Admittedly it is many years since I attended an interview, but I never paid. If the airline would not cover costs, I figured we probably would not get on with each other, or that perhaps they could not afford the basics, so what else could they not afford?
Later, as a chief pilot, I never expected candidates invited for interview to pay. This sometimes brought me in conflict with the CEO and sundry beancounters. But one must be very selective, almost to the point of being ruthless, to weed out potential time wasters by looking closely at claimed experience and following up references first.
It can be costly for the airline when duds and fakes slip through to final selection, only to prove their ineptitude in the simulator evaluation. MCDU2 alludes to this.
Now for some thread drift resultant from Sheppey’s post #8...
A rigorous simulator evaluation is money well spent. I believe that the New Zealand airline described above is on the right track. Now that I am relegated to a back seat, it gives me comfort to know that some operators still want pilots who can fly while dealing with stress and distraction!