How Emerald Resource Group Cut Time-to-Fill By Seven Days With Loxo

For more than 35 years, Emerald Resource Group built a trusted name in IT recruiting. Family-owned and based in Cleveland, the firm thrived on close collaboration, strong relationships, and a bullpen-style culture where everyone stayed connected.

“It’s a family-owned company,” says Lexi Jenkins, Accounting & Finance Team Lead. “It’s a close-knit group. Great energy.”

Emerald didn’t set out with a grand plan to reinvent the business, but new opportunities in accounting, finance, and healthcare emerged through relationships and timing, giving the team a choice: 

Do you take the opportunity, or stay where you are?

They took it.

A different kind of recruiting challenge

Expanding beyond IT meant learning entirely new recruiting motions.

Accounting followed seasonal cycles that required patience and long-term follow-up. Healthcare was even more complex.

“I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to cold call doctors,” Lexi says. “But it is extremely hard. People will answer the phone in the room with a patient.”

The challenge wasn’t just sourcing talent. It was operating effectively while learning new markets, scaling without losing quality, and building trust with new clients.

Using structure to stay ahead of the chaos

As new verticals took shape and new recruiters joined the team, Emerald relied on Loxo to keep work visible and teams aligned—without forcing them to change how they worked.

In healthcare, access was the first hurdle. Physicians aren’t always active on LinkedIn, which made traditional sourcing unreliable. With Loxo Source, Emerald built consistent pipelines that supported high-volume outreach.

Emerald’s healthcare managing director “is making 150 to 200 dials a day,” Lexi says. With Loxo Source, “it’s a never-ending supply [of contacts].”

And in accounting and finance, timing was everything.

“A lot of people say, ‘I don’t want to leave until after busy season,’” Lexi explains. “So I make a list, reach out in March, and then I don’t have to do as many cold calls. Everyone remembers me.”

Instead of starting over each cycle, the team stayed organized and ready.

Predictable delivery builds real trust

As Emerald expanded, client expectations evolved. Relationships still mattered, but trust increasingly depended on visibility and consistency.

A lot of Emerald’s success has always been personality-driven. “People like working with us,” Lexi says. But as the firm grew, that wasn’t enough on its own.

“Now,” she adds, “it’s also our timelines and predictable delivery.”

For Emerald, predictable delivery meant changing how progress was communicated. Instead of waiting until a resume was ready, recruiters began sharing monthly updates that showed real activity, not just outcomes.

“With Loxo, you know who you’ve talked to, who’s not a fit,” Lexi explains. “So even if we don’t have a resume yet, we’re able to provide a report once a month. We can show where we are: how many people we talked to, who was outside the location or compensation. We use Loxo to put that together.”

That transparency shifted the client conversation. Recruiters could openly share market realities around compensation, location, and expectations, and adjusting searches collaboratively and becoming trusted partners.

“I am giving clients my insights and advising them,” Lexi says.

The result that changed everything: seven days faster to fill

All of that structure and visibility paid off in a measurable way.

“Our biggest efficiency gain has been a reduction in time to fill,” Lexi says.

Emerald cut time-to-fill by approximately seven days compared to earlier workflows.

That improvement didn’t just make searches faster, it changed what Emerald felt confident taking on.

Healthcare and accounting quickly grew to match Emerald’s 30-year IT practice.

“IT was our main thing for 30 years,” Lexi reflects. “And now healthcare and accounting are all equal, which is crazy.”

With better visibility and confidence in execution, Emerald began taking on larger, more complex searches, including senior leadership roles and retained engagements.

“Now we’re confident,” Lexi says. “We’re going to fill this, and we’re going to fill this fast.”

In Lexi’s words

“Loxo is essential. We use it for everything. I’m not a huge tech person; if it’s complicated, I just won’t learn it. Loxo is easy, user-friendly, and essential to our growth as a company and to my own growth as a recruiter.”
— Lexi Jenkins, Accounting & Finance Team Lead, Emerald Resource Group