NPS for Recruitment

The 2025 Net Promoter Score (NPS) Industry Benchmarks by Perceptive have landed, and they make for encouraging reading for those of us in recruitment.

Against a backdrop of significant economic turbulence this year, the data shows how the recruitment sector has stepped up its game. The Highlights:

- Recruitment: +33 (An increase of 45 points YoY).

- Professional Services: +31 (Dipping slightly by -1).

- Financial Services: +16 (Up 8 points).

- Real Estate: +4 (Up 5 points).

While two-thirds of sectors showed improvement, none climbed as sharply as recruitment. A jump from negative territory to a healthy +33 is a huge signal of resilience and adaptability.

Why the shift? Could it be due, in part, to competition? With fewer roles to fill and a shrinking recruiter pool across NZ, the "easy wins" vanished. This pressure likely encouraged recruitment leaders to double down on what matters: service quality, upgrading systems (and yes, AI), and upskilling their people. The result? Greater client centricity and better delivery.

I mention this despite the valid questions around industry standards. Every industry has its bad actors, but this +33 score suggests that right now, the good guys in recruitment have the upper hand.

A Note on the Data - I assume these results reflect client sentiment rather than candidates. While I don’t have visibility into the specific sector mix (White-collar? Executive Search? Blue-collar?), nor the nature or number of respondents but the sentiment is undeniably positive and should be celebrated. It’s a win not just for recruitment agencies, but for the organisations consuming our services.

Anecdotally, Q4 has been very busy across the board for recruiters in NZ and Australia, with hiring intent returning in many industries. The challenge is, can we maintain this service quality as we scale back up in 2026? I am sure we can and in fact we must.

Here is the link to the full report: https://lnkd.in/eKWRRRe9