How Newton School Took Their Sr. Sales Manager Out of the Interview Loop — and Scaled BDE Hiring to 20–30 Interviews a Day
Newton School replaced daily manual sales interviews with Koyo's AI Interviewer, freeing up their Sr. Sales Manager's bandwidth and turning BDE hiring into an always-on pipeline.
17
Hires Closed
20–30/day
AI Interviews at Peak Scale
4.1★
Candidate Experience Rating
Overview
Newton School is an EdTech company founded in 2019 by Nishant Chandra and Siddharth Maheshwari. They run upskilling programs in data science, AI, and other in-demand domains, along with Newton School of Technology — a new-generation tech institution. Their Business Development team is the revenue engine — a 50–60 member sales force that's constantly hiring.
The Challenge
Always-On Hiring: BDE team of 50–60, with 5–10 new hires needed every month — pipeline never stops
Sales Lead Stuck in Interviews: Siddhi (Sr. Sales Manager) taking 3–4 interviews daily instead of mentoring her team and selling
Team-Wide Revenue Impact: When Siddhi's in interviews, the whole team loses — no coaching, no deal support, no pipeline reviews
HR Bottleneck: Recruiters fighting for Siddhi's calendar slots, constantly rescheduling around her availability
Nishant ChandraCo-Founder, Newton School"My sales lead was spending half her day interviewing people instead of coaching her team and closing deals. That's not a hiring problem — that's a revenue problem."
The Solution
01
Siddhi's R1 evaluation criteria shared with Koyo — communication, objection handling, sales aptitude
02
Custom AI interview built to mirror her actual screening round
03
All BDE candidates now take the AI interview first — no slots, no scheduling, no dependency on Siddhi
04
~200 candidates completed the AI interview
05
51 candidates moved to Round 2 based on AI evaluation
06
17 hires closed — selection rate same or better than manual rounds
The Results
17
Hires Closed
~200 AI interviews → 51 to R2 → 17 hired
20–30/day
AI Interviews at Peak Scale
Up from 3–4 manual interviews/day
4.1★
Candidate Experience Rating
Candidates rated the AI interview 4.1/5
SiddhiSr. Sales Manager, Newton School"I used to start my day with back-to-back interview slots. Now I start it with sales calls. The AI screens exactly the way I would — I trust the reports."
Anurima RoyTA Lead, Newton School"Before this, I was chasing Siddhi's calendar every day. Now I send interview links and candidates take them on their own. Some days we run 20–30 interviews without involving a single person from the sales team."
How it works
How did you set things up?
Siddhi shared what she evaluates in a BDE R1 — communication skills, objection handling, sales pitch quality, energy. Koyo built an AI interview around those criteria. HR now just sends the link to every candidate in the pipeline.
When did you realize this actually works?
When the selection rate from Round 2 held steady at ~70%. The AI was filtering the same way Siddhi would — but without needing her time. And when HR started scaling to 20–30 interviews a day without anyone noticing, it was clear this was the new normal.
What surprised you?
That HR stopped asking for interview slots entirely. The pipeline just runs. Candidates interview on their own time, reports come in, and the team picks who moves forward. It went from a daily coordination problem to something that happens in the background.
Advice for someone evaluating an AI interviewer?
Look at what it costs you when your best people are stuck interviewing. For us, it was our sales lead not selling and not coaching her team. The ROI wasn't in the hiring cost — it was in the revenue we got back.