Candidate Net Promoter Score (cNPS)
Also known as cNPS, Candidate NPS
Candidate Net Promoter Score measures how likely candidates are to recommend your hiring process to others, on the same 0–10 promoter-minus-detractor scale as eNPS. Surveying rejected candidates as well as hires is what makes it a genuine experience measure rather than a satisfaction survey of people who got the job.
Formula
cNPS = % Promoters (9–10) − % Detractors (0–6)Report separately for hired, rejected and withdrawn candidates. A blended score is dominated by whichever group responds most, and those groups have systematically different experiences.
Worked example
- Scenario
- 310 candidate responses: hired candidates score +58, rejected candidates −12.
- Calculation
- Segmented rather than blended
- Result
- A 70-point gap between hired and rejected experience — the actionable finding
What good looks like
Positive scores among rejected candidates are a strong result and relatively uncommon. Hired-candidate scores are almost always positive and carry little information. The gap between the two segments is the number worth tracking.
Why candidate net promoter score (cnps) matters
Rejected candidates substantially outnumber hires, and many are customers, future applicants or people who talk publicly about the experience. A hiring process that treats them poorly damages employer brand at scale, which shows up later as falling application volume and worse offer acceptance — by which point the cause is hard to trace.
How to improve it
- 1Survey rejected candidates as standard, not just hires.
- 2Send rejections promptly and specifically. Silence after a final interview is the most reliable single source of detractors.
- 3Give feedback where a candidate reached interview stage, even briefly.
- 4Track cNPS against application volume over time — brand damage from poor candidate experience shows up in top-of-funnel first.
Common mistakes
- Surveying only hired candidates, which produces a flattering and useless score.
- Blending segments, which lets a strong hired-candidate score mask a poor rejected-candidate one.
- Measuring without changing the rejection process, which is where nearly all the detractors come from.
Frequently asked questions
Should we survey rejected candidates?
Yes — they are the majority of your candidate population and the segment whose experience actually affects your employer brand. A cNPS built only on hires measures nothing you did not already know.
Related metrics
Candidate drop-off rate is the percentage of candidates who withdraw from the hiring process before reaching a decision, measured overall and at each stage. It is the most direct quantitative measure of candidate experience available.
Offer Acceptance RateOffer acceptance rate is the percentage of extended offers that candidates accept. It is the clearest single indicator of how your compensation, employer brand and candidate experience compare against the alternatives your finalists are considering.
Applicants per OpeningApplicants per opening is the average number of applications received per open role. It is a top-of-funnel volume measure, and it is only meaningful when read against how many of those applicants were actually qualified.
Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS)Employee Net Promoter Score is a single-question measure of advocacy: how likely employees are, on a 0–10 scale, to recommend the organisation as a place to work. The score is the percentage of promoters (9–10) minus the percentage of detractors (0–6), producing a number between −100 and +100.
Go deeper
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