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Choose a One-Way Interview when you need to screen a large pool with the same fixed questions, and a Conversational Interview when you want a live, adaptive voice interview that digs deeper with follow-ups. One-way costs 1 credit per candidate for up to 20 questions, or 2 credits for 21 to 40; conversational costs 2 or 3 credits depending on its length.

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The Two Interview Types

Equip offers two families of AI Interviews, both attached to a job opening and both graded by AI. A One-Way Interview presents a fixed set of questions. Candidates see all questions at once, answer them in any order within a single session, and respond with video, audio, or text depending on the format you set per question. One-way interviews are built from reusable templates, so you can run the same interview across multiple openings. A Conversational Interview is a live, spoken interview with the Equip AI Interviewer. The AI asks questions out loud, listens to the candidate’s answers, and asks follow-up questions based on what it hears, much like a human interviewer would.
Conversational interviews come in two formats: Quick runs about 15 minutes with 3 to 5 topics, while Comprehensive runs about 30 minutes with 5 to 10 topics. You pick the format when creating the interview.

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When to Use Each

The right type depends on where the candidate sits in your pipeline and how much depth you need. Use a one-way interview for high-volume screening, typically when you have 30 or more candidates. Because every candidate answers the same questions, results are easy to compare side by side, and candidates can complete the interview whenever it suits them. Use a conversational interview for deeper evaluation, such as a second-round or L2 interview. The AI explores each topic in its own words and asks up to 5 follow-ups per topic. It can also present Scenarios, reference material shown in a side panel for the candidate to respond to; Scenarios are rolling out gradually and may not be available to every team yet.
Conversational interviews can be conducted in 15 languages, including English (US, India, UK), Hindi, Kannada, Telugu, Tamil, Marathi, Bengali, Spanish (Spain, US), French, German, Portuguese (Brazil), and Italian. See Interview Languages for details.

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Credit Costs

AI Interviews use Equip’s credits (1 credit = $1, or ₹95 in India), included in your subscription plan’s monthly allowance. Credits are deducted per candidate submission.
If a candidate never starts the interview, you can reclaim the credits. See Reclaim Unused Credits.

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What Candidates Experience

Both interview types start with the same three-step pre-interview wizard:
1

Review the format

Candidates see what the interview involves before anything is recorded.
2

Test camera and microphone

A 5-second recording with playback confirms that both camera and microphone work. Conversational interviews add a read-aloud microphone calibration so the AI can hear the candidate clearly.
3

Start the interview

Candidates confirm they are ready and the interview begins.
In a one-way interview, candidates work through the question list at their own pace within one session. For audio and video questions they get up to 5 retakes, depending on the settings you choose, and for text questions they write within the word limits you set. In a conversational interview, candidates join a live video-call layout with the Equip AI Interviewer, a self-view, and a real-time transcript. If their network drops, Equip reconnects automatically with clear status banners, so brief disconnects do not end the interview.
Once a candidate submits a conversational interview, it cannot be resumed or retaken from the same invitation. You can optionally allow candidates to restart an unfinished attempt, in which case only the submitted attempt is graded.
The same proctoring options available for assessments apply to AI interviews, and candidates see the active measures and consent before starting.