Eleanor Vajzovic (00:00):

All right. Well, Steffanie, we are set to go and so I'll give a quick introduction. Hello and welcome friends to Autism Learning Partners in Paradox. We're hosting a webinar this morning slash afternoon related to healthcare hiring and the advantages of really not only getting more hires, but saving hours within the week for those that are focused in on the hiring experience and we're joined together. So my name is Eleanor Cevi, our leader strategic solutions team here at Paradox, and I have the pleasure and honor of spending the next hour with Steffanie. We'll dive into a little bit of the agenda and what we'll be talking about, and then we'll have some time to really share Steffanie's background, her role, and ALP, right? So let's dive right in. So welcome. We'll talk through a couple of things today and really with the idea of this being a casual but intimate conversation.

(01:03):

We have a couple of blog posts. We have some videos already online, but this is a chance for us to really dive into what you aren't able to read and see. Right? And this is through a conversation, Steffanie, our fast friends. We built our relationship over the last couple of years with some major milestones. So we'll dive into that. But we do want to take a look back and say, what was the previous process? What did life look like at ALP before Paradox? What were those big challenges that you wanted to address and identify and really focus in on? And then what did that process and partnership look like and the results? And then what are your visions and thoughts for the future? So there's a lot to cover, but I think the first things first, I'd love for you to share a little bit about your background and who you are and where your passions came in to solve problems.

Steffanie Chaviano (02:02):

Yeah, thank you so much for having me. Happy to be here this morning or afternoon, depending on where you are. My name is Steffanie Chavaino and I am the VP of Talent Acquisition at Autism Learning Partners. We do applied behavior analysis. We are working with autistic kids and providing play-based therapy, mostly in home, some clinic-based and some in school and classrooms, but mostly in home. I've been with ALP for about five and a half years now, and first time in the A space, but have been in healthcare for over 10 years in the recruiting world. And for me, I think one of the biggest reasons why I was so excited to join ALP excited really to be chatting today with Eleanor and the team is there's just this drive to figure out how to provide more access to families that really need it. And I know that within a b A, but I think that can translate obviously into a lot of different industries and just making sure that we're getting Rex filled as quickly as possible with the best talent. And so that mindset has really driven me to just make sure that we have the right solutions in place to be able to do that

Eleanor Vajzovic (03:38):

Because it's not about just staffing for people, it's staffing for people and caregivers that are really impacting families that maybe weren't able to have care and change the way that their family works and their children and potentially right. And as they grow into adults, how their lifestyle really is influenced by the caregivers that you're staffing and that you're putting to work. So the impact goes beyond the initial, okay, we have a job for you, but it's more we have a job and potentially a purpose. And

Steffanie Chaviano (04:16):

Absolutely, I think within ABA, it has always been a challenging industry to recruit for, but I think now more than ever, a lot of industries can really resonate with the fact that it has become challenging to recruit. And that means that the end user, whether that is a family or depending on what your industry is, they're just having to wait longer to access services. And so being able to close those recs like Eleanor you mentioned, really is about changing lives, being able to provide those services, et cetera. So it's really great.

Eleanor Vajzovic (04:55):

It is. And I think part of setting the stage, I think for those that are joining us today and potentially listening to this later, I think it's important to see, and maybe there's some parody on how your team is structured and what your life before Paradox really look like from both a team and a technology. Because the overall experience is you want to find the right people to then get them to work to then service the families. That's the baseline. But then what were some of the unique, maybe the different ways that your team is structured and some challenges that you had around the technology that maybe will bring to light some maybe similarities across those that are kind of working through the same types of challenges and see how maybe they can understand that a little bit more too?

Steffanie Chaviano (05:54):

Yeah, absolutely. So previously our team was two different sides of the house. One is our entry level or more entry level high volume position, which is the behavior technician. And those are staff that are going into families' homes and providing the day-to-day care. And then the other side of the house is our more high touch recruiting for board analysts, board certified behavior analysts. And that is going to be a much different experience. The volume there is much smaller, but it's a completely different recruiting experience. And what we were dealing with previously was across the team, we had our recruiters that were focused on a number of regions recruiting for what I'll refer to as bts, moving forward behavior technicians. And they really make up the majority of our organization about 90%. And we previously within our A T s, had a very, very manual process.

