So many new hires, they needed a second orientation location
New York State Solar was hiring so many people that it needed a second location for new-hire orientation.
The company had gone from typically hiring four to six people a week to bringing on as many as 20 to 30. An additional trainer was needed to keep up.
Yet the recruiting team hadn't grown.
The transformation began when Bethany Prince-Rood took over New York State Solar's recruiting team in May 2024 and led an effort to rethink how the department worked.
From managing systems to actually recruiting
At New York State Solar, hiring salespeople directly supports business growth. Entry-level representatives generate leads that senior salespeople turn into customers, making recruiting speed especially important.
But the team's previous ATS, Lever, was slowing things down.
Bethany found it disorganized and cumbersome. Even simple tasks required multiple steps, and recruiters relied on separate tools for sourcing, contact information, and outreach. Follow-ups were difficult to track, and promising candidates could slip through the cracks.
“The system was a place where we recorded work, not a place where we did it,” Bethany explains.
In a competitive sales hiring market, that lost time mattered.
“For us, being the first company to call a good candidate is often what wins the hire.”
One workflow, more recruiting capacity
To give recruiters that advantage, the team needed to eliminate the time-consuming steps standing between finding a promising candidate and starting a conversation.
They replaced Lever with Loxo and overhauled their recruiting processes, bringing sourcing, contact information, outreach, and candidate management into one workflow — within one AI-native Talent Intelligence Platform.
Recruiters could now find and engage candidates in a single sitting instead of spending days moving between systems.
Hiring managers benefited, too. Branch managers sometimes conduct 15 to 30 interviews a day. Recording feedback directly in Loxo gave recruiters the information they needed to follow up quickly and keep candidates moving.
The transition required some change management. Not everyone was initially enthusiastic about learning a new system, so Bethany combined coaching and clearer expectations with performance bonuses, spin-the-wheel prizes, and monthly MVP recognition.
Loxo's reporting also helped the team track hires, interviews, no-shows, and recruiter activity, giving Bethany better visibility into performance and opportunities for coaching.
“I can't think of any numbers that I've wanted and wasn't able to figure out how to get,” she says.
Reaching the candidates who are hardest to find
The team also uses Loxo to nurture relationships with experienced salespeople who aren't actively looking for work. For one specialized energy-efficiency search, Bethany identified professionals through public licensing records and used Loxo to find their contact information.
But finding the right people is only part of the equation. The team also needs to give them a compelling reason to join.
For Bethany, the company's culture is one of its strongest recruiting advantages.
“There's a real sense of teamwork and a genuine passion for winning here, and it's energizing to be around. People have the chance to help build something that will outlast them, and when candidates see that, it resonates.”
With more time to focus on candidate relationships, recruiters can bring that culture to life in their conversations with prospective hires.
72% more hires, without more recruiters
The results demonstrate how much more the team can now accomplish.
The team also accelerated hiring. A qualified candidate now moves from application to hire in as little as six days, compared with 16 days previously.
And the improvements extended to outreach activity. Average weekly Loxo outreach starts increased from 3.9 in February–March 2024 to 13.75 during the same period in 2025, a 253% increase.
As Bethany explains:
“Moving from under four outreach starts a week to well over thirteen didn't come from working harder. It came from removing the friction as well as improving our process so our team could spend its time actually talking to people.”
What's even more impressive is that the team achieved all this growth without adding a single recruiter.
“The fact that we're able to double our hiring output with the same amount of recruiters definitely speaks to the ROI,” says Bethany.
For New York State Solar, that additional recruiting capacity means the business can pursue growth without a corresponding increase in recruiting overhead.
Built to keep growing
The recruiting team's success came from combining better technology with improved processes, clearer expectations, and a shared commitment to making the changes work.
For Bethany, the biggest achievement is what the team has built together.
“What I'm proudest of isn't the number. It's that I built something repeatable, with a team I trust to run it.”
With plans to hire approximately 900 entry-level sales representatives and more than 100 senior salespeople in 2027, that repeatable process will be essential.
New York State Solar now has a recruiting team equipped to take on greater hiring demand as the business grows.
