Skip to content
Aethel

For hiring teams

Interview retail, food and hospitality candidates with one link

Send a retail, food or hospitality candidate one link. An AI interviewer asks about their real work, and you decide from the quoted scores.

Create an employer account Try the candidate practice room

Free to start while Aethel is in early access. No card needed.

Hiring for retail, food and hospitality

What makes this hard to screen

Retail and restaurant hiring moves fast, and applications often look the same. Managers need to know who stays organized in a rush, owns mistakes, and keeps food safety and cash rules on a busy day. A short form does not show any of that.

Roles this field covers: retail sales associate, store manager, cashier, restaurant server, cook, barista, hotel front desk agent, shift supervisor.

Listen for these in a transcript

  • Stays organized in a rush and explains how they keep up.
  • Fixes an order or register mistake quickly and says so.
  • Keeps food safety, cash and cleanliness rules on busy days, and helps coworkers without being asked.

Warning signs

  • Hides mistakes.
  • Skips safety or cash handling rules to go faster.
  • Argues with guests, or leaves problems for the next shift.

How it works

How to interview with a link

  1. Step 1: Create a link for the role

    Choose Retail, food and hospitality, the level, and a specialty such as retail sales associate or store manager.

  2. Step 2: Send it to your candidates

    Share it wherever you already find retail, food and hospitality candidates.

  3. Step 3: Candidates interview on their own time

    It takes about 15 minutes, and they know the interviewer is an AI.

  4. Step 4: Review and decide

    Mark each one Advance, Not a fit, or Undecided.

The interview

What the interviewer covers

It follows up on each answer and picks the retail, food and hospitality topics that fit the role.

  • A rush or busy shift and how they kept up
  • An upset customer or guest
  • A mistake on an order or at the register and how they fixed it
  • Keeping food safety, cleanliness or stock rules on a busy day
  • Training or helping a new coworker
  • A time they noticed a problem before it got worse
  • Working with a coworker or manager who saw things differently

What the scoring looks for

Strong work: the candidate stays organized in a rush, fixes mistakes quickly and honestly, follows food safety, cash and cleanliness rules, treats upset customers with patience, and helps coworkers without being asked.

Warning signs: the candidate hides mistakes, skips safety or cash handling rules to go faster, argues with customers, or leaves problems for the next shift. The scoring AI is told that an area showing one scores below 60.

Your questions

Sample must-ask questions

Up to three per link. The interviewer is told to ask each one as written, and every result shows whether it was asked word for word, asked in other words, or not asked. Examples:

  1. Tell me about a rush or busy shift and how you kept up.
  2. Walk me through how you handled a customer who was upset about an order.
  3. Describe a time you helped train a new coworker.

Starter templates

Starter roles

Start a link from one of these and edit anything.

  • Line cook

    Focus: Prep and station setup, food safety and temperatures, keeping up during a rush, working with the team

  • Restaurant server

    Focus: Taking orders accurately, allergy and food safety questions, busy shifts, working with the kitchen

  • Retail sales associate

    Focus: Helping shoppers, register and cash handling, restocking and displays, returns

  • Store manager

    Focus: Running daily store operations, scheduling and coaching staff, inventory and shrink, sales goals

Results

What you see for each candidate

  • The full transcript

    Every answer, in order.

  • “Not enough evidence”

    Shown instead of a guess, never as a low score.

  • Your decision and private notes

    Only your team sees them.

The four scored areas

Each out of 100, with quotes.

Problem solving (rushes, complaints, mix-ups)
Counts as evidence when the candidate describes a specific problem on a shift: a rush, a complaint, a mistake or a shortage, what they did about it, and how it turned out.
Service and standards (speed, safety, cleanliness, stock, cash)
Counts as evidence when the candidate describes how they keep service running to standard: opening and closing tasks, food safety or cleanliness rules, stock, cash handling, and keeping up during busy times.
Communication (guests, customers, shift handovers)
Counts as evidence when the candidate describes explaining things to customers, guests or coworkers: answering questions, handling a complaint, or passing on information at a shift change. Answers that respond to the question asked, in a clear order, with a concrete example, also count, but only up to 80 on their own. Grammar, word choice and fluency are never judged.
Teamwork (coworkers, shifts, managers)
Counts as evidence when the candidate describes working with coworkers and managers: covering for each other, training someone new, splitting tasks in a rush, or handling a disagreement. Saying "we" is not, by itself, collaboration evidence.

Aethel never scores faces, voices or accents, and does not verify degrees, licenses or work history. How Aethel uses AI

FAQ

Questions hiring teams ask

Can people apply from their phone?

Yes. The interview runs in a web browser, including on a phone. Candidates can speak or type, and no camera is needed. It can be done before or after a shift.

Does Aethel check food handler cards?

No. Aethel does not check permits, cards or certificates. Ask candidates for them and check them yourself.

Can it fit kitchen and front of house roles?

Yes. Set the specialty to cook, server or front desk agent, and the questions follow that job: tickets and prep for one, guests and orders for another.

See also the questions companies ask and the pricing page.

Send your first retail, food or hospitality interview link

Create an employer account How it works for companies

Want to show candidates what to expect? What the interview covers for retail, restaurant and hotel staff

Interview candidates in other fields