{
  "registry_version": "2026.08.2",
  "data": {
    "title": "Take-Home Opportunity-Cost Saturation Loop",
    "status": "active",
    "evidence_ids": [
      "EVD-006"
    ],
    "content": "# Take-Home Opportunity-Cost Saturation Loop\n\nCandidates invest heavy hours into unbounded take-home assignments, reducing bandwidth for applications, while reviewers suffer evaluation fatigue.\n\n### Cycle Dynamics\nThis causal loop reinforces mechanisms across iterations:\n- `M-012` amplifies `M-019`\n- `M-019` amplifies `M-012`",
    "id": "L-002",
    "type": "loop",
    "summary": "Candidates invest heavy hours into unbounded take-home assignments, reducing bandwidth for applications, while reviewers suffer evaluation fatigue.",
    "mechanisms": [
      "M-012",
      "M-019"
    ],
    "edges": [
      {
        "from": "M-012",
        "to": "M-019",
        "relation": "amplifies"
      },
      {
        "from": "M-019",
        "to": "M-012",
        "relation": "amplifies"
      }
    ],
    "entry_points": [
      "M-012"
    ],
    "interventions": [
      "I-006"
    ],
    "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."
      }
    ]
  }
}