Attracting top personnel is more critical than ever in today’s dynamic recruiting market, where job requirements are ever-changing, and employee turnover is at an all-time high…

Workday has resources and a predefined set of candidate stages to help employers cultivate a smooth hiring process, regardless of where the candidate begins their hiring experience. All that being said, you may be wondering, ‘What are the different candidate stages in Workday?‘ If so, you’re in the right place! 

Read on to learn how Workday Candidate Stages can help streamline and improve the hiring experience for candidates and where our senior-level Workday consulting team can fit in with your organization.

Understanding How Workday Recruiting Works

Reaching, engaging, and nurturing talent is increasingly important to boost corporate success, whether filling positions to assist with short-term goals or hiring staff who will support long-term strategic growth in the long run.

Workday Recruiting is a complete talent acquisition tool designed to help organizations find, share, engage, choose, and retain your company’s top-tier internal and external prospects.

With built-in recruiting functionality in Workday, you can:

  • Manage all aspects of the recruiting process, such as workforce planning, sourcing, and advanced talent analytics, on a single system.
  • Simplify the hiring process by fostering collaboration and transparency across the entire hiring team and other key stakeholders involved.
  • Attract top-tier talent and engage candidates with a consistent and engaging candidate experience, from outreach to onboarding and everything in between.

The Workday Recruiting module also offers intuitive mobile device design and application optimization features to further improve and personalize the candidate experience. It functions the same way you do— on the go, collaboratively, and in real-time — and aids in boosting user adoption and employee engagement.

Features of the Recruiting Module in Workday

Here are some key features of Workday’s recruiting module that prepare internal teams to find, attract, hire, engage, and retain the best talent for their needs:

  • Single interconnected system
  • Automated workflow management tools
  • Mobile-enabled experience
  • Confidential job request
  • External and internal sourcing
  • Referral leaderboard
  • Custom job applications
  • Proactive candidate workflow management
  • Combined candidate history across systems
  • Collaborative interview management
  • Talent lifecycle metrics and reporting

Benefits of Workday Recruiting

The main advantages of Workday’s recruiting module for customers across industries include:

  • Total insight into the hiring experience
  • Integrated compliance management functions
  • Strategic talent visibility and accessibility
  • Better adoption and user engagement
  • Increased recruiter productivity
  • Mobile referral options for employees
  • Customized candidate experiences
  • Removal of new-hire integrations as needed

Candidate Management Within Workday

Did you know the Workday platform allows you to create up to seven different candidate stages to manage the hiring process and report on candidate status in whatever order you choose to construct them?

Here’s a quick look at the main stages of candidate management in Workday:

  • Review
  • Screen
  • Assessment
  • Interview
  • Reference Check
  • Offer
  • Background Check

You can also expect to integrate your outlined candidate stages with external and internal processes related to each stage by collecting the requirements for each integration.

Talent Management Activities

Rarely do organizations have all the necessary internal bench strength to keep up with industry and company growth over time.

By leveraging advanced succession pools that include external prospects, companies can enhance the strength of their workforce and employ better emergency preparation tactics.

Detailed employee profiles also make it easier for both employees and recruiters to find qualified candidates for open positions and locate specialized talent for future projects.

What are the Candidate Stages in Workday?

Here’s a closer look at the main stages of candidate management in Workday:

1) Review

All candidates start in the review stage, but only qualified applicants advance to the screening stage. In this stage, all candidates who submit applications will be reviewed to determine which applicants will advance to the next stage.

2) Screening

Once the candidates apply to the job requisition, multiple-level screenings will be performed to find the potential candidate for the job. This includes initial screening, manager interview, phone screening, candidate self-scheduling, final assessment, pre-offer, and offer for external hires.

Initial screening will be done by primary recruiters, who will also decide which stage each prospect should advance to next. The candidate can use self-service scheduling to select one of the open interview slots.

3) Interview

Hiring team executives will assemble a team that will meet with and evaluate each applicant and participate in other distinct interview processes to ensure the candidate is a good fit for the vacant position.

The interview panel and other recruiting staff members must also complete multiple questionnaires at each interview stage before an offer can be extended and a background check is initiated.

4) Reference Check

Call (or otherwise get in touch with) a candidate’s provided references, then contact your HR department to discuss extending an offer to the chosen candidates. 

5) Offer

It’s suggested to make an informal offer by phone as soon as your team has decided to hire. The offer should come directly from the hiring manager and briefly state that you would like the candidate to join the team with the agreed-upon salary and benefits.

The hiring manager should also explain that a formal offer should be expected by email and provide contact information for any questions or concerns that arise 

6) Background Check

As necessary, Human Resources requests additional background checks for positions that may require more security. 

Job Postings in Workday

Here are some pointers to keep in mind when posting job details on career sites:

Utilize Workday templates to standardize the design of your job postings. Remember that there will likely be an increase in the number of templates over time. Regular audits can help eliminate unnecessary or outdated templates to ensure job postings are created as efficiently and effectively as possible.

Create personalized career portals to simplify searching for open positions for internal and external candidates. Provide additional company information and other resources on the career websites, including social media links, corporate details, and any other branding material.

To assist with your career site, you might want to collaborate with marketing or hire a professional copywriter, as making a good first impression is crucial in finding the right talent for the job. Make it easier for staff to locate open positions and recommend candidates by enabling connection with your employee referral program and any other internal resources related to the vacant position.

Integrating Existing Workday Recruiting Processes

Think about the Workday business processes already in place that could impact recruiting. Decide whether you’ll add steps to incorporate recruiting or modify the current recruiting process with the necessary additional processes or approvals.

These core integration procedures include:

  • Hire (propose compensation, background checks)
  • Change job (propose compensation changes)
  • Contracting contingent workers
  • Onboarding
  • Job requisitions (change, freeze, close)

Job Profiles

Create and format your job descriptions according to Workday guidelines. Requisitions are automatically filled out with job descriptions and requirements, and users can change the text once it’s entered. By standardizing as much as possible, you can reduce user rework across the organization.

  • It is possible to populate the Job Description using data from the Job Summary column; however, formatting issues may arise.
  • Repurposing fields in the Job Profile is not advised, as they may affect recruiting’s candidate-facing search processes.
  • The field in the job profile will be accessible to outside users. Ensure the field descriptions and value lists are written in simple terms outside users may understand.

How Can We Help You?

Whether you’re looking for an end-to-end talent acquisition application, additional support outlining the candidate stages required for your hiring processes, or just an extra using Workday services to acquire top talent, Surety Systems has you covered.

Our senior-level Workday consultants have the functional skills, years of experience, and technical know-how to help candidates understand where they stand in the hiring process and internal teams successfully implement new functionality into their existing Workday ecosystem.

Contact Us

Ready to learn more about Workday Candidate Stages and how our Workday consultants can help you? Contact us today!