(07:10):

It's almost funny to think about it now because we went through a lot to even get to that point. When I first started, we didn't even have N A T F, but it still was just incredibly manual and it served us to a point to a specific volume. But once we really started growing and needing to bring in a higher level of bts just increasing the need, it just wasn't working for us anymore. The recruiters were having to manually reach out to candidates, get them scheduled for both phone screens and interviews, chasing down paperwork. There was no way to really screen outside of just a visual screen of a resume. And so it was just a very manual process that made it so that even if we were adding heads, because we tried, we just were not able to get the volume that we needed.

Eleanor Vajzovic (08:10):

When you think about the tasks, it is like, okay, well maybe we add more people to help with the work to be done, and maybe that'll help us get faster.

Steffanie Chaviano (08:22):

And what's interesting is I got approval to bring on more people. Usually it's like, no, you got to figure out how to do it without adding headcount. And we were able to see an incremental amount of volume come in, but just not to the level that we were really anticipating or needed. So adding staff was just not enough. We really had to take a step back and look at process,

Eleanor Vajzovic (08:51):

Which is, well, I mean when it comes down to it, so you have a system now, you had people, and then when it comes to the trifecta, it's just like, okay, with all of this, what does that process look like? But how do you narrow down where you focus, right? Because it sounds like the entire process end to end was a bit challenging. So where you landed as far as your focus areas and your challenges probably be where a few folks in the audience are kind of leaning in now it's just like, oh, this looks a little bit familiar. And so we can dive into that a little bit and share some absolutely some color of how you first said, these are our priorities and these are our priorities, and this is why we had to focus in.

Steffanie Chaviano (09:40):

So we had to take a step back and really make sure that we had a very firm understanding of what our process actually looks like, which means rolling your sleeves up, jumping in and doing it yourself for a little bit, right?

Eleanor Vajzovic (09:59):

So you can experience it and live it

Steffanie Chaviano (10:00):

A hundred percent. You want to live what your team is going through. And even just doing that for half a day will give you a whole lot of perspective. But what we found was, and recruiters, I mean there was no lack of them telling us that they had too much admin and so they didn't have enough time to be on the phone with candidates. And so what that, to just paint a little bit of a picture, we have around 70 regions, distinct regions across 17 states. Because of our industry, we have to abide by certain guidelines from a compliance perspective depending on the state or the funding source or insurance. So even though across those 70 states or 70 regions, excuse me, we are looking for behavior technicians, the profile of candidate could look very different from one region to the next in one place.

(10:58):

That might mean a bachelor's in a specific field and another place that might mean a specific amount of exposure to autism. It varies. And so that level of nuance makes it so that it makes it very challenging for someone in a manual process to just glance at a resume or glance at a certain number of candidates and get them scheduled for phone screens. And so what we were finding was even though we were getting enough applicants or what we believed were enough applicants in the top of the funnel, they just weren't making it down to the bottom of the funnel. It was a very small percentage and a huge drop off from applicant to offer accepted. And we saw, we still experienced a level of ghosting, but even from applicant to offer accepted, but it was three times what it is today because we couldn't get to people quickly enough.

(11:52):

They were applying and waiting for us to get back to 'em. That was at the top of the funnel all throughout the funnel. We've got paperwork that we need candidates to sign, whether it's the application or different forms that again, from a compliance perspective, we need to have them sign during the recruiting stage prior to extending an offer. And the recruiters were the ones that were having to manually send that out and check that it was back and if not pinging the candidate and remind them. So it was just incredibly manual. So that to me was one of the first things that I said, we have to tackle this problem.

Eleanor Vajzovic (12:35):

Well, it's like 12 to-do lists for all the different, I mean not only probably systems that you have to manage through, but then also by region and by candidate profile, and then by really the work to be done, the task that needed to be completed throughout every stage. And so how did you keep track of even where everyone was throughout that process and who got stuck, right?

Steffanie Chaviano (13:06):

Yeah, I mean, that's what I will say. We had an inefficient, efficient, efficient

Eleanor Vajzovic (13:15):

Way. There were things that worked right.

Steffanie Chaviano (13:19):

There were things that we made work for us in the way that we built. I mean, I remember conversations with our prior A T Ss where they would tell us all of the time, we have never had this level of customization within an A T SS before. We made so many changes to workflows and statuses and adding fields and just to try to make it work for our system. And I mean, again, we were able to make it work up to a certain amount. As soon as we really needed to ramp up our volume, it was very clear it was not going to work anymore. And so that was really one of the big challenges that we had to face. Another one was, like I mentioned, 70 regions across 17 states that have different requirements. It's not a different role per se, but different requirements from a compliance perspective.

