What a phone screen actually costs per hire

Most cost-per-hire math skips the phone screen. Job board spend shows up on an invoice. Background checks show up on an invoice. The phone screen shows up as a recruiter’s afternoon, so it never gets counted.

It should be, because for hourly and high-volume roles it is usually the biggest block of recruiter time between an application and an interview. Here is how to put a number on it, using real data from the screens run on PhoneScreen so far.

The formula

Cost per hire, for the screening step alone, is:

(cost of one completed screen) × (completed screens per hire)

Both halves are easy to get wrong. The first is usually underestimated because people count only the minutes on the call. The second is usually underestimated because people count only the candidates they liked.

How long a phone screen really takes

As of today, PhoneScreen has run 2,478 completed screens for 81 hiring teams. Across all of them:

• the median screen lasts 4.4 minutes;
• the middle half of screens take between 2.7 and 6.9 minutes;
• about nine in ten finish in under ten minutes.

That is the length of the conversation itself: five or so questions, the candidate’s answers, a couple of follow-ups.

Now look at how the same conversation is booked when a recruiter runs it. It goes on the calendar as a 30-minute slot. Before the slot there is finding a time that works, and often more than one attempt to reach the candidate. After it there are notes to write and a status to update in the ATS. The call might be five minutes; the recruiter’s cost is closer to the whole slot, and sometimes more.

So the honest recruiter number is not “five minutes of salary.” It is:

(minutes per screen, including scheduling, attempts, and notes) × (recruiter’s loaded hourly rate ÷ 60)

Use your own rate. As an example only: at a loaded rate of $40 an hour, a screen that really costs 30 minutes of recruiter time costs $20. If reaching the candidate takes two or three tries, it costs more.

How many screens you need per hire

This is the half people skip. You do not screen one candidate per opening. You screen enough to find a few worth interviewing.

Our score data gives a useful anchor. Of those 2,478 screens:

• 767 scored 70 or above (about 31%);
• 937 scored between 40 and 70 (about 38%);
• 774 scored under 40 (about 31%).

Roughly one screen in three produces a candidate a recruiter would call a strong yes. So if you want three strong candidates to interview for one opening, plan on about nine completed screens. If you want five, plan on fifteen.

Your ratio will differ by role and by how well the job post filters, but “about three screens per strong candidate” is a reasonable starting point for hourly roles.

Putting it together

Take one opening where you want three strong candidates in the interview stage, so about nine completed screens.

Recruiter-run screens: nine screens at 30 minutes each is 4.5 hours of recruiter time. At the example $40 an hour, that is $180 for the screening step, before any extra call attempts.

PhoneScreen: nine completed screens at $4 each is $36. The recruiter still reads the scorecards, which takes a few minutes each, and the calls they do make are to the three strong candidates, already screened.

The gap grows with volume. An opening that draws fifty applicants, all screened, is $200 on PhoneScreen and about 25 hours of recruiter slots done by hand. At that point most teams do not screen everyone by hand. They screen the first few who pick up, which is a different and more expensive problem.

What the per-screen price leaves out

This is the part a pricing page will not tell you, including ours.

Screening everyone is not free. At $4 a screen, a role with 300 applicants costs $1,200 if every one of them calls in. That is still cheaper than 150 hours of recruiter time, but it is real money, and you may not need it. If a role gets hundreds of applicants, put a filter in front of the screen: a required license, a location, a shift, or a resume screen that ranks who gets the link first.

The price only counts completed screens. Voicemail, no-answers, and candidates who decline in the first minute are not charged, because there is no scorecard. That makes the per-screen price the true cost per completed screen, not an average that hides the misses. It also means you cannot compare it directly with a per-call price from a tool that charges for every dial.

It does not replace the second conversation. The screen answers your questions. It does not sell the job. The call the recruiter makes to the top three is still a human one, and it should be. The saving is that it is three calls, not forty.

For some roles a human screen is cheaper. One opening, four applicants, two of them referrals: just call them. A senior role where the first call is as much about pitching the company as assessing the candidate: call them. An automated screen pays for itself when volume is high, the questions repeat, and the candidates apply at times the recruiter is not working.

The cost that does not show up at all

The number above is the cost of doing the screens. The more expensive number is the cost of doing them late.

Hourly candidates apply to several employers at once and take the first offer that feels real. A recruiter-run screen happens when the recruiter gets to it. On PhoneScreen, 58% of completed screens start outside 9-to-5 Eastern time, and 11% on weekends, because candidates call when they have a quiet moment, not when the recruiter is at a desk. Every one of those would otherwise wait for the next business morning. We wrote more about that in the first hour after someone applies.

You will not find that cost on a spreadsheet. You find it when the best applicant from Tuesday has already accepted somewhere else.

Run the numbers on your own roles

1. Take one open role and count last month’s applicants.
2. Decide how many strong candidates you want to interview per opening. Multiply by three for completed screens needed.
3. Price those screens two ways: recruiter slots at your own loaded rate, and $4 per completed screen.
4. Then try it for real. The first ten screens are free, which is enough to see what a fully screened applicant pool looks like for one role. Details are on the pricing page.