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Cost per Hire Calculator — Engineering Edition
The SHRM formula, extended with the line every generic calculator ignores: your engineers' time. See engineer-hours per hire as its own headline stat.
Costs & salary defaults tuned for US engineering pay
the hire
Advanced assumptions+
Loaded hourly = salary × 1.3 ÷ 2,080. Interviewers priced one level up from the role.
true cost per engineering hire
live estimateEngineering runs above the all-roles average — the breakdown below shows why.
the breakdown
Three buckets. Expand any line for its formula.
The SHRM formula stops at external and internal. Engineering time is the third bucket — and often the one you can actually shrink.
Agency fee$0+
0% of total
Job boards & tools$1,000+
10% of total
Background check$150+
2% of total
Recruiter time$3,750+
38% of total
Hiring-manager time$875+
9% of total
Scheduling & coordination$225+
2% of total
Technical screens$1,350+
14% of total
Take-home grading$563+
6% of total
Onsite loops$1,350+
14% of total
Debriefs$675+
7% of total
The most expensive line is your engineers' calendars.
EasyInterview replaces first-round technical screens with a structured, cheat-proof AI screen — recovering ~17 engineer-hours per hire before they ever hit a calendar. Sprints of delivery time back per year.
methodology
The SHRM formula, plus the bucket it leaves out.
SHRM defines cost per hire as (external + internal) ÷ hires. We keep that and add a third term — engineering time— priced at the interviewer's loaded hourly rate. All figures compute client-side; nothing is sent anywhere.
External
Agency fee
fee% × base salary
Only when sourced through an agency; 15–25% of first-year salary is typical, defaulted to 20%.
Job boards & tools
annual spend ÷ hires/year
LinkedIn seats, sourcing tools and job-board spend, amortized across the year's hires.
Background check
flat per hire
Checks and miscellaneous per-hire fees, defaulted to $150.
Internal
Recruiter / founder time
recruiter salary × allocation ÷ hires
A recruiter at 25% allocation over the year's hires, or 15 founder-hours when founder-led.
Hiring-manager time
8h × manager loaded hourly
Kickoff, reviews and decision time, at ~1.25× the role's loaded rate.
Scheduling & coordination
4h × recruiter hourly
The calendar Tetris behind every loop.
Engineering time our extension
Loaded hourly
interviewer salary × 1.3 ÷ 2,080
Interviewers are usually one level up from the seat, so their time is priced above the role's.
Hours from your funnel
screens·1.5 + grades·1 + onsite + debriefs
Screens include 30 min prep/writeup each; onsite = candidates × interviews; debriefs × attendees. Lands near 30–35 hours per hire.
This is the ~$3.5–4k nobody puts on the invoice — and the bucket the async what-if shrinks most.
sources & anchors
SHRM — cost per hire is defined as total external plus total internal recruiting costs divided by hires; the widely cited all-roles average is about $4,700.
Engineering ranges — internally sourced engineering hires commonly land $10–15k; agency-sourced $35–45k, both above the all-roles average because interviewer time is scarce and loops are deep.
Agency fees — contingency recruiting fees typically run 15–25% of first-year base salary; 20% is the default midpoint here.
Figures are industry anchors for orientation, not guarantees. Adjust the advanced assumptions to match your own data.
cost per hire by level
Internal vs agency, by seniority
Same funnel across levels — 6 hires/year, default stage counts — priced internally and through a 20% agency. Your seniority is highlighted.
| Seniority | Base salary | Engineer-hours | CPH internal | CPH agency |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Junior | $100,000 | 35 h | $8,813 | $25,063 |
| Mid | $140,000 | 35 h | $9,938 | $34,188 |
| Senior | $180,000 | 35 h | $11,063 | $43,313 |
| Staff+ | $220,000 | 35 h | $12,188 | $52,438 |
faq
Cost per hire, answered
How do you calculate cost per hire?+
What is the average cost per hire?+
Why does hiring an engineer cost more?+
What does SHRM include in cost per hire?+
How can I reduce cost per hire?+
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