{
  "registry_version": "1.0.0",
  "data": {
    "title": "Take-Home Opportunity-Cost Saturation Loop",
    "status": "active",
    "evidence_ids": [
      "evidence.employment_interview_reliability_new_meta_analytic_estimates_by_structure_and_format"
    ],
    "content": "# Take-Home Opportunity-Cost Saturation Loop\n\nCandidates spend heavy hours on take-home assignments with no bounded scope, which leaves less time for applications, while reviewers work through the queue under evaluation fatigue.\n\n### Cycle Dynamics\nThis causal loop reinforces mechanisms across iterations:\n- `mech.interview_resource_scheduling_saturation` amplifies `mech.take_home_evaluation_fatigue_asymmetry`\n- `mech.take_home_evaluation_fatigue_asymmetry` amplifies `mech.interview_resource_scheduling_saturation`",
    "aliases": [
      "L-002"
    ],
    "id": "loop.take_home_opportunity_cost_saturation_loop",
    "type": "loop",
    "summary": "Candidates spend heavy hours on take-home assignments with no bounded scope, which leaves less time for applications, while reviewers work through the queue under evaluation fatigue.",
    "mechanisms": [
      "mech.interview_resource_scheduling_saturation",
      "mech.take_home_evaluation_fatigue_asymmetry"
    ],
    "edges": [
      {
        "from": "mech.interview_resource_scheduling_saturation",
        "to": "mech.take_home_evaluation_fatigue_asymmetry",
        "relation": "amplifies"
      },
      {
        "from": "mech.take_home_evaluation_fatigue_asymmetry",
        "to": "mech.interview_resource_scheduling_saturation",
        "relation": "amplifies"
      }
    ],
    "entry_points": [
      "mech.interview_resource_scheduling_saturation"
    ],
    "interventions": [
      "int.strict_take_home_timebox_blinded_evaluation_rubric"
    ],
    "evidence_level": "supported",
    "specimens": [
      {
        "kind": "note",
        "label": "One month of a candidate calendar",
        "lines": [
          {
            "text": "Take-home A: 14 hours. Take-home B: 11 hours. Take-home C: 16 hours.",
            "tell": false
          },
          {
            "text": "Applications sent that month: 4 — down from 21 the month before.",
            "tell": true
          },
          {
            "text": "Outcomes: two rejections after sub-ten-minute reviews, one no response, one still open.",
            "tell": false
          }
        ],
        "reading": "The hours are real and they come out of the same budget as the search itself. Fewer applications is not a change in motivation; it is arithmetic."
      },
      {
        "kind": "note",
        "label": "The same month from the reviewer side",
        "lines": [
          {
            "text": "Submissions in the queue: 19 · Reviewer capacity: 2 hours per week",
            "tell": true
          },
          {
            "text": "Median review time per submission: 6 minutes.",
            "tell": false
          },
          {
            "text": "Reviewers report the assignments are too large to assess properly, and the scope is set by the same team.",
            "tell": false
          }
        ],
        "reading": "Both sides are short of the same thing. Larger assignments do not buy better signal — they buy shallower reads, which is what makes it a loop rather than a trade-off."
      }
    ],
    "perspectives": [
      {
        "actor": "actor.candidate",
        "sees": "Assignments scoped at a few hours that take double-digit hours each, and rejections returned faster than the work can be read.",
        "reads": "The hours come out of the same budget as the search itself, so each assignment is a bet placed against the applications not sent that week.",
        "does": "Sends fewer applications and finishes the assignments already accepted, because the hours in them are already spent."
      },
      {
        "actor": "actor.hiring_manager",
        "sees": "A queue of submissions and interviewer hours that are already committed to the sprint the role exists to relieve.",
        "reads": "A larger assignment covers more of the job, and a full read of every submission is not available from the hours the team has.",
        "does": "Keeps the scope, since a smaller assignment would decide less, and the reviews get the minutes left after the team's own delivery."
      },
      {
        "actor": "actor.recruiter",
        "sees": "Candidates going quiet between the assignment being sent and the work coming back, and time-to-fill running on the requisition.",
        "reads": "A stage where the pipeline stalls is a reason to put more people into it, not a reason to remove the stage.",
        "does": "Sends reminders and reopens sourcing, which puts more submissions into the same review queue."
      }
    ]
  }
}