HighMatch is a leading restaurant hiring assessment looking to reduce time-to-fill for hourly roles.
HighMatch helps shorten the screening and interview-selection stages by identifying which candidates appear most aligned with the role. Managers can decide who to review first, avoid unnecessary interviews, and move stronger candidates toward an offer faster.
Better hiring decisions can also reduce the turnover that keeps the same roles reopening. That means restaurants can not only fill current vacancies faster, but spend less time restarting the hiring process for avoidable replacements. For restaurants with plenty of applicants but limited manager time, that starts with knowing which candidates deserve attention first.
Where Restaurant Hiring Actually Slows Down
Store managers are often responsible for reviewing applications, checking availability, scheduling and conducting interviews, making offers, and running the restaurant, all during the same shift.
When all they have to work with is an application, a short work history, and a list of available shifts, there’s not much to separate one candidate from the next.
So managers fall back on what’s easiest to see:
- Who applied first
- Who can work the needed shift
- Who has restaurant experience
- Who makes a good first impression
Those things matter, but they don’t tell a manager whether someone is reliable, teachable, able to learn the job quickly, or likely to work well in that environment.
The result is more time spent reviewing applicants, more interviews that don’t lead to a hire, and stronger candidates waiting while the manager works through the list. Then, when a rushed or poorly informed decision leads to early turnover, the restaurant has to start the same hiring process all over again.
How HighMatch Helps Restaurants Hire Faster
HighMatch gives managers actionable information before the interview, when it can still affect both how quickly the role is filled and whether the person hired is likely to succeed and stay.
Managers can focus on the strongest candidates first
Instead of reviewing every application, managers can use HighMatch results to quickly identify the candidates who show the strongest alignment with the role.
That speed matters in hourly hiring. Strong candidates are often considering several nearby employers, and every delay increases the chance another company reaches them first.
Managers can spend less time reviewing applicants
Without an assessment, managers may need to review every resume, application, and work-history entry before they can determine which candidates are worth moving forward.
HighMatch delivers actionable insights, giving managers the information they need beyond basic applications.
One HighMatch customer reported that the assessment significantly reduced the time spent reviewing ineligible applicants and that the results led to more focused interviews.
Restaurants can reduce low-value interviews
A HighMatch result isn’t a simple yes-or-no decision.
A candidate may look teachable and capable while raising a question about reliability, teamwork, or pace. That doesn’t mean the manager should reject the candidate. It means the manager knows where to probe.
HighMatch can provide interview questions tied to the candidate’s results, so managers don’t have to rely on the same generic script for everyone.
That lets them spend less time covering what already looks clear and more time on the questions that could change their hiring decision.
The assessment is built around the operator’s roles
Faster prioritization only helps when the assessment measures the right signals and interprets them in the right context.
A generic hospitality profile may not reflect what success looks like in a specific restaurant or role. Quick-service crew members, for example, may need to show reliability, integrity, customer service, teamwork, pace, and the ability to learn the job quickly. Those priorities can look different for counter service, delivery, shift leadership, or management.
HighMatch’s I/O psychologists work with operators to define what success requires in the role, determine what should be measured, and decide how much weight each measure should carry.
Depending on the problem the restaurant is trying to solve, that may include:
- Behavioral tendencies
- Specific aptitudes
- Situational judgment
- Job knowledge
- Eligibility requirements
- A realistic job preview
- Screening questions tied to the role
The goal isn’t to measure everything. It’s to identify the signals that matter most for success in that unique role.
What Restaurant Results Has HighMatch Produced?
HighMatch’s work with Chopt shows why speed and quality have to be considered together.
Chopt’s previous assessment gave leaders little usable feedback, and the scoring model did not clearly show which candidates had the qualities needed to succeed.
HighMatch studied Chopt’s highest-performing managers and identified the characteristics they shared, including drive, integrity, and critical thinking. It then built an assessment around that success profile.
Compared with candidates who scored in the Caution range, candidates in the Preferred range were:
- 70% more likely to be retained
- 78% more likely to perform above expectations
These results matter to time-to-fill because retention affects how often a restaurant has to restart the hiring process. Better prioritization can help fill the current opening faster, while stronger retention can reduce how often that opening comes back.
What Should a Restaurant Hiring Assessment Do?
A restaurant assessment should make the hiring process easier to move through, not add another step that candidates and managers have to work around.