(14:23):

If we weren't hitting our recs or achieving a hundred percent of our goal in a given region that was going to look the reasons for that, were going to look very different from region A to region B. And there was no real centralized reporting that gave us easy ability to pinpoint where the issues were, where the barriers were. And so it would require to have to say, okay, recruiting is not working in this region. It looks like we're getting enough applicants, we're getting people into interview, but we're just not hitting goals. We need to start taking some data. And we would have our recruiters literally manually start collecting data for a minimum of two weeks. So that we had a little bit, I mean that for me does not feel like enough time in theory, but when you have to move quick, we'll take at least two weeks of data so that we can try to determine, okay, it's candidate quality at the top or our no-show rate to interviews as hire.

(15:28):

Or maybe you have to lean in and have a conversation with the hiring manager. I mean a whole host of different things that could be a different story for each individual region. And it would require a lot of work to be able to do that. And what that led to transparently was just us not being able to wrap our arms around each individual region the way we really wanted to. And we had to pick and choose which regions we were going to focus on, so which recs we were going to focus on in being able to identify solutions. And that doesn't feel good, obviously, and it's taxing for the local teams that are needing that staff and they're having to wait longer until we figure it out or just longer until we get those recs met.

Eleanor Vajzovic (16:23):

And so you're collecting, so now the recruiters are not only trying to source and find the right candidates, connect with them at the top of the funnel. Now they're pulling reports every couple of weeks to make sure that they're spending the right amount of time with the right leaders and adjusting as they need to. And then all in the middle of that, they're still scheduling interviews and managing communications between the candidates and applicants that are interested and engaged, and now we're looking to screen and qualify them and make the match happen. So how did the team feel about having to manage that and also probably feel good about making the connections and having the calls, but then also there had to be a level of intensity on just what their day-to-day looked like? Yeah,

Steffanie Chaviano (17:20):

Absolutely. I mean, I think based on the feedback that we were getting the team was, it was almost like they were just used to it. This is what it meant to be a recruiter. You are wearing a ton of hats. No day is the same. You're being pulled in a bunch of different directions. It's a thinkless job at times. And it took a lot of internal, just wrapping our arms around them as much as possible to keep people happy. And I say people are recruiters happy, engaged and motivated to keep showing up every day to get it done. And a lot of transparency with our local, with our teams locally with leadership in the company to just really set the expectations. And I think doing that and having that level of transparency laid a lot of the groundwork for getting the approval for us to move forward with a different solution because we just really needed to support our regions differently.

Eleanor Vajzovic (18:30):

And I think that if we can take one step and double click into some of the goals, a lot of times despite wearing the different hats, despite being able to juggle a few things and just continue to live off a little bit of adrenaline, but then also the satisfaction of finding a person and then getting someone to work. Can you share a little bit of what the hiring goals are, right? Because you talked a little at a high level about it, but maybe sharing a little bit about how everyone focused. What was their North star and what were you trying to achieve? Yeah,

Steffanie Chaviano (19:07):

Absolutely. So at the time that we were really trying to figure out how to bring in more volume, our average that we were bringing in at that point was about 400 behavior technicians a month. So we were hiring about 400 people a month and we just could not get past that. I mean no matter what we did, it was like that was our cap and we were really looking to get to a point to where we could hire north of five 50, so five 50 to 600 a month. And the way that from a goals perspective that looks for us is the amount of recs in each region change from one month to the next. So region A might have needs this month and next month they might have five, and the month after they might have two, and then the month after they might have 30.

(20:16):

And so that is kind of how it happens for all 70 regions. And so what happens is it doesn't let you, there's no way for us to set a plan and then just sit back. It requires us to be incredibly nimble to be able to identify and move, pivot really quickly to a different process solution, different support for that region so that we can meet those needs even when they shoot up or set expectations as to I know that this is what you're looking for, this is what we can deliver, or this is how long it'll take for us to be able to do that. And transparently, previously with the way that our reporting was et cetera, it wasn't really possible to be able to do that in the way that we needed to

Eleanor Vajzovic (21:10):

To be able to adjust and change. And so what you end up sacrificing is not meeting the rec goal and the rec target. And I think that's where it becomes really evident that it is a little bit about the hiring metric. It is a little bit about the number, but what ends up happening is for those 400, or maybe even if it's 10 or 20, in that community, there's a family that goes without support. Thats right. And that's kind of what drives the recruiters and that drives you and that drives the leadership. And so of course there's a challenge here. So I feel like that's what makes this industry and a caregiver's world so special and so different is that there is this push and there's this inspiration motivation that every person's staffed is a family that's taken care of. And so it just increases the importance of getting the right people and getting the right work, work, accomplished work, meaning how do we get people through the funnel?

