Workday Recruiting Tutorial

Welcome to the definitive guide to mastering Workday Recruiting. In today’s competitive talent market, efficiency, data, and candidate experience are the pillars of a successful recruiting strategy. Workday has emerged as a powerful, unified platform that brings all these elements together. This tutorial is designed to transform you from a novice user into a confident Workday Recruiting power user, capable of managing the entire hiring lifecycle seamlessly.

Introduction: Your Gateway to Modern Recruiting

Workday isn’t just another Applicant Tracking System (ATS); it’s an integral part of a Human Capital Management (HCM) system. This integration provides unparalleled visibility and a single source of truth from workforce planning all the way to employee onboarding and development.

•  Why Workday Recruiting is a Game-Changer for Talent Acquisition The true power of Workday Recruiting lies in its unity. Because it’s connected to Core HCM, Finance, and Payroll, it enables a holistic approach. You can see approved headcount from finance, create requisitions based on accurate workforce plans, and seamlessly convert a hired candidate into an employee record without duplicate data entry. This creates a frictionless experience for recruiters, hiring managers, and new hires alike.
• Who This Tutorial is For (Recruiters, Hiring Managers, Admins) This guide is crafted for the primary users of the Workday Recruiting module:
• Recruiters & Talent Acquisition Specialists: You are on the front lines. This tutorial will be your daily playbook.
• Hiring Managers: Your partnership is crucial. We have a dedicated section to help you master your role in the process.
• Recruiting Admins & Coordinators: You keep the engine running. Learn the mechanics behind scheduling, offers, and process management.
• What You’ll Master by the End of This Guide By following this playbook, you will learn to confidently navigate the Workday Recruiting environment, create and manage job requisitions, effectively manage a candidate pipeline, coordinate interviews, generate offers, and utilize reporting to make data-driven decisions.

The Foundation: Navigating Your Workday Recruiting Dashboard

Your Workday dashboard is your command center. Initially, it might seem overwhelming, but it’s designed for efficiency once you understand its components.

First Look: Understanding Key Terminologies and Icons Before diving in, let’s clarify some core Workday terms:

• Business Process (BP): A sequence of tasks that routes through an organization for approval (e.g., the Job Requisition Approval BP).
• Worklet: An icon on your dashboard that provides a quick link to a report or task (e.g., “My Open Job Requisitions”).
• Supervisory Organization: The fundamental organizational structure in Workday that defines your teams and reporting lines.
• Candidate Grid: The main screen where you view and manage applicants for a specific requisition, organized by stages like “Screen,” “Interview,” and “Offer.”

2.2. Customizing Your View: Personalizing Dashboards and Worklets for Peak Efficiency Workday allows you to configure your dashboard to suit your workflow. Click the gear icon on your dashboard to enter configuration mode. You can add, remove, or rearrange worklets. For instance, you might want to add the “Find Candidates” worklet for quick access to your talent pool or create a custom report and add it as a worklet to track key metrics like “Time to Fill.”

From Need to Notice: Crafting and Managing a Job Requisition

Every hire starts with a need. In Workday, this need is formalized through a Job Requisition. This is the foundational record that tracks the position, budget, and hiring process.

• Step 1: Creating a Job Requisition from Scratch In the search bar, type “Create Job Requisition” and select the task. The system will guide you through the initial steps. You’ll be asked to specify the hiring manager’s Supervisory Organization. A key decision here is whether to create the requisition from an existing approved position or create a new one. Filling in details like Job Profile (which auto-populates skills and description), Worker Type, and Location is mandatory.

• Gaining Approval: Navigating the Business Process Flow Once you submit the requisition, the Business Process for approval kicks in. This is a predefined workflow that might route to the Hiring Manager, Department Head, and Finance for approval. You can view the progress of any requisition by finding it and clicking on the “Business Process” tab. This transparency allows you to see exactly where it is in the approval chain and who to contact if it’s stalled.

• Posting Your Job to Internal and External Career Sites After the requisition is fully approved, it’s time to go live. Navigate to the requisition and select the action to “Post Job.” Workday allows you to post to your internal (employee-only) career site and external public sites simultaneously or with a delay. You can select which specific job boards (like LinkedIn or others your company has integrated) you want to push the posting to.

