Calculator
What a one-way interview really costs
A one-minute answer is never one minute of work. Between prep, retakes, and nerves, candidates spend far longer than the final video runs. This puts a number on it, for both sides.
Employer view
- - completed interviews from - invites
- - of reviewer time to watch them
- - of candidate time spent in total
Completion-adjusted: the invites that never finish still cost you candidates and goodwill, just not review time.
How this is calculated
The candidate figure is setup time plus, for each question, the prep time plus the record time multiplied by the number of attempts (one take plus your retakes). The ratio compares that total to the length of the final submitted video. The basis is simple: people rehearse, re-record, and reset between answers, so the effort runs many times longer than the runtime.
Candidates on Reddit have estimated the gap themselves. One described budgeting close to an hour and a half of effort for a few minutes of usable video. The exact multiple varies by person, but the direction never does: a short interview is a long evening.
If the number looks high, that is the point worth sitting with before you send one. Friction as a filter covers the tradeoff, and completion rates covers how to keep the cost from scaring off good people.