(22:16):

How do we make sure that we're advertising correctly? How do we make sure that the process is seamless and streamlined? And so there's this kind of motivation and this crescendo, and I think thank you for sharing a little bit more of the detail of the problems, right? And it feels like it was a little bit of the past, it's been a couple years since that was the reality, but also with the business case in mind and how you shaped the positioning for, look, we have an opportunity to hire as many as 400 to 550 people a month. We're limited a little bit by the technology and resources. And so now you've reached this heightened awareness of I need to find a different solution, a different technology, and a different partner. And so we're now easing into that finding that innovative partner. And so how did you go about exploring and what was your criteria to find? Spoiler alert, she did find us and we did work together and it's been so we know what the happy matches. Yeah, absolutely. But I would love a little bit of like you were going through a lot and so even finding a little bit more of time to do a search and find the right partner I feel like is a little bit of a Steffanie, how did you do it kind of thing that I think maybe a few people would be very interested in learning and understanding.

Steffanie Chaviano (23:49):

Yeah, absolutely. Originally, I thought that we were going to need to build some sort of tech stack to work with our existing A T Ss at the time because I had not really thought through transparently at that point or knew that there was a world where reporting could be easier than what we were currently living. To me, it was just a part of our reality because we had a distributed workforce, 70 regions, et cetera. So much nuance. I just thought we can try to make those reports a bit more efficient on our end through business intelligence, but there probably isn't going to be a solution in my mind where I was really trying to figure out, and by the way, there is, but we'll get to that. At that point though, what I was trying to really figure out was how do I save recruiters time? How do I remove administrative burden from them so that they can really focus on wrapping their arms around our candidates and providing an incredible candidate experience while getting enough people through the funnel to get these recs filled? And to me, I just thought we've got to automate the top of the funnel somehow. And I had never previously worked with ai. I was very skeptical.

Eleanor Vajzovic (25:23):

I remember those first two conversations we had together.

Steffanie Chaviano (25:29):

I'm a people's person and I absolutely believe that at the end of the day, you want to have that connection with your candidates through the pipeline. And so to me, and it wasn't just me, it was the whole team. This is very new. So first selling it to me was one step, but then it was me selling it to my team, but really the intent was need to build a tech stack. So just started looking into different solutions, whether that was man, we looked at all kinds of things, different techs and platforms, different screening services. And through all of that, I actually had someone that recommended looking into Paradox and scheduled a call and heard more about it. And I remembered thinking, this sounds too good to be.

Eleanor Vajzovic (26:28):

Yes, yes, I remember. And for those that are just getting to know Steffanie in just a little bit, every thought bubble came out. So it was just like, this is great, but is this real? And then we started to dive in, she's like, what feels unreal about it? And then it became, but because she shared, you shared your thoughts openly, we were able to dig in and double click into, well, here's how we're going to demystify some of the magic, but this is how it works and this is why it works this way, which was the start of a really great partnership overall. Agreed.

Steffanie Chaviano (27:11):

Agreed.

Eleanor Vajzovic (27:13):

And I love that because there's a couple things right around the start of the conversation was a little bit of the digging in and saying, well, how does this work? And then it was bringing in your friends and your team to say, figure out why this wouldn't work. Exactly. Let's be honest. Because again, caregiver's world where it's a people business and we're talking to people, and so here's this AI technology that kind of seems a little bit threatening, but also kind of like, we're not technologists, so help me understand it. So it was ask all the questions, let's create this forum of safety. But then it became where we started was this openness from the beginning, which is, well, now I believe and I'm trusting you, but now let me push you a little bit further. Can you do this? And if not, why not? And when and how can you, so that was, I think a big part of the conversation was then it became you challenging us even to how far can we take it and how far can we go?

