people who have taught dance or other activities to kids.

And what about someone with no time with children at all? Look at the whole candidate. Maybe they haven’t worked with kids, but they have nieces or nephews. If they don’t, look for great energy, clarity about what they want, and a sense that they have the vision and the calling for this work. You can test that when they observe a session. Does their pulse go up? Do they get excited?

Experience with children is one factor, not the only one. Check the structural factors and the practical implications of an applicant. A great candidate whose life doesn’t fit the job will not last, and you can find these things out before you hire.

Availability: How many hours can they commit while you are open? Someone with six hours a week, or a schedule that keeps changing, is not workable. In the best case, depending on your business, you want a candidate who can commit 25, 30, or 35 hours a week.

School: Are they in school, and will their schedule change? You don’t want a new hire to join you and then, four weeks later, tell you they have classes on the days you scheduled them. That throws a wrench into everything.

Commute: A 10- or 25-minute drive is great. Forty minutes or an hour is a warning sign, even if the candidate says they love driving and listening to the radio. The drive takes time, and it costs money. Rain or snow, traffic jams, and car accidents happen. A long commute makes each one worse. In our experience, people with long commutes often resign after a few weeks, and that is something you can know ahead of time.

Hire for an Intrinsic Connection

Ask every candidate what they want to do with their life. Is the candidate drawn to autism? A candidate who wants to become a BCBA or work with autistic children has an intrinsic connection to this field. They are not here only for an hourly wage. They care about the children; they want to learn, and the work matters to their future. Those are the people who show up engaged, take feedback, and get better fast.

Many of them will go to graduate school, and that is a positive. Learn about their graduate school plans and support them. If you do this well, you will know far in advance whether they have applied, where they are applying, and whether they got in, which gives you time for an orderly transition instead of a surprise.

The ones headed for the BCBA exam can be your pipeline. By the time they are ready to sit for the exam, you know exactly who your superstars are, and you can have an offer ready and waiting.

We built a process for exactly that. Our best people kept getting promoted and kept advancing within our company. We promoted those who demonstrated great skills, advanced maturity, an amazing work ethic, and a genuine passion for the kids. As they prepared to sit for the exam, the ones who really deserved to be BCBAs at our company received an offer contingent on passing. They had it in their back pocket. They were excited and loyal. They didn’t even want to go out and interview, because they didn’t have to. They knew they had something ready; they knew what they were getting, and they wanted it.

If you run your company in a positive way, you could hire 90% of your internal people who pass the BCBA exam, if you choose to.

Bring Them In for a Tour

If a candidate looks promising, and you can arrange it, bring them in for a tour. Who gives the tour depends on how big you are. In our early days, until we passed 100 employees, I gave most of the tours myself. As we grew, other staff took on these tours, but we introduced every applicant to our leadership team.

Make the tour as relevant to the candidate as possible. If someone wants to become a BCBA, introduce them to the BCBAs in your clinic. If they want to become a speech-language pathologist and you have SLPs on your team, introduce them to your SLPs. That makes your company relevant to their future, instead of one more job paying a certain amount an hour that they could weigh against delivering pizzas or driving for Uber.

In our experience, many of the candidates we gave tours to told us the same thing: “What stands out to me is how happy and friendly the people who work here are.” Does that mean we were a perfect company? No. But the culture we created, the feeling, the vibe among our staff, was positive, and potential RBTs could sense it. That was a huge asset in hiring them.

We dressed business casual, which is a higher standard and something you don’t see in many clinics. The person giving the tour never acted obligated; they were excited about the chance to find an exceptional RBT, and candidates could feel it.

Like attracts like. When candidates meet people who are well-dressed, friendly, and playful, who have a heart for the kids and really want to make an impact, they want to join that team. It is the opposite of a downward spiral. It is a virtuous cycle. A strong team attracts better people, and it becomes self-perpetuating.

The tour is also where candidates see what they are signing up for. In a HIPAA-compliant way, and with the family’s consent, they observed sessions and saw our facilities. Some children can exhibit challenging behaviors, some need extra help, and some will test a new technician’s patience. There is no point in hiring someone who starts, is shocked, and realizes this isn’t what they thought they were getting into. That results in turnover. In our experience, families are happy to allow an observation as long as we ask them ahead of time.

The message we wanted candidates to take away: this work is difficult, and no company is perfect, but we have great company structure, and we are serious about being a place where you can grow and develop. In my view, showing candidates the job and making sure they understand it helps you hire the right fit. That pays off in many ways down the line.

