2023 Workable Review: Is It the Right Recruiting Software for You?
This article is part of a larger series on Hiring.
Workable is an intuitive cloud-based recruiting software boasting AI-powered candidate sourcing technology and automation, collaboration, and anonymized screening tools. It also has a mobile app to make hiring convenient for busy and mobile recruiters and offers two scalable monthly and annual plans and a flexible per-job plan called Paygo at $129 per month.
Workable earned a spot on our list of best applicant tracking software, scoring 4.38 out of 5. It got perfect scores for tools, popularity, and reporting but lost points in pricing (not as affordable for small businesses) and ease of use (has a bit of a learning curve).
Workable Overview
Overall Score:
4.38 / 5
Pros
- Flexible pricing
- Advanced candidate sourcing
- Customizable tools
- Mobile app
Cons
- Anonymized screening unavailable in all plans
- Limited HRIS software integration
Pricing
- Pricing:
- Offers a pay-as-you-go option (Paygo) for $129 per month, per job
- Has two packages with plans based on number of employees (increments of 20)
- Standard – Starts at $360 monthly for 1-20 employees
- Premier – Starts at $720 monthly for 1-20 employees
- Add-ons (billed annually):
- Video interview – $99
- Texting – $79
- Features: Includes job promotion, AI candidate sourcing, and a strong-featured mobile app
What We Recommend Workable For
Workable helps streamline the recruiting process with its automation and collaboration tools and easy-to-use interface. Its per-job Paygo plan includes essential hiring tools and a mobile app for on-the-go hiring. With it, you can track applicants, communicate with them, and view their information in one place. These make Workable ideal for small, growing, and even large businesses that want scalable recruiting software.
In short, Workable is best for:
- Small businesses hiring for limited roles at a time: Workable’s flexible plan allows users to pay a specific amount per job as they go. Although it doesn’t limit the number of jobs, it may get too expensive if you are a small business posting several jobs at a time. The plan includes tools to help with job creation and posting, tracking applications, and offer letters.
- Recruiters, staffing agencies, and talent-sourcing managers: Workable’s AI Recruiter technology and Chrome extension make sourcing candidates more convenient. After posting a job, Workable provides a list of passive candidates, which you can use to improve your talent pool. The extension also allows you to save and gather information about candidates you see on social media.
- On-the-go hiring managers: Workable mobile app makes it convenient for hiring managers to stay on top of recruiting despite being on the move. They can manage the candidate pipeline, communicate with applicants, view and complete assessments, and more, making it an ideal option for busy and mobile managers. Its strong tools helped Workable land a spot on our best recruiting apps guide.
When Workable Would Not Be a Good Fit
- Businesses looking for recruiting software with full onboarding features: Although Workable allows creating and sending offer letters with e-signatures to new hires, it doesn’t have background checks, training schedules, or benefits administration tools. Thus, employers may need to manage new hires through other programs. Although it offers integration with other HRIS software, the options are limited. Consider using Rippling, which provides hardware and software onboarding.
- Organizations looking for free recruiting software: For small businesses and organizations on a tight budget, Workable’s paid plan may be too much. If you want free recruiting software, check out Freshteam, which offers a free plan for businesses with fewer than 50 employees.
Haven’t found what you’re looking for? Check out other options in our best recruiting software for small businesses and see if you find one that suits you.
How Workable Compares With Top Alternatives
 |  |  |  | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Best for | Businesses hiring for limited roles at a time | Small businesses with limited recruitment budgets | Growing businesses looking for powerful onboarding and software integration capabilities | Staffing agencies hiring for multiple companies |
Monthly fees from | $129 | $0 | $8/employee/month plus $35/month base fee | $0 |
Ease of Use (based on our evaluation) | 3.75/5 | 4.13/5 | 5/5 | 5/5 |
Our Review |
Since Our Last Update:
Workable no longer offers its Growth Plan, leaving three plans—Paygo, Standard, and Premier. On the brighter side, it shows pricing on its website, unlike before when the only pricing available was for its Paygo plan. Also, subscribers had to pay for the higher tiers annually but can now pay these monthly. Annual payments are also available at a 20% discount.