Steffanie Chaviano (28:17):

Yeah. I mean I think that what I appreciated in those conversations was I came with my initial set of this is my challenge that I need to solve. And I remember you guys came with, great, we can do that and we can do all of these other things. I was like, let's focus on this to figure out, make sure that we can do this. And also, yes, I want to see all of the other possibilities and absolutely brought team members in. And I mean, one of the things that I say to my team, even just if I'm rolling out a random process that has nothing to do with software or anything like that, I tell them to poke holes. What am I not seeing? What have I not thought of yet? And I just remember just looking back at it, so incredibly appreciative of the partnership and support and all of the calls to make sure that everybody was on the same page, that this was going to be a solution that really did ultimately end up working for us and ultimately replacing our A T Ss, which was not the original part of the plan,

Eleanor Vajzovic (29:30):

Right? And that's where the conversations continue to evolve. And so digging into that a little bit, the relationship started with transparency and then we went into discovery of really what was the problem to solve and then how can we approach it together? And so a couple of the really, I think the detailed areas where we can go into that is one of the ways is the visibility and reporting, which is oftentimes the last thing people think about. But in this case, it was really the first thing that we needed to prioritize because it would lead to the next steps and actions that we needed to take. So maybe share a little bit about the evolution of the reporting and really how it's been able to change and influence and impact the strategy.

Steffanie Chaviano (30:27):

Absolutely. One thing that I did recognize really early on was that big barrier for us of creating a more efficient streamlined process for our recruiters was almost, I mean I won't say it was an easy solve, but it was like, yeah, we can absolutely do that. This is how we can save recruiters time and also give you this centralized visibility in reporting. And that to us was unexpected and really a game changer in a lot of ways because I shared it was not something, it was like a pie in the sky idea for us to think that we could have something that would give us more quick access to that reporting and data that we just typically don't have. And we are a incredibly data-driven company. A B A is in general, it's a scientific approach. And so we're constantly looking at data and looking at or creating this reporting structure within Paradox that allowed us to dive into our regional stats and not have to look at a macro level or not have to create spreadsheets so that recruiters could start tracking data.

(31:56):

It just allowed us to start tackling each of these problems in a much different and more efficient way than we had previously. And where we started looking at not just the total number of behavior technicians we were hiring each month, but what percentage of regions are we actually meeting a hundred percent of their needs? And that was just not something that wasn't a K P I that was really focused on before. It was like if the goal was 400, we hit 400, fantastic. But a lot of times we would hit 400 and there'd be a lot of regions whose needs were not met. And so that need for a quick pool of data, it was a game changer.

Eleanor Vajzovic (32:45):

And so from a quick, how do we define quick? And I think that's something if it took two weeks and pre Paradox quick actually can be defined as

Steffanie Chaviano (33:01):

A couple minutes,

Eleanor Vajzovic (33:02):

Couple minutes to pull across something that took two weeks before. And because you have the speed to the data and access to it faster, how did that kind of snowball in a positive way affect the ability to gather the insights, the ability to then, right?

Steffanie Chaviano (33:23):

Yeah, it really changed the way that we manage the team. We have always said that our job as managers of people is to make their lives easier and to support them in a way to where we are removing barriers from their path as much as possible. We really want them focused on working at the top of their skillset, not trying to figure out where the small little barriers are. And this allowed us to be able to do that. And it took time. There was a lot of partnership with the team, with Paradox team to get the reporting to where it is, to where it's gotten, which has just been so incredible. And that is one thing that I will say I've just really appreciated. We again, did not move into Paradox thinking or partner with Paradox thinking it was going to be a replacement of our A T s, but we really quickly realized once we started partnering, that was going to be the way that we needed to go just for what we specifically needed.

(34:38):

And there's just been this openness to be nimble with us and move with us and meet the needs that we have. And this was one of them. There's a lot of different reports that have been created for a variety of things, whether it's disposition reasons why people are not making it through the phone screen or not making it through the interview, how many candidates we have in our pipeline at each individual stage, all of these different metrics that we just did not have easy access to before allows us to manage and support those recruiters to again, remove the barriers and allow them to meet their recs.

Eleanor Vajzovic (35:22):

And with that, I mean it's having that visibility from the end-to-end experience, being able to see the data faster so that you can develop those insights and then take those and make the adjustments as needed across your 70 regions, which means 70 communities are impacted, which means you can adjust. You're not leaving anyone behind as far as your service, as far as your care, as far as your attention. But it's still a question I think that started out from the beginning, which is this is a caregiver's world, you are a people-centered business. So while this was a beautiful way to show and showcase the data story, I think a lot of people still ask the question is that, can technology really help in a human-centered space? And if so, what's the lines that you don't want to cross? And then what are the lines that should just be removed from the beginning?