The Hunt Begins: Proactive Candidate Sourcing and Discovery

Great talent doesn’t always come to you. Workday provides tools to proactively search for and engage with potential candidates.

• Beyond Applications: Using Find Candidates to Search Your Talent Pool The “Find Candidates” task is a powerful internal search engine. You can search your entire database of past applicants using keywords, location, previous job titles, and more. This is your first stop for building a slate of candidates before spending money on external sources.

• Leveraging Campaigns: Engaging Passive and Active Talent Candidate campaigns allow you to send targeted email blasts to specific segments of your talent pool. You could create a campaign for “Past Silver-Medalist Candidates” to notify them of new opportunities or a campaign to attract talent with a specific, rare skill set.

• Managing Referrals: Turning Employee Networks into a Hiring Asset Workday has a robust referral portal. When an employee submits a referral through their profile, that candidate is automatically linked to the employee and tagged as a referral in the system. This simplifies tracking and ensures your employees get credit, boosting engagement with the referral program.

The Pipeline in Motion: Effective Candidate Management

As applications roll in, your focus shifts to managing the pipeline efficiently and respectfully.

• A Recruiter’s Hub: Reviewing and Advancing New Applicants Open your job requisition and navigate to the “Candidates” tab. This is your main grid. New applicants appear in the initial stage (e.g., “New Applicant” or “Review”). From this grid, you can perform bulk actions, like selecting multiple candidates and using the “Move Forward” button to advance them to the “Screen” stage.

• The Disposition Funnel: Respectfully Managing Unsuccessful Candidates It’s critical to disposition candidates who are not a fit. Select a candidate and use the “Decline” or “Disposition” action. Workday requires you to provide a reason. This not only keeps your pipeline clean but is crucial for compliance and reporting. A best practice is to send a polite rejection notification, which can often be automated based on the disposition reason.

• All About Communication: Using Templates and Tasks to Engage Applicants Use the “Send Message” action within the candidate profile to communicate. Your administrator can set up standardized email templates for common communications like “Invitation to Interview” or “Application Received.” This ensures consistency and saves you significant time.

The Interview Gauntlet: Coordinating and Conducting Interviews

The interview stage is the heart of the evaluation process. Workday helps streamline the complex logistics involved.

• Scheduling Made Simple: Setting Up Interview Stages and Teams When you move a candidate to the “Interview” stage, Workday prompts you to create an interview schedule. You can define the interview team (the specific individuals who will be interviewing) and generate a schedule. If your company has integrated Workday with Outlook or Google Calendar, this process can automatically send calendar invites to both the interviewers and the candidate.

• Collecting Feedback: How to Enter and Review Interview Evaluations After an interview is complete, interviewers will receive a “To Do” item in their Workday inbox prompting them to submit feedback. They can fill out a structured questionnaire and provide an overall recommendation (e.g., “Recommend to Hire,” “Do Not Recommend”). As a recruiter, you can view all submitted feedback on the candidate’s profile to make an informed decision.

The Offer and The Close: Sealing the Deal in Workday

You’ve found your top candidate. Now it’s time to formalize the offer and manage the final pre-hire steps.

• From Verbal to Formal: Generating and Extending the Offer Letter Move the candidate to the “Offer” stage. This will trigger the Offer Business Process. You will enter key details like salary, bonus, and start date. Based on this data, you can generate a formal offer letter using a predefined template. The letter can be sent to the candidate for electronic signature directly through Workday.

• The Final Hurdle: Managing Background Checks and Other Pre-Hire Tasks Once the candidate accepts the offer, you’ll move them to the final pre-hire stages. This is where you can initiate processes like background checks or drug screening through integrated third-party vendors. The status of these checks is tracked directly within Workday.

The Hiring Manager Experience: A Partner in Recruiting

Hiring managers are not just clients; they are partners. Their timely action in Workday is critical for momentum.

