# Career-Ops — Market Calibration Benchmarks
#
# Directional calibration references, not targets. Sources are recruiter-industry
# and aggregated survey data (not peer-reviewed); mostly US, cross-industry.
# Every metric here is CANDIDATE-side. Employer-side metrics (time-to-fill,
# per-process interview pass rates) are deliberately absent — their denominators
# don't match anything a candidate can compute from their own tracker, and
# comparing across denominators fabricates precision.
#
# Users can override this file without losing changes on system updates:
#   1. --benchmarks <path> flag on funnel-velocity.mjs
#   2. config/benchmarks.yml (user layer — copy this file there and edit)
#   3. this file (shipped default)
# Non-US markets: copy to config/benchmarks.yml and localize ranges/sources.

benchmarks:
  response_rate:
    denominator: per-application          # any employer response / applications sent
    range_pct: [2, 13]                    # 2-3% cross-platform typical; platform spread up to ~13% (LinkedIn)
    typical_pct: 3
    source: "HiringThing 2025-2026 application statistics; scale.jobs 2025"
    year: 2025
    caveat: "Mass-application platform data; hand-targeted applications should beat this."

  application_to_interview:
    denominator: per-application
    range_pct: [2, 4]                     # ~3% (2024), down from 8.4% (2023); ≈30-40 applications per interview
    typical_pct: 3
    source: "HiringThing / resutrack 2026 aggregate"
    year: 2026
    caveat: "Mass-application platform data; hand-targeted applications should beat this."

  days_first_response:
    denominator: per-application-with-response   # censored: ghosted applications never enter this metric
    range_days: [5, 14]                   # typical ~5 days; 40% of recruiters take >2 weeks
    typical_days: 7
    source: "estimate (no citable published aggregate for this window; conservative midpoint of recruiter-survey reporting)"
    year: 2025
    caveat: "Among applications that got a response at all (61% of candidates report post-interview ghosting)."

  days_interview_to_offer:
    denominator: per-successful-process
    range_days: [20, 28]
    typical_days: 24
    source: "NACE Recruiting Benchmarks (2019 — stale, directional only)"
    year: 2019
    caveat: "Old data; treat as order-of-magnitude."