Case Study: Endries International

The Distribution Hiring Problem Nobody Talks About

When candidates apply for warehouse and operations jobs, they’re not just applying to you. They’re applying to ten other companies in the same hour. The first employer to respond usually wins. The fifth one to call? They’re talking to voicemail.

This is the reality Kristy Palleria navigates daily as VP of HR and Organizational Design at Endries International, a global fastener and industrial components distributor serving manufacturers worldwide. Her team wasn’t struggling to attract applicants for frontline roles. They were drowning in them.

"If a candidate applies to ten companies, they're only going to talk to the first two that respond. The third, fourth, fifth company that calls? They're probably not getting through. We needed to be that first one to respond."

The real problem was the math: high application volume multiplied by manual screening equals a recruiting team buried in administrative work instead of actually hiring people.

When More Applicants Create More Problems

Endries’ recruiting team was spending the bulk of their time on tasks that didn’t require human judgment: sorting resumes, scheduling phone screens, following up with candidates who’d already accepted other offers, and documenting conversations. The irony wasn’t lost on Kristy. Her team’s expertise was in evaluating talent and making smart hiring decisions. Instead, they’d become full-time administrators.

For frontline operations and warehouse roles, the team faced a brutal cycle. Post a job, get flooded with applications, scramble to screen them, lose the best candidates to faster competitors, repeat. Meanwhile, hiring managers waited in a queue, each convinced their open role was the most urgent.

The solution needed to do three things: scale screening without sacrificing quality, engage candidates before competitors could, and maintain the compliance standards required by a global organization. Most AI tools Kristy evaluated failed on at least one of these counts.

Implementation So Seamless, It Was Forgettable

Most enterprise software implementations are memorable for all the wrong reasons. Classet’s was memorable because Kristy genuinely couldn’t remember it.

The platform connected to Endries’ existing ATS and slotted into their current workflows. No new workflows for managers. No process overhaul. A few minor adjustments, and the system was live within weeks.

"I don't even remember the implementation process because it was that easy. It took a couple of weeks. The system is intuitive, and once you connect it to your ATS, the workflows are already there. You don't have to reinvent any processes."

This matters more than it might seem. Distribution companies operate on thin margins and tight timelines. A recruiting tool that requires months of change management and training isn’t a solution. It’s another problem.

What Actually Changed

The shift was immediate. Candidates now get screened and engaged the moment they apply, whether that’s Tuesday at 2 PM or Saturday at midnight. For applicants who are actively job hunting and applying broadly, that speed is the difference between a conversation and a ghost.

But the bigger change happened internally. Hiring managers now see the same candidate information HR does, instantly. No more relay races where recruiters summarize phone screens to managers who then have follow-up questions that require another round of candidate contact. The documentation is complete, consistent, and accessible to everyone who needs it.

Managers stopped waiting for HR to work through a backlog. They gain immediate visibility into qualified candidates for their roles, allowing them to move at their own pace rather than compete for recruiter bandwidth.

The Compliance Surprise

Kristy’s team had the same concern most HR leaders have when evaluating AI for recruiting: what about compliance? What about the human element? The horror stories about AI bias in hiring aren’t hypothetical. They’re in courtrooms.

What Endries discovered was counterintuitive. Their screening process became more AI-compliant, not less.

"Our top-of-funnel process is actually cleaner and more compliant than it ever was before. With the AI handling screening, there's no room for missing anything or forgetting to write something down."

The key distinction is what the AI actually does. Classet’s system handles the initial fact-finding and documentation. It doesn’t make hiring decisions. It doesn’t rank candidates. It screens consistently, records everything, and surfaces screened applicants to the humans who make the actual calls.

Before AI screening, Endries’ process had the same gaps as most manual processes: inconsistent documentation, questions that varied by interviewer, and details that got lost between a phone screen and a hiring manager conversation. Now there’s a complete, consistent record of every candidate interaction. Nothing gets missed. Nothing gets forgotten.

The Takeaway for Other HR Leaders

Kristy’s advice for organizations evaluating AI recruiting tools: start with the problem, not the technology.

AI works best when you’re clear about what you’re trying to solve. For Endries, that was removing friction, increasing consistency, and giving people back time. They weren’t looking for a system to make decisions for them. They wanted a system that would do the initial heavy lifting so their team could focus on evaluation and relationship-building.

The questions worth asking: Does this integrate without disruption? Will managers actually use it, or does it create another login and another process to learn? Does it strengthen compliance or create new risk? Does it make candidates’ experience better or worse?

For Endries, Classet answered all of those positively. The proof is in what happened after implementation: faster hiring, cleaner documentation, happier managers, and a recruiting team that finally has time to do recruiting.

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