Work naturally on a phone
Most hourly candidates apply from a mobile device. The assessment should be designed for a small screen, not simply made accessible through a mobile browser. Candidates shouldn’t need a computer, scheduled appointment, or repeated scrolling and resizing to complete it.
Length matters too. HighMatch generally targets approximately 12 to 15 minutes for hourly roles, depending on what the organization needs to measure.
Give managers a clear read on the candidate
A number alone doesn’t tell a manager much.
Managers need to understand:
- Does this person appear reliable?
- Are they likely to be teachable?
- Can they learn the job quickly?
- Do they fit the pace and expectations of the role?
- What still needs to be investigated?
The result should add confidence to the hiring decision, not just another data point.
Fit the existing hiring workflow
Managers shouldn’t have to move between several systems to piece together whether someone is a fit and whether they can work the schedule. Assessment results are most useful when managers can access them within, or directly from, the hiring system they already use.
Before choosing a provider, make sure managers can see the assessment results alongside minimal qualification requirements such as availability and location. A strong assessment result doesn’t solve the restaurant’s need if the candidate cannot work the required schedule.
Create a shared process across locations
Without a common standard, one manager may prioritize experience, another may prioritize availability, and another may rely mostly on instinct. That variation makes hiring speed and quality harder to manage across the operation.
A shared assessment gives managers a consistent starting point without taking the hiring decision away from them.
How Much Can an Assessment Reduce Time-to-Fill?
An assessment can reduce the time managers spend deciding who to review and interview first, but it can’t remove every delay in the hiring process.
For hourly roles, HighMatch speeds up the hiring process between application and interview selection. It gives managers the insights they need to make faster decisions without sacrificing quality.
The largest speed gains usually come from improving the full workflow, including the application, candidate communication, scheduling, screening, and offer process.
Chipotle shows both the potential and the limits of speeding up restaurant hiring. According to the Paradox case study, Chipotle reduced the time from application to start date from 12 days to four after introducing conversational hiring technology. Application completion also increased from 50% to 85%.
But faster hiring didn’t eliminate the company’s retention challenge. QSR Magazine reported that Chipotle’s hourly turnover increased from 131% in 2024 to 155% in 2025. Turnover also rose across several other employee groups.
Those results don’t show that the faster hiring process caused turnover to rise. They do show why speed can’t be the only measure of success. Moving candidates through the process faster is valuable, but restaurants still need a way to determine who’s likely to perform, stay, and fit the realities of the role.
When evaluating an assessment provider, restaurants should ask:
- Which part of the hiring process does the assessment actually speed up?
- Does it change who managers choose to interview?
- Are managers using the results consistently?
- What happens to the people hired through the process?
- Do retention and performance improve along with hiring speed?
A shorter process only matters if the hiring outcomes hold up.
How to Improve Speed Without Lowering Hiring Quality
The goal is to remove delay without turning the assessment into the decision. Managers still need to weigh the candidate’s experience, availability, interview responses, and the realities of the role. The assessment should help them reach a decision faster by showing what looks promising and what still needs to be investigated.
That only works if managers trust the results and know what to do with them. If the report is hard to interpret or the interview guidance goes unused, the assessment won’t improve the decision.
Restaurants should look at whether the assessment is helping managers:
- Prioritize stronger candidates sooner
- Spend less time on applicants who aren’t likely to move forward
- Ask better questions in the interview
- Apply the same hiring criteria across locations
- Make decisions that lead to stronger retention and performance
What Other Assessments Do Restaurants Consider?
Restaurants may also consider AlignMark, Criteria Corp, and Harver.
AlignMark provides pre-employment assessments and screening tools for high-volume and hospitality hiring.
Criteria Corp offers a broad library of personality, aptitude, cognitive, and skills assessments that can be used for hourly roles.
Harver combines frontline assessments with hiring-workflow automation for high-volume employers.
HighMatch works with each operator to define what success looks like in the role, then builds the assessment and manager guidance around the specific qualities that matter most.
The right provider depends on what the restaurant needs to fix. Some operators may want an out-of-the-box assessment that’s quick to deploy. Others may need an assessment built around their roles, hiring process, and retention goals.
What matters most is whether the assessment reflects the job, gives managers useful guidance, and helps them make better hiring decisions without adding unnecessary time or complexity to the process.
In practice, the best restaurant hiring assessment helps managers fill open roles faster while improving the hiring decisions that can reduce early turnover and keep those roles filled.
