Workday Woes: Dissecting the Job Applicant Experience

I’m genuinely curious why companies use Workday for recruitment purposes. I’ve used it for countless job applications and I’m puzzled as to why an organization would prefer it over other human resource systems on the market. Since I’m searching for pharmaceutical and healthcare related positions, I’ve come across Workday more than I could have imagined since it seems these particular industries more commonly favor it. Workday was used in my pharmaceutical days and I recall being frustrated with it back then, too. My sentiments have not changed. 

Some of the key pain points of Workday include:

• Account and password creation requirement for each organization/company role.

• Re-typing parsed resume details within the system is unnecessarily time-consuming.

• Manual input of resume information becomes both tedious and frustrating for job seekers.

• The user experience is poor, wrought with ineffective filters and excessive clicks required.

• Tasks such as updating dates through calendars within Workday's system are cumbersome.

• These issues haven't been addressed, even after several years, which makes it feel archaic compared to others on the market.

I’ve come across several LinkedIn posts discussing Workday, and some of the career coaches and influencers I follow on Instagram have mentioned (complained) about it, too. It’s comforting knowing I’m not alone. I decided to do some more research and found similar sentiments on Reddit from my fellow frustrated job seekers. It was both entertaining and relatable to read some of the comments and experiences. Here's a few of those sentiments from a Reddit thread:

-I actually love Workday. It's incredible at helping me skip that application so I can apply somewhere else.

-I just close the tab whenever I see Workday applications.

-I legit pause when I see it is a Workday application and ask myself if I really want to apply.

-Yeah, it's unfortunate that companies don't care about candidates whatsoever.

-Workday has been the bane of my day for the last 3 months now.

-#BoycottWorkday

These are the more humorous comments I’ve come across but it really goes to show how poor the candidate experience is using Workday. Plus, these types of sentiments are not great for the company's reputation. Still, if a candidate wants the job badly enough, they will go through the trials and tribulations of applying through Workday, and hopefully not analyze too much on the poor CX presented to them. This is where I'm at: if I want the job, I'll apply regardless. Take a deep breath and dive in!"

I've found LinkedIn's Easy Apply to be the quickest job application process by far, but I have encountered problems with it. It opens up a whole host of issues, such as not having an option to provide any key additional details about an application at all. The recruiter misses the chance to see the full candidate picture and will end up bypassing perfectly qualified candidates just because they don’t tick the boxes off with a 100% match and fail to satisfy the initial screening questions. A major improvement would be one area for additional information to be submitted, in addition to answering the basic yes or no questions, which is ultimately on the job poster to configure. Just like in life, not everything is black or white, especially when it comes to a candidate’s career history. ICIMS and Greenhouse systems are always a pleasure to use as an applicant, and I thank them for existing. 

Companies can attract great candidates by making their lives easier by offering user friendly, quick, and to the point application systems vs. making them go through rigorous and unnecessarily time consuming processes. It's essential for companies to work at providing optimal CX for job candidates since they may potentially become their new hire, advocate, and face of the organization. Can we normalize starting the job application process on a positive note and work to provide a pleasant, hassle-free experience right out of the gate?