Candidate Net Promoter Score
What is candidate net promoter score (cNPS)?
Candidate Net Promoter Score (cNPS) is a measure of candidate experience taken from one survey question: how likely a candidate is to recommend the employer's hiring process to others, scored from 0 to 10. It applies the Net Promoter Score method used for customers to the people who applied, interviewed, or received an offer, whether or not they were hired.
Key facts
- Also called: cNPS, candidate NPS, recruitment NPS
- Formula: Percentage of promoters (9 to 10) minus percentage of detractors (0 to 6)
- Range: Minus 100 to plus 100
- Asked: After a rejection, after an offer, or at a fixed stage such as the final interview
- Owned by: Talent acquisition, often with a candidate experience lead
- Differs from: Employee NPS (eNPS), which surveys current staff
How to calculate candidate NPS
The survey asks one question: "How likely are you to recommend our hiring process to a friend or colleague?" The candidate answers on a scale from 0 to 10. Responses are grouped into three bands.
- Promoters: scores of 9 or 10
- Passives: scores of 7 or 8
- Detractors: scores of 0 to 6
Candidate NPS = percentage of promoters minus percentage of detractors
Passives count in the total number of responses but not in either percentage, so a large passive group pulls the score toward zero.
Worked example
The numbers below are an illustration, not a benchmark.
An employer sends the survey to everyone who reached a final interview in a quarter and receives 200 responses: 110 promoters, 60 passives, and 30 detractors.
Promoters = 110 ÷ 200 × 100 = 55 percent
Detractors = 30 ÷ 200 × 100 = 15 percent
Candidate NPS = 55 minus 15 = 40
The result is reported as a whole number, not a percentage. A score of 40 means that promoters outnumber detractors by 40 points per hundred respondents.
When to send the survey
Timing decides what the score measures. A survey sent after a rejection at the resume stage measures the application and the way the rejection was delivered. A survey sent after a final interview measures the interview process and the people who ran it. A survey sent to new hires on their first day measures the whole journey through to the offer, from the only people who saw all of it.
Teams usually pick two or three fixed points and keep them constant, so that quarter-to-quarter comparisons mean something. A useful comparison is between the score from rejected candidates and the score from hired candidates. A large gap between the two says the process treats people well only once it has decided to keep them.
What the score does and does not tell you
Candidate NPS is a single number, which is its strength and its limit. It is easy to track, easy to compare between teams and periods, and quick for candidates to answer, which helps response rates. It does not say why a candidate gave the score. The standard fix is a second, open question, "What is the main reason for your score?", whose answers are read alongside the number.
The score also moves with factors outside the recruiting team's control. A candidate who was rejected tends to score lower than one who was hired, and a candidate who waited weeks for a reply tends to score lower than one who heard back the same day. Reading the score by outcome and by stage, rather than as one blended figure, separates the process problems from the disappointment.
How to improve candidate NPS
Improvement starts with the open-ended answers, not the number. Group the reasons candidates give, fix the reason that appears most often, and send the same survey again at the same stage. The fixes candidates ask for are practical: an acknowledgment when the application arrives, a date for the next step that is kept, interviewers who have read the resume, and a rejection that comes quickly and says why. Report the score by stage and by outcome, and check each fix against the group it was meant for.
Candidate NPS and other candidate experience metrics
Candidate NPS is an opinion measure. Three behavior measures sit beside it. The application completion rate shows how many people finish the form they start. The candidate drop-off rate shows where people leave the process. The offer acceptance rate shows whether the people you want chose you. When cNPS falls and drop-off rises at the same stage, the stage is the problem. The uRecruits entry on candidate experience covers the wider picture these metrics describe.