Steffanie Chaviano (36:25):

Yeah, like I mentioned was one of the things that I kind of held me up initially in the beginning was we potentially moving in a direction that was going to negatively impact our candidate experience. And what I can share is that we have always surveyed our candidates throughout our process long before Paradox just to ask them and including candidates that we never even got to a phone screen because like I mentioned, we had so many people that were falling out. So to me, I felt confident that we would be able to make moves where the tech was involved if needed, depending on what those survey results showed. But ultimately what they did show was the candidates that were interested and really engaged. You have people that just, they don't really know. They're not a hundred percent sure what the curious search with the people that are really interested and engaged by having some of these more manual tasks, automated, particularly at the top of the funnel, allowed the recruiter more dedicated time for phone calls with our candidates, explaining the position, telling them about ALP A B A, the position itself, and just a much more efficient process as opposed to them applying and hopefully hearing from someone within 24 to 48 hours if they pass the knockout questions, they get scheduled for an interview within minutes.

(38:13):

And there's a lot of follow-up. And one thing that I knew was a big barrier in our previous comm or communications situation previously was the responsiveness of our recruiters just with basic questions like where's the link or what's the phone number that's going to be calling me? Or what are the benefits? All of these different things. And that's something that we've been able to automate so that it's an immediate answer. And so to me, what we have found is that it's really improved the recruiter's ability to be more candidate focused and improve that experience. And that has been showcased for us, not through just anecdotally from a recruiter perspective. They are thrilled and have really loved this new process, but also just it's very evident in our survey responses in that shift. We have seen that be very real for us.

Eleanor Vajzovic (39:18):

I think that's major, right? The check-ins, right? Being intentional even with your team to just check in to see, okay, we're changing this. How do you feel about it? We're adjusting this. How does it feel? Because I think introducing the conversational at t s to the candidates is one thing, but ensuring that it's adopted and cared for by the team is another. And so a little bit of a highlight of some of that experience for the candidates through your conversational at TSS is that immediately when they're curious and interested, they're able to text and say, okay, tell me more. I'm interested in this behavioral or BT role.

(40:00):

I'd like to hear a little bit more about it. Is it benefits? What are the hours? What does the day in the life look like? And so being able to search, show interest, raise your hand, dig in a little bit more without any kind of username or password, there's no blocking of it, and it's this free flowing of the minute you're interested, you can ask questions and dive right in. And I think that reduces that barrier, which then allows for that free flow of another area, which you touched on, which was the informed candidate pipeline is actually the richest of them all, right? And so those that kind of dive in and maybe learned a little bit more and said, oh, I don't think I'm ready for that type of responsibility just yet, and so maybe keep in touch with me, but maybe I'm not going to go right into the apply process.

(40:52):

So then they kind of self-service themselves out, but they might share who this great boy would be my cousin or my aunt, or it's like, okay, well, and so that they're sharing and they're sending that information over, but those that are interested who are double clicking into the benefits and watching the video all the way through are now more informed and more eager and more ready to connect with your recruiters and their team, which then kind narrows down that funnel, but then also their quality and they're engaged and they're already given a little bit of investment, right? Yeah,

Steffanie Chaviano (41:32):

Absolutely. We've been able to, even throughout our process and the recruiting process, after they schedule themselves in for a call with the recruiter and after we get them scheduled for an interview, et cetera, all of the automated text messages that we have include links to just different collateral, whether it's videos or flyers or that's just giving them more information. And as they have questions, those questions get answered really quickly. So yeah, the fact that it has been a more informed candidate pipeline has been incredible, and it's something that we are still working on tweaking, ensuring that we continue working on that quality component to ensure that we really are presenting the best possible talent to our families because that's what they deserve. And so being able to do that within our process in a much more efficient way is great. Yeah,

Eleanor Vajzovic (42:34):

I love that. I love that. And so a couple of things that we'll highlight just as far as how we brought this to life. We've been talking a little bit about we spent some time in the problems in your previous state, then we talked about reporting and visibility, and then we talked about the candidate experience at a high level. But it all begins with really being able to at the regional level, at the community level, to be clear, they can say, I have a need and I'd like this job posted with as simple as the manager and the teams knowing and understanding what their needs are in the front lines and they don't have to call or connect or log into a system. It's more so this is what we need and we need to ensure. And so once that job gets posted, it's available, it's visible, candidates are able to discover it and explore what that job is within their community that's pretty close knit and either dive in, ask for more information about it or again, share with someone else that might also be equally interested.

