How Trail King Achieved a 2.24x Higher Hire Rate and 71% Faster Time to Hire
By Henry Bender
94
94
Candidates Hired
71
71 %
Faster Time-to-hire
2.2
2.2 x
Higher Hire Rate via AI Channel
275
275 hrs
Returned to the HR Team
1,208
1,208
Candidates Screened
610
610
Qualified Screens
Company Overview
A Multi-Location Manufacturer Hiring Skilled Trades at Scale
Trail King Industries is North America’s leading specialized trailer manufacturer. Founded in 1974 and headquartered in Mitchell, South Dakota, they engineer and build trailers with load capacities up to 1,000,000 pounds for construction, agriculture, energy, and specialized hauling — including the trailer that carries the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree into New York City every year. Their 1,000-person workforce is built around skilled trades: welders, assemblers, painters, machine operators, and maintenance technicians across four production facilities.
Trail King wasn’t short on applicants. They had strong recruiting channels in place; career fairs, employee referrals, digital and paper applications, all feeding into Oracle Recruiting Cloud. The challenge was what happened after someone applied. There was no structured way to evaluate whether a candidate actually had the certifications, equipment experience, or shift availability a role required before bringing them on site.
Roles Screened by Achilles:
- Welders
- Assemblers
- Painters
- Machine Operators
- Maintenance Technicians
- And many more across manufacturing and skilled trades
The Problem
Hiring Managers Were Meeting Candidates Blind
Every on-site interview was a cold assessment. Hiring managers, including plant supervisors, production leads, and maintenance directors, were pulled off the production floor to evaluate candidates they knew nothing about. There was no structured pre-screen between application and interview. Whether someone had MIG welding experience, the right shift availability, or had ever operated the equipment the role required only came out after both sides had already invested the time.
With facilities in rural areas, Trail King also needed a way to convert more passive interest into completed applications. Candidates who called in or heard about a role through word of mouth had no easy way to enter the pipeline without navigating an online careers page, a barrier that was costing them qualified trade workers who were ready to apply but not ready to fill out a form.
On top of that, the HR team was buried in manual intake. Paper applications needed to be scanned, uploaded, and assigned to requisitions. Spanish-language applications required translation before a hiring manager could even review them. The administrative load was consuming hours that should have been spent on the people already in the building.
“Getting rid of the paper applications and having a translation option were our biggest hurdles.”
Liz G
HR Team
The Decision
A Structured Phone Screen for Every Role, Every Candidate
Trail King made a strategic decision: every role would get a structured phone screen before a candidate set foot on site. No exceptions. Welders, assemblers, painters, machine operators, maintenance techs, all of them. The goal was simple: stop wasting hiring manager time on unqualified interviews, give candidates a faster path to their first real conversation, and build a consistent evaluation process across all four locations.
The challenge was doing that at scale without adding headcount to the HR team. Running structured phone screens across 30+ open requisitions, in multiple languages, across multiple facilities, while still managing intake, coordination, and onboarding, that is not a workload you solve with more hours in the day. Trail King needed a system that could execute the phone screen itself, capture the results, and write them back into Oracle Recruiting Cloud automatically.
Achilles was the solution. Rather than bolting on another tool that still required HR to run the process, Achilles became the pre-screening layer, conducting the actual phone screens, qualifying candidates in real time, and handing hiring managers a transcript and structured summary before they ever scheduled an interview. Candidates got a faster path to the floor. Hiring managers got the information they needed upfront. And HR got their time back.
What Surprised Them
Candidates in an Old-School Industry Actually Loved It
The biggest question any manufacturer asks before adopting AI in hiring: will our candidates actually engage with this? Trail King operates in skilled trades, welders, machine operators, maintenance techs. This is not a workforce that grew up applying through apps or chatting with bots. The skepticism was real, internally and externally.
The answer came fast. Candidates engaged. Hiring managers noticed. Within the first three months, Achilles screened over 1,200 candidates with an 80.3% coverage rate, meaning nearly every applicant who entered the funnel got a structured, role-specific screen. Candidates responded to texts, completed phone screens, and gave detailed answers about their skills and experience. The transcript that came out of each screen became the single most valued feature for hiring managers reviewing candidates.
For Liz, who had been openly skeptical of AI from the start, the feedback from both sides sealed it.
“I’ve been told by candidates as well as hiring managers how much they like it. The transcript of the pre-screen has been their favorite part when reviewing a candidate.”
Liz G
HR Team
The Turning Point
From AI Skeptic to Early Advocate
Liz was upfront about her reservations. Is the data secure? Can the system be trusted? And the big one: how do you automate hiring without stripping away the personal touch that matters to candidates and managers alike?
What changed her mind was seeing Achilles in action, the ability to customize screening questions by role, deliver them in a conversational format, and engage candidates in their preferred language. Automation did not replace the human element. It made the human interactions that followed more informed, more efficient, and more personal.
“Once I saw how it works and how we can still keep things personal in both the questions and the delivery, it really changed my outlook. The translation option is a huge plus.”
Liz G
HR Team
The Solution
Deeper Screens, a New Candidate Channel, and an HR Team That Got Its Time Back
Role-Specific Screening That Goes Deep
Achilles conducts a structured phone screen built around the actual requirements of each position. For welders: certifications, processes (MIG, TIG, stick), materials experience, and shift availability. For painters and assemblers: equipment familiarity and physical requirements. For maintenance techs: mechanical knowledge and troubleshooting depth. Every screen produces a full transcript and structured candidate summary, written automatically back into Oracle Recruiting Cloud. Hiring managers now arrive at on-site interviews with a complete picture of each candidate—the assessment that used to happen in person starts happening before anyone sets foot on the floor.
“We’re finding more qualified candidates faster. The pre-screening goes deep on actual skills, and by the time a hiring manager sees someone, they already know if that person can weld.”
Clark B
HR Manager
A New Front Door: Call and Text to Apply
For a manufacturer with plants in rural areas, every candidate matters. Achilles gave Trail King a net-new source channel: candidates can now create a full application in Oracle Recruiting Cloud by simply making a phone call or sending a text. No careers page. No form. A candidate who hears about a job through a referral, a flyer, or word of mouth can apply in minutes from wherever they are.
This channel made up just 15.9% of total applications but drove 29.7% of all hires, converting at 2.24x the rate of traditional channels. It did not just add volume. It surfaced candidates who were ready to work but would have dropped off at the application stage.
Bilingual Engagement and Oracle Integration
Achilles integrated directly with Trail King’s Oracle Recruiting Cloud. The moment a candidate applies through any channel, Achilles engages them via text within minutes, in English or Spanish based on their preference. Career fair leads, referrals, online applications, all of them get an immediate, consistent response. Spanish-speaking candidates who previously faced days of translation delays now get screened in their preferred language instantly.
The impact on HR’s daily workflow has been just as dramatic. With Achilles handling intake, screening, and candidate communication, Liz now only logs into Oracle Recruiting Cloud once every three to four days. The system that used to demand constant attention runs in the background.
The Results
A Faster Funnel, a Stronger Pipeline, and 275 Hours Back
“Would you go back to the old way?
“Never.”
Liz
HR Team
No manual work until the in-person interview
See how Achilles can handle all your screening and scheduling automatically.