• A Manager’s View: Reviewing Candidates and Providing Timely Feedback Hiring managers can see the candidate pipeline for their open requisitions directly from their dashboard. Their primary tasks are to review new applicants moved to their attention and to provide interview feedback promptly. They receive notifications in their Workday inbox for these tasks.

• Empowering Your Leaders: Key Actions for Hiring Managers in Workday Beyond reviewing candidates, managers can also initiate referrals, approve offers, and view the status of their team’s requisitions. A well-trained manager can significantly accelerate the hiring process.

Unlocking Insights: A Guide to Workday Recruiting Reports & Analytics

Workday is a treasure trove of data. Using its reporting capabilities transforms you from a reactive recruiter to a strategic talent advisor.

• Measuring Success: Accessing Standard Dashboards and Reports Workday comes with a suite of standard reports. Search for reports like “Time to Fill by Requisition,” “Source Efficiency,” or “Candidate Pipeline by Stage.” These are available on your dashboard or can be found via search.

• Answering the “Why”: Creating Custom Reports for Deeper Insights The true power comes from custom reporting. If your security permissions allow, you can create reports to answer specific questions like, “Which university is providing the highest-performing hires?” or “What is our offer acceptance rate for engineering roles?” This level of insight is what helps shape future recruiting strategy.

The Final Handshake: Handoff to Core HCM and Onboarding

The final step in the recruiting lifecycle is the seamless transition of the candidate into an employee record.

• From Candidate to Colleague: The “Ready for Hire” Business Process Once all pre-hire checks are complete, you will initiate the “Ready for Hire” action. This is the official handoff. This BP takes the candidate’s data and triggers the “Hire” process for the HR team, who will then complete the onboarding steps within Workday HCM. All the data you’ve carefully collected—name, address, compensation—is transferred automatically, eliminating errors and saving time.

Summary: Congratulations, You’re Now a Workday Recruiting Power User!

You’ve journeyed through the entire Workday Recruiting lifecycle. You started by understanding the dashboard’s layout and have now mastered creating a requisition, sourcing and managing candidates, coordinating complex interview schedules, extending offers, and executing the final hire. You now possess the skills to not only use the platform but to leverage its power for efficiency, communication, and data-driven strategy. The key is to practice these steps, customize your views, and partner with your hiring managers to create a truly seamless and effective recruiting machine.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

• Q1: How do I handle an internal candidate applying for a position? Workday automatically flags candidates who apply with their employee profile as “Internal.” They will appear in your candidate grid with an “Internal” tag. The process is largely the same, but visibility may be restricted; for example, their current manager might not see their application until a later stage to maintain confidentiality. The final step for an internal hire is a “Change Job” process rather than a “Hire” process.

• Q2: Can I integrate Workday Recruiting with LinkedIn and other job boards? Yes. Workday offers pre-built integrations with major job boards like LinkedIn, Indeed, and others. Your administrator can configure these integrations. When you post a job, you can select which configured boards to send it to. This allows candidates to apply easily, and their applications flow directly into Workday, with the source automatically tracked.

• Q3: How can I customize the recruitment stages for a specific job profile? While individual recruiters typically cannot change the stages, your Workday Administrator can. Workday’s Business Process framework is highly configurable. An admin can create different recruiting “funnels” for different types of roles (e.g., a simplified process for interns versus a more detailed one for executives). They can add, remove, or rename stages like “Technical Assessment” or “Panel Interview” to match your company’s specific hiring workflows.

• Q4: What is the best way to manage candidate communications to ensure a positive experience? The best way is to leverage automation and templates for consistency and speed. Work with your admin to create clear, empathetic email templates for each stage: application receipt, interview invitation, rejection, and offer. Use the “Send Message” feature and schedule automated delay notifications for dispositioned candidates. Timely, transparent communication is the key to a positive candidate experience, even for those you don’t hire.

• Q5: How do I troubleshoot a job requisition that is “stuck” in the approval process? First, find the requisition and click on the “Business Process” tab. This will show you all the steps in the approval chain, who has already approved it, and whose inbox the task is currently sitting in. You will see the name of the person it is “Awaiting Action” from. You can then contact that individual directly to remind them. If necessary, and if you have the permissions, an administrator can reassign the task to another approver.