Check References for Character

Always check references. It is easy to do, yet surprisingly rare; many companies just don’t make the effort. Candidates hand-pick their references, which is exactly why a reference who doesn’t respond, or who responds negatively, should concern you.

We made the process fast. We built an online form where the candidate entered each reference’s name, email, and relationship to them, be it a manager, a parent they babysat for, or someone from another place they worked. When they submitted it, our system automatically emailed every reference. Often we got a response within 10 minutes. Sometimes two or three came back within an hour. That gave us a real jump on knowing how strong a candidate was.

What we really wanted to know about was character. Does this person do what they say? Are they reliable? Do they come through? Are they a team player? Skills matter, but skills are easier to teach than the fundamental character that a reference can speak to.

We knew we had found a “keeper” when references said things like “They went above and beyond,” “They’re outwardly focused,” and “They have a heart for kids.” Some of the strongest references came from moms whose children they had babysat. One mom told us she never had to check on them, and they weren’t sneaking off to check their phones. When that mom came home unexpectedly, she would often find the candidate playing with her children and engaging them. That is the profile of the person you want.

Don’t Delay in Making an Offer

Once we had heard back from their references, the candidate had told us they were really interested, and our team was interested in them, the offer would go out immediately. There is no reason to wait. For the most part, an ABA offer is standardized. You already know the benefits you provide, how many hours you can guarantee, and the hourly rate.

We would send the candidate a formal offer letter with our benefits package. If you can afford it, offer perks and benefits. We offered health and dental insurance, PTO and more. We also provided free accounts to Ripley Fieldwork Tracker and Beacon BCBA Prep for aspiring BCBAs. Make it easy for them to say yes. We preferred sending the offer through DocuSign or another electronic signature tool.

Pay is always a factor, and yours needs to be competitive. Flexibility can matter, depending on the person. But what really wins candidates over is the feeling that this is a place they want to work. People are happy here, and they can grow here.

Treat Day One Like the Celebration It Is

On a new cohort’s first day, we told everyone to meet at the coffee shop in our building lobby at 9 a.m. We walked over, gathered the group, greeted each person, and walked them back to our office together.

Inside, we had set up small tables, each with a name tent and a welcome packet: a T-shirt with our company name, a therapy bag, and a new-therapist kit with mini toys, games, and puzzles they could use in sessions. There might be a pen, a baseball cap, or other fun items, and a journal that read, “This journal belongs to someone who is making a difference.” We clapped as they walked in. We played fun, exciting, inspirational music. It celebrated the difference they were going to make while they were with us.

We walked them through the day. They took a photo for their badge. Our HR team set them up in our system, made sure payroll went to the right account, and collected the tax forms and other legal and compliance paperwork. They had time to reread the company handbook. Then our training specialist met with them to explain their training.

For hires with less experience, we made a point of giving them paid time to complete the full training and to observe sessions. We paired each one with a more senior person who would bond with them, and then the training began.

It is a hard job, and there are a lot of reasons people move on. But hiring the right people and investing in them paid huge dividends down the line.

The Mistake Owners Keep Making

The biggest mistake I see is owners not putting real effort into hiring. They don’t build hiring processes. They don’t work to bring in a lot of candidates. They don’t vet them. They don’t check references. They throw new hires in without training and call it baptism by fire. If you don’t take the time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?

The downstream effects are severe. You get high turnover, low morale, poor-quality therapy, and RBT shortages. Without enough RBTs, you can’t serve your clients. Families wait, or they move on. And the clinical burden falls on the staff who are already there, which puts undue strain on your RBTs and BCBAs. RBTs get burned out. They can’t take breaks, they miss lunch, and struggle to get coverage just to use the bathroom. Put real effort into hiring so you have enough RBTs when you need them.

When you don’t generate enough candidates and don’t hire right, you may end up with RBTs who don’t treat the children appropriately and don’t have their hearts in it because it’s just a job.

Parents live through the turnover and experience the lack of continuity of care. It is bad for the children, who bond with someone and then have to bond all over again with someone new. It is bad for the BCBAs, who keep getting untrained RBTs thrown at them. I could go on and on.

Make hiring a front-burner priority. Do everything you can to attract a lot of great candidates. Build a process that finds the ones who will really make an impact on kids. Make them a compelling offer. Then treat them right when they show up on day one.

Do these things, and you will attract and hire a flood of exceptional RBTs. That benefits you and your company, the RBTs themselves and their coworkers, your BCBAs, the parents, the children you serve, and everyone else involved.

AT A GLANCE