When an ABA clinic gets few applicants, each first call matters more

Size is not what decides it

Whether a clinic needs help with first calls does not depend on how big it is. It depends on how many applicants arrive for each opening, and whether someone is free to call each of them soon after they apply. A small or rural clinic that gets three applicants for an RBT opening has more riding on each call than a large group that gets thirty, because each of the three is a bigger share of its chance to fill the role.

I built Virida, a hiring assistant for ABA clinics, and a common reason a smaller clinic gives for not looking at it is that it is not big enough to need one. Fair enough, as far as volume goes. But when the constraint is that few people apply at all, a slow first call is not a smaller problem. It is the same problem with less room around it.

Why the first call carries so much weight

Candidates apply to several clinics at once, and the clinic that calls first has the best shot. A callback that takes days usually comes too late. The applicant who takes the first offer to talk is making a reasonable choice: they answered the clinic that answered them.

It is not a discipline problem on the hiring manager's part either. It is a capacity problem. In a small clinic, the person who should make that call is often also the clinical director, the office manager, or a BCBA with a caseload, and one person cannot be on the phone at 6 p.m. and in a parent meeting at the same time.

What the supply and demand numbers say

The clearest public measure of demand I found is for BCBAs. I found no comparable count of RBT postings, so I am not estimating one. The BACB's report with Lightcast counted 132,307 US job postings in 2025 that required or preferred BCBA or BCBA-D certification, up 28% from 103,150 in 2024.^[1] Behavioral Health Business reported the same 2025 figure and growth rate in February 2026.^[2]

On the supply side, the BACB counted 88,013 people holding the BCBA credential as of October 1, 2026, along with 4,931 BCaBAs and 259,577 RBTs. The page does not say those counts are limited to the US.^[3]

To be clear about what those numbers can carry: a posting is not a vacancy. One role can be listed more than once in a year, and the count includes postings that only preferred the credential. So this is not a ratio of jobs to people. It does say that in 2025, listings requiring or preferring a BCBA outnumbered everyone who holds the credential today.

Where rural clinics sit in that picture

Demand is concentrated. Five states accounted for 38% of 2025 BCBA postings, and California alone for 15%. The same report counted 111 BCBA postings for the whole year in Wyoming, 112 in North Dakota, and 138 in Alaska.^[1]

The county data are older but more direct. A 2022 study by Yingling, Ruther, and Dubuque found that about 46% of US counties (1,430) had no BCBA in July 2021, down from about 54% in 2018. Counties that still had none averaged a population of 15,628.^[4] A 2024 paper by the same authors, using data as of January 2022, found that 24.2% of counties had neither a BCBA qualified to supervise nor an RBT, and more than 90% of those counties were rural.^[5]

Those figures are four to five years old and built from certificant addresses, so they describe where credentialed people lived, not where clinics hire today. What they show is the shape: in rural areas the nearby pool of RBTs and BCBAs is small, which is one reason a rural clinic can see few applicants per opening. Fewer clinics may compete nearby, too, but the applicant still talks to whoever reaches them first.

What a small clinic can check this week

1. Name the person who makes first calls, and the hours they make them. If calls only go out at 11 a.m., an applicant with a day job or classes may not pick up.
2. Measure the gap. Pull your last ten applicants and compare each application time with the time of the first call.
3. Write the screen down. A short, fixed list of questions makes the call quick enough to fit between other work. There is a five-question version in our post on what to ask on an RBT phone screen.

Where Virida fits for a small clinic

Grain of salt, since it is mine. Virida's screener phones RBT and BCBA applicants who apply through your clinic's apply link, usually within 5 minutes during your calling hours; outside them, the call waits for your next calling window. It asks the screening questions your clinic wrote, answers the applicant's questions only from the Q&A your clinic approved, and emails you a summary and a transcript. When an applicant wants a person, it forwards the call to your hiring manager during the hours you set, or sends the manager a callback request. Applicants say yes to the call when they apply and can tell it to stop at any time.

It does not score, rank, or recommend anyone. A person on your team reads the summary and decides who gets a link to book an interview. It works next to your ATS, not instead of it (how it works).

On size: the smallest plan, Essentials, includes about 20 phone screens a month, and Virida matches a plan to a clinic's hiring volume when you talk to us. If you hire a few people a year and someone can reliably call each one the same day, you may not need a screener at all. Your call.

One limit: a faster first call helps only with the applicants who arrive. It does not create new ones.

What I am building next

Outbound sourcing, searching for candidates, is what I am building next. It is not available today, and there is no date for it yet. If too few applicants is the problem you have, keep an eye out for it.