For hiring teams
Interview design candidates with one link
Create an interview link for a design role and send it to your candidates. They talk with an AI interviewer about their real work, on their own time. You read the transcript and scores that quote their own words, and your team makes the decision.
Free to start while Aethel is in early access. No card needed.
How it works
How to interview design candidates with a link
- Step 1
Create a link for the role
Add the role title, choose Design as the field, and set the level. If you want, add a specialty, focus areas, and up to three questions the interviewer must ask word for word.
- Step 2
Send it to your candidates
Share the link however you already reach candidates. Aethel does not message them for you.
- Step 3
Candidates interview on their own time
The interview takes about 15 minutes. Candidates are told up front that the interviewer is an AI, and they agree to share the result with your company before they start.
- Step 4
Review and decide
Read each transcript and the scores, with the quotes behind them. Mark each candidate Advance, Not a fit, or Undecided, and keep private notes.
The interview
What the interviewer covers
It asks about real design work and follows up on each candidate's answers. It draws on these topics and picks what fits the role.
- A design they shipped and what changed for users
- User research that changed their mind
- Critique or feedback that was hard to hear
- Balancing user needs against business or technical limits
- Accessibility and inclusive design decisions
- Building or working within a design system
- Handing work to engineering and what got lost
Focus areas on your link steer it further, for example toward a tool, a regulation or a type of client.
Your questions
Sample must-ask questions
Each link can carry up to three must-ask questions. The interviewer asks each one as written. Here are examples for this field.
- Walk me through a design decision that research or testing proved wrong. What did you change?
- How do you handle a stakeholder who strongly prefers a different direction?
- Tell me about a hand-off where what shipped differed from your design. What happened next?
Results
What you see for each candidate
A result you can check for yourself. Every score points to what the candidate actually said.
The full transcript
Every question and every answer, in order.
“Not enough evidence” instead of a guess
If the interview did not cover an area, the result says so. It is never shown as a low score. The overall score uses only the areas with evidence.
Your decision and private notes
Track where each candidate stands. Candidates never see your notes.
Four scored areas for design
Each is scored from 1 to 100, with the exact quotes behind it.
- Design problem solving
- Counts as evidence when the candidate describes a specific design problem, what caused it, the options they explored, a trade-off, or how they measured whether the design worked.
- Craft and design decisions
- Counts as evidence when the candidate describes concrete design decisions: user flows, layout, hierarchy, interaction, accessibility, visual system or research methods, and why they chose them.
- Communication
- Counts as evidence when the candidate describes presenting or explaining design work to other people: critiques, design reviews, specs, prototypes, or walking stakeholders through a decision. Answering clearly is not, by itself, communication evidence.
- Collaboration
- Counts as evidence when the candidate describes working with other people: engineers, product managers, researchers, users or stakeholders, including handling feedback and disagreement. Saying "we" is not, by itself, collaboration evidence.
What Aethel does not do
- Recommend who to hire or guess at seniority.
- Score faces, voices, accents, backgrounds or video.
- Screen anyone out. Everyone who finishes your interview appears in your list.
- Verify degrees, licenses or work history.
Details are on how Aethel uses AI.
FAQ
Questions about interviewing for design
Can we interview for a specific role in this field?
Yes. Choose Design as the field for the link and add the specialty, such as product designer or UX designer. Focus areas and must-ask questions steer the interview further.
Can the interviewer ask our own questions?
Yes. You can add up to three must-ask questions to each link, and the interviewer asks each one as written. It picks the other questions from the role, the field and the candidate's answers.
How are candidates in this field scored?
An AI review reads the transcript and scores four areas for this field: Design problem solving, Craft and design decisions, Communication, and Collaboration. Each area gets a score from 1 to 100 only when the review can quote the candidate's own words, and every quote is checked against the transcript. Otherwise the area shows "Not enough evidence". The overall score is the average of the areas that have evidence.
Does Aethel check licenses, degrees or work history?
No. Aethel does not verify degrees, licenses, certifications or employment history. Check those the way you do today.
Does Aethel decide who to hire?
No. Aethel does not recommend who to hire, guess at seniority, or screen anyone out. Every candidate who completes your interview appears in your list, and your team makes every decision.
Will Aethel contact our candidates?
No. You send the link and follow up with candidates yourself. Aethel does not message candidates on your behalf.
What do candidates need?
Your link, a free Aethel account, and about 15 minutes. They can type or speak their answers. A camera is not required.
What does it cost?
While Aethel is in early access, you can create an employer account and keep one interview link open at a time for free. Monthly plans are listed on the pricing page. Experts never pay.
Plans are on the pricing page.
Send your first design interview link
Create an employer account, describe the role, and copy your link. It takes a few minutes.
Want to show candidates what to expect? What the interview covers for product, UX and visual designers