Managing hiring across 80+ fast-food restaurant locations is a logistical challenge most HR teams don't fully appreciate until they're in it. Turnover is high, headcount needs are constant, and every day a shift goes understaffed is a day that affects both customer experience and revenue.
For one of our fast-food management group clients, the breaking point was the math. They were conducting over 10,000 first-round interviews per year. Each one required a manager to step off the floor, sit down with a candidate, and spend 20 minutes assessing basic fit — only to discover in the first five minutes that the person wasn't remotely qualified.
When you multiply that by 10,000 interviews a year, you're looking at thousands of hours of manager time pulled away from operations, and a significant dollar cost attached to every single screen.
What They Deployed
The group deployed Braintrust AIR to automate their entire first-round interview process. When a candidate applied online, they received an immediate SMS invite to complete a short conversational assessment on their phone. The AI asked role-specific behavioral questions — handling a rush, de-escalating a customer complaint, following food safety protocols — and evaluated the responses semantically.
Managers received a ranked shortlist of candidates who had already demonstrated the required competencies. They only stepped off the floor to meet people who were genuinely worth their time.
The Results
The numbers were significant. The group achieved a 75% interview completion rate from candidates who received the SMS assessment link — notably higher than industry averages for asynchronous video tools, which typically hover around 40-50%. The conversational format kept candidates engaged rather than intimidated.
Time-to-hire dropped from four weeks to one week, allowing locations to fill vacancies before they materially impacted operations. And because the AI was handling the initial screen instead of managers, the group calculated a savings of approximately 7,000 manager hours annually — which at their average hourly management cost, translated to roughly $280,000 in labor savings per year.
Beyond the cost savings, the group noted an improvement in quality. When managers only met candidates who had already proven basic competencies in the AI screen, first-in-person-interview-to-offer conversion rates climbed. They were spending their limited time on people who were likely to succeed.
If your organization runs multiple high-turnover locations and your managers are drowning in first-round screening, book a demo to see how AIR can give them their time back.