Science and research
AI interviews for scientists and researchers
Talk through your real research with an AI interviewer. See your results first, with the quotes behind every score, and choose who sees them.
- Free for experts
- About 15 minutes, whenever you like
- Type or speak. No camera needed
Who it's for
For people who work in science and research
Researchers and scientists in the natural, social and applied sciences.
Example roles
- Research scientist
- Postdoctoral researcher
- Lab manager
- Chemist
- Biologist
- Physicist
- Social scientist
- Economist
When you apply, you can name your exact specialty. The interviewer fits its questions to it.
Not quite your field? See every field
The interview
What the 15-minute interview covers
A conversation about your own work, not trivia. Questions usually start with something you worked on recently, dig into what made it hard, and may end with a realistic situation from your field. Each question follows up on what you said.
Topics the interviewer draws on
- An experiment that failed and how they found out why
- Designing a study with the right controls
- A result that surprised them
- Responding to reviewer or peer criticism
- Reproducibility and data quality
- Explaining their work to someone outside the field
- Choosing which question to pursue with limited time or funding
It picks what fits your specialty. It does not read these out as a list.
How your answers are scored
After the interview, an AI model reads your transcript and looks for evidence in four areas. Each area is scored from 1 to 100 only when it can quote your own words.
Scientific reasoning
Hypotheses, troubleshooting, results
Counts as evidence when the candidate works through a specific research problem: the question, the hypothesis, what went wrong, how they troubleshot it, or what the result showed.
Research design and rigor
Methods, controls, statistics
Counts as evidence when the candidate describes how they designed a study or experiment: methods, controls, sample size, measurements, statistics, reproducibility or limitations.
Communication
Papers, talks, plain explanations
Counts as evidence when the candidate describes explaining research to other people: papers, grant proposals, talks, posters, or explaining results to people outside their field. Answering clearly is not, by itself, communication evidence.
Collaboration
Co-authors, labs, reviewers
Counts as evidence when the candidate describes working with other people: co-authors, lab members, reviewers, partners or students, including feedback and disagreement. Saying "we" is not, by itself, collaboration evidence.
If your answers do not cover an area, it shows Not enough evidence instead of a low score. Scores come only from the words in your transcript. Your face, voice and accent are never scored.
Practice
Three example practice questions
These come from the practice room for science and research. In the real interview, questions follow up on your own answers, so yours will be different.
- Question 1
Tell me about a research question you worked on and what made it hard.
- Question 2
Imagine your key result does not replicate on the second run. What do you check first?
- Question 3
How would you explain your findings and their limits to someone outside your field?
No account needed. Practice answers are not saved.
After the interview
What you get
Your results, first
Read your transcript and your scores in Scientific reasoning, Research design and rigor, Communication, and Collaboration, with the quotes behind each one. An area without enough evidence says so.
Share links you control
Share your result with a link only when you want to. You decide who gets it, and you can turn the link off at any time.
Company interview links
If a company sends you its own interview link, you see the company and the role, and agree to share that interview with them before you start. You see the same result they see.
Free, with retakes
Experts never pay. You can retake the interview up to 3 times, and your newest result replaces the one before it. If a technical problem cuts an interview short, you can get a free retake.
How data is stored, used and deleted is in our privacy policy.
FAQ
Questions from scientists and researchers
What will the AI interviewer ask me about?
Your own research. Questions usually start with something you worked on recently and dig into what made it hard. Later questions may give you a realistic situation from your field or a hard choice to make. Each question follows up on what you said. There are no trick puzzles.
How is the interview scored for science and research?
After the interview, an AI model reads your transcript and looks for evidence in four areas: Scientific reasoning, Research design and rigor, Communication, and Collaboration. An area gets a score from 1 to 100 only when the model can quote your own words for it. Otherwise it says "Not enough evidence" instead of guessing. Your face, voice and accent are never scored.
Do I have to share confidential details?
No. The interviewer is told not to ask for names or confidential details about clients, patients, students or employers, and to let you describe situations without identifying anyone. Share unpublished results only as far as you are comfortable.
My research is very specialized. Will the interviewer follow it?
It follows up on what you say and uses the words people in your field use. If a question misses the point of your work, say so and steer it back.
Is this a certification or a license check?
No. An Aethel interview is not a certification, license or credential, and it does not verify degrees or licenses. It is a record of how you talked about your own work in one interview.
Who sees my results?
You see your results first. A company sees an interview only if you took it through that company's interview link. Anyone else sees a result only through a share link or a PDF verification code you make. If you turn on your Find experts profile, anyone can see your name, field, specialty, and area scores, but never your transcript or contact details. You can turn off a share link, a code, or your Find experts profile at any time. You can delete your interview records at any time from your profile page.
Is it free, and can I retake it?
Yes, it is free for experts. You can retake the interview up to 3 times from your results page, and your newest result replaces the one before it. If a technical problem cut an interview short, your results page offers a free retake that does not count toward the 3. If it does not, ask for a review. An interview taken through a company's link is taken once.
Can I practice first?
Yes. The practice room uses sample questions for science and research and saves nothing. You do not need an account to try it.
More detail: how interviews work
Ready when you are
Apply in a few minutes, then interview whenever it suits you. You decide who sees your results.
Hiring scientists and researchers? See how companies interview for science and research