(43:45):

And so once they're saying like, yep, I want to apply, I'm really interested. I want to talk to someone more about it, then there's no wait. Even if it's at two o'clock in the morning and they maybe had a moment, or maybe they're transitioning and maybe they're waiting in line first thing in the morning, late at night, wherever that happens and that engagement and that curiosity strikes, they can show their interests, they can then start to coordinate the time to meet with a recruiter to learn more information. And all of that piece is automated 24 7 365, which is I think a beautiful experience because then recruiters wake up and they have their calendars either stacked or all full, and they are just there walking through. They can then dive into, I met you, I've engaged with you, and now you just still don't have to log into anything.

(44:48):

Let's just get you what you need in the place that you're used to receiving that information, which is your mobile device through mobile authors. You can still ask questions around the process or the paperwork or what that looks like. And then we continue that process along even through onboarding and employee paperwork. And so this entire experience is available to the candidates that are used to being on their mobile device on a daily basis, and they're on the go. They're not necessarily always within the confines of an eight to five or a weekday experience. So with all of this coming to life, let's talk a little bit about the results and then we'll have a little bit of time for questions towards the end. But I think this is that moment where, yes, it's, it's been a year and a half, a two year journey throughout this partnership, but there's still more to come. But so far the really, I think that moment of we did this thing together I think gets to slide gets a little bit of a highlight reel, right? Yeah,

Steffanie Chaviano (46:06):

Absolutely. I mean ultimately for us it really was in addition to these metrics, 95% reduction in manual screening, 93% offer accepted rate, 23% of candidates engaged after hours and they're getting responses immediately, seven hours saved per recruiter weekly. And that is a conservative number. It has really allowed our recruiters to be, like I mentioned, focused on candidate, the candidate experience, making sure we're talking to the right people and it's really been a game changer for their day to day. It is not nearly as hectic as it used to be. It's a lot more focused. They know what the day is going to look like with all of the phone screens or phone interviews that they have scheduled for that day, the ability to toggle the jobs on and off or change the calendars so that we're not overscheduling in a specific area once we have those recs met. And the transparency and the efficiency with the reporting and being able to just be really nimble has been why we've been able to have months where we've hired 600 bts or our average of five 50, which was at the same headcount that we had previously. And so it just has really been a game changer for us.

Eleanor Vajzovic (47:34):

I mean, I think this is that wow moment of when you dove into the hiring goals. Those were general, those were ambitious goals. Those were those visionary goals. And the fact that you were able to do that with a technology, a partnership with the same people and with just a refined process that could adjust and adapt to the changes as needed really resulted in this number that really is kind of central to not only were you able to increase the hires, but you were able to increase your time and energy and service to the community and the families that are trusting you and your team to really help. So I think it's beautiful. I think it's a beautiful, I can't stop smiling about it and I love sharing and being able to take the time to share your story and share the ALP story and the journey with others because I think it's an important one and being able to dive into the details that may be otherwise unseen. So thank you for the time. Thank you for sharing. I know we have a little bit of time for questions from the team. I think there's a couple in chat and then we'll look to the team to then share a couple of them with us. So let's see. So a couple questions that are queuing up. Oh, do you have any data to show on up rate increases for interviews?

Steffanie Chaviano (49:10):

Yeah, so we have seen, for us it is very seasonal. A lot of our positions are part-time positions and because of the profile of candidate that we're looking for in a lot of our regions, particularly our regions with high volume, it's usually, I would say probably like 60% of the time a college student and the rest of the time or the other recs, it's not college students. But because of that, we just got hit recently with students getting back into school and changing their availability, et cetera. But we have seen an increase in our show rate to phone interviews anywhere between 15 to 20% just depending on the month. We're just looking at some of these questions.

Eleanor Vajzovic (50:09):

Yeah. Let's start from, let's see the top of what has been the reaction from recruiters through the process.

Steffanie Chaviano (50:18):

Great question. I'm going to try to be concise. There's a lot of questions. If anybody wants to explore any of this further, please feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn. Happy to connect. Initially, recruiters were very nervous. They were nervous about the job security for themselves and they were nervous about a new position. And what they very quickly realized is like I mentioned, that we are people's people. We need recruiters to be in these roles talking to our candidates. We just had to make their process more efficient and streamlined and they love it, they love it. They love not having to chase paperwork, they love not having to, the quality of phone screens for the recruiters has been far improved from what it was previously because we have all of those knockout questions. So it has been a really great, it's been very well received, but that initial prompt we had to get them on board.

Eleanor Vajzovic (51:21):

And then I'll dive into Rebecca's question, which I think might be a great way for you two to connect as far as visuals of the centralized reporting. That was an evolutionary place, and I think that's something that you both can kind of dive deep into and how you got there and what you're using and what that looks like for multiple locations and regions. So Rebecca, definitely noting a connect there from Dan, we have, what about reduction in recruitment marketing spend, any highlights or insight around that?

