A lot of Positives, but.......
Pros
- Every interaction I had within ATS (leadership, HR, colleagues, IT, etc.) was positive. - There is a great deal of support available with helping with the job itself as well as areas that were more indirect with the job such as scheduling, HR questions, etc. You never feel like you have to solve anything on your own if you need help. - Communication was well done throughout the company, usually hearing within 24 hours and in most cases within minutes or an hour or two. - Opportunities to learn if you are new to ABA as a whole; not just trying to set you up to only be successful in ATS but throughout the field as a whole. This includes opportunities for exam preparation through their CR-LMS platform. - Benefits seemed fine, although I did not really need them. - The company as a whole seems to be pretty well run with a lot of collaboration throughout departments. It feels like one big team, and you feel valued for the work that you do. - Supervisors were very good. Knowledgeable and willing to do what they can to help, many times going above and beyond.
Cons
- Pay. When you see the job description, it is extremely vague how much they are offering (only see "Glassdoor estimate). When compared to other ABA agencies in the area, what ATS pays you is not only far below the average, but borderline insulting compared to the rest of the agencies (in the neighborhood of 25% less than average). If you try to request what the average pay is of the other companies for your hourly pay, you will be told "no one in the entire company makes this" and "we are holding firm with our offer, but we could consider more down the road". Be careful and get everything in writing prior to starting, especially if you are going to be a BC-ABA working towards becoming a BCBA. Your offer letter will say what you will make as a BC-ABA, but not as a BCBA, so get that number prior to starting so it will be clear what will be expected once you pass the exam. If they won't meet your number, another agency likely will. Don't settle for less. - While there will almost always be this at any ABA job, there was a lot of work that was reimbursed at $12.50/hour, in some cases just as much of this indirect work as there was direct work. When you are already likely being underpaid, this increases the frustration from a financial standpoint, but there's likely little that can be done about this. - There is no guarantee of clients to start. You may be told that there are clients waiting for you, but there is no promise that the families won't ghost the agency when it's time to actually start working with them. The process to get fully staffed can be an anchor, taking weeks if not months to get the caseload you want. Requesting a new case, even one from the waitlist, can take weeks to actually start with the case until the family completes the multi-step process in its entirety. You'll need to plan ahead several weeks to see if you are going to need more cases so in that time hopefully someone will be ready for you when it's time. - Related to this, the waitlist needs to be modified. Some families are waiting for years with no contact and then when someone becomes available, more times than not, you never hear from them again for a variety of reasons. Families should be checked in on at least once every 6 months, if not sooner, to ensure they still want services once someone becomes available and all documentation is current. This will make things less stressful both for families and staff at ATS.
