What is Candidate Net Promoter Score (CNPS)?

Candidate Net Promoter Score is a key metric that companies use to measure and improve their recruiting and work with strengthening their employer brand. I will in this article tell you the story behind CNPS and how companies use CNPS to improve their recruiting. This is a short text that just explains what CNPS is, for the full Ultimate Guide on CNPS you can read here.

CNPS was born from NPS

Candidate Net Promoter Score is born from the research behind Net Promoter Score which concludes that the question:

How likely is it that you would recommend [brand] to a friend or colleague?

…is the closest you can get to measure customer loyalty. Higher NPS score equals higher loyalty from customers which are (through research) connected with word of mouth and other factors driving growth. So the final connection states that:

Higher NPS, compared to your competitors, is connected to higher growth. This is a fact.

Let us move on to CNPS (Candidate net promoter score) and with the experiences, I have as a founder of Trustcruit-A feedback and analytics tool that measures the candidate experience automatically. I will try to give you the full picture of what CNPS is and how to use it? (as the headline promises😉)

What is CNPS?

CNPS is a numerical measure ranging from -100 to +100 and is calculated with the candidate’s answers on a 0–10 scale, from the ”How likely…”question, explained above.

How is CNPS calculated?

CNPS is calculated by dividing the 0–10 answers from the candidates in three groups:

• 0–6 are called Detractors 🙁
• 7–8 are called Passives 😐
• 9–10 are called Promoters 😀

Now you need the percentage of the groups to calculate your CNPS(which shall always be 100% when summed). An example would be 15% Detractors, 35% Passives and 50% Promoters. Let’s ignore the passives and calculate: Promoters — Detractors

This gives the CNPS of 50–15=35

When do you measure CNPS?

CNPS is measured directly after the first interview and directly after rejection. This to find out the number of candidates that are promoters of your brand after they have experienced your services.

How can you compare these both CNPS scores?

It is important to know that these both measures(CNPS after interview vs. after rejection)can never be compared with each other! An example of how to compare CNPS correctly is internally between recruiters, departments or roles. The fundamental role of CNPS is that it is a relative measure to the exact same question asked at the exact same time in the exact same way.

You can also compare your CNPS against competitors to get the relative measure on how you are performing compared to competitors.

How do I get the comparison to competitors/industry standard?

You get hold of this information through the use of the industry standard for measuring CNPS that we, for example, provide in our tool Trustcruit. You can read more here.

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As always I am more than happy to discuss recruiting and the possibilities with CNPS further so feel free to hook up with me on Linkedin here or send me an email: simon@trustcruit.com 👋