Steffanie Chaviano (51:52):

So for us, that again is super seasonal because we have so many regions and the needs vary overall, we see at a macro level a reduction in spend, but there's some regions where we've just had to increase spend because their needs have doubled or tripled. For us, the real value comes from the candidate being within our pipeline and making it into getting an offer accepted and then making it into actually starting services. And we have seen huge improvements with that.

Eleanor Vajzovic (52:30):

Amazing.

Steffanie Chaviano (52:31):

There's another question around candidates joining the organization with a stronger understanding of the role. Absolutely. Previously, we kind of like how I mentioned that now we've got the automated text messages that are going out that have links to a day in the life of a behavior technician. We have TikTok videos that our employees have created. We have done contests for

Eleanor Vajzovic (53:00):

Them

Steffanie Chaviano (53:00):

To create videos around what it's like to be a behavior technician, why they like working for ALP. And we have that all sprinkled throughout the recruiting process. And then the follow-up question actually is, or the next question says, how often are you updating your knockout questions? We use all of this information to just be really nimble with the material that we're pushing out as well as the knockout questions. And we make changes to our knockout questions based on the barriers that we're seeing within a given region. So let's say we see a region that has a need for a bachelor's degree and we see a lot of candidates are applying despite making it through reading the job posting or it being in the job posting that don't have a bachelor's, or maybe it is a knockout question, but they're still making it through. We can see the main reasons why people aren't getting scheduled for an interview. And so we'll look at tweaking the verbiage, incorporating a second knockout question, et cetera. So from that perspective, we're constantly making changes, but an overhaul. We're actually in the process of doing one right now where we are, we've just looked at some data and seeing we can remove a couple of knockout questions to just make it more of an efficient or easier process for candidates upfront.

Eleanor Vajzovic (54:29):

Amazing. And I think you actually were able to address a couple of them in one, which has the updated hiring process inspired the company to update employer brand content and videos. And I think a little bit in the yes, in different ways and even exploring how do you incorporate them? How do you ensure that they're surfacing up to the candidates at the right time in the right moment, right throughout. Let's see, one more. How do you manage, I think this could be the one that we end on, which is how do you manage recruitment marketing overall sponsor job optimization for hard to fill areas, and does the Paradox system reporting function or how you've created it, help see that?

Steffanie Chaviano (55:18):

Yeah, so we could schedule another hour webinar to talk about managing recruitment marketing and spend, this to me is kind of like my jam, so I mean it please feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn. Happy to connect to talk through it. Overall, what I will say is we currently have kind of this master spreadsheet where we pull in information from Paradox directly to look at our candidate conversions, and it's our entire pipeline. So from applicant to phone screen, scheduled, completed, virtual interview, scheduled, completed offer, extended offer accepted, and we use that to inform and whether or not we have hit goals or recs in previous months, how much we potentially need to spend coupled with data, we are pulling directly from our main source of hire, which is indeed, and we pull information like cost per hire, cost per click, et cetera, and we combine all of that data together to then inform what we're going to be spending month to month. But again, it took us a while to get to that point. Feel free to reach out to me if you want to talk through more of it, but ultimately, yes, the system does support making that process a lot more efficient by giving us easy visibility to those candidate metrics and really calculating those conversions at each step for each individual region.

Eleanor Vajzovic (56:55):

Love that. And I love that. So I will end on this because the conversation can continue. Definitely. This was a forum for us to start the conversation with our new friends and then continue on as we go. But really I will share that Steffanie's vision and especially around data, actually pushed us in additional investments and additional places to go because the questions and the insights that she was starting to see and glean, it ended up being this collaborative co-creation effort on how can we be better as data providers and data captures to help shape that future strategy of not only recruitment marketing, but everything else downstream. And so that was a huge testament to our partnership and the collaboration between Steffanie's vision and then her team on a daily basis and not being shy about what was missing and what we could be better. And so that, I want to say thank you, our data team and our product team thanks you also and for having faith in the vision and the partnership from the very beginning, well, the beginning ish, right from the moment of like, I question this too. This can be a real thing if this is all true. And so I think there's value in sharing the story. Thank you for being so open. Thank you for the next conversations that you have with new friends. But appreciate you and the time. Absolutely, and thank you everyone for the questions.

Steffanie Chaviano (58:29):

Thanks so much.

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