All Workable plans include more than 700 job description and interview question templates, job distribution to more than 200 boards, email and calendar sync, HRIS integration, GDPR compliance, and essential reports. Workable didn’t get a perfect score for pricing because its plans are more expensive than similar solutions.
Paygo | Standard | Premier | |
|---|---|---|---|
Monthly Fee | $129/job | Starts at $360 for up to 20 employees | Starts at $720 for up to 20 employees |
If paid upfront | N/A | $299 monthly; total of $3,588/year | $599 monthly; total of $7,188/year |
Interview kits and scorecards | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Offer letters with e-signatures | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Mobile app; Zoom integration; AI recruiter | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Advanced career page builder and self-scheduling | N/A | ✓ | ✓ |
Dedicated account manager | N/A | ✓ | ✓ |
Automated actions; custom hiring pipelines; anonymized screening | N/A | N/A | ✓ |
EEO, OFCCP, CCPA Compliance | N/A | N/A | ✓ |
Global support | ✓ | ✓ | Priority Support |
Premium tools (assessments, texting, and/or video interviews) | Optional | Optional | Optional |
With Workable, you can promote your brand to attract applicants and quickly find the right people for the roles. Companies can eliminate repetitive tasks to focus more on improving their business. Read more about its features and learn how its software can help you hire new talent for your business.
Workable has a drag-and-drop careers page builder with templates and tools to help businesses highlight their culture and attract more candidates. You can add your logo and use your company color palette and fonts.
The software has helpful suggestions and job templates, which can speed up your job creation. You can customize these templates, but some may not need many changes. For more technically skilled users, it has the advanced careers page option, which provides more customization. If you have a careers page on your website, you can use Workable’s widget to add a list of open jobs.
Workable also helps users create mobile-friendly application forms and improve candidate reach. You can preview the form’s appearance on mobile and desktop and tweak them to ensure they’re consistent on both formats. You can add new questions or create specific fields, such as an applicant’s photo or mobile number, as optional.
After creating your job listing, you can publish this to more than 200 free and premium job sites. Or, you may keep the job ad private so other team members can check it first.
Post to free and paid job boards in seconds.
Workable boasts of its AI recruiter technology, which searches more than 85 million candidates in its database and helps you find employees for your business. A few minutes after posting the job, Workable lists the 50 best passive candidates for that position. Since it’s a noteworthy tool for any recruiter, Workable has made this feature available to all plans. If you use the free trial version, however, you’ll be limited to 25 candidates when using this feature.
After being provided with a list of candidates, you can then introduce yourself individually or in bulk. This feature is useful when you have a few applicants and you’re unsure where to find new talent. AI recruiter technology is a good option for more difficult roles where you don’t expect to get many applications.
Workable also offers a Chrome extension, which you can use when you spot candidates on social media like Twitter or LinkedIn. You’ll only click on the extension and the software pulls the candidate’s profile, including their work experience, other social accounts, and contact information.
Workable’s Chrome extension is one way to source candidates. (Source: Workable)
With Workable, you can use the power of your networks to find your next big talent. Employees can share jobs through their unique sharing links so they can track referrals, and you can give rewards properly if applicable. Workable also allows you to post internal jobs you’d like to fill from within your organization.
The hiring process dashboard shows candidate pipelines and has search and filter options. Each candidate profile shows the resume, email communication, evaluations, and scorecards. Hiring team members can stay on the same page of the hiring process with email notifications, trackable communication, and interview kits.
Hiring team members can leave notes on candidates’ timelines. (Source: GetApp)
Workable has anonymous cognitive pre-employment and personality assessments, which candidates can perform anytime, anywhere, and from any device. Using these evaluation tools helps provide hiring managers with objective criteria to compare candidates.
It also offers a one-way video interview option, which helps you choose questions that applicants should answer in a video recording. Hiring members can then leave and share feedback whenever they can.
Workable can also facilitate live interviews through its Zoom and Google Hangouts integrations.
With Workable, hiring managers can speed up the hiring process with automated actions. It allows users to create email templates and develop custom automation per job, department, or hiring stage. For example, you can automate sending confirmation or disqualification emails to candidates. This way, every applicant gets a personalized response, and disqualified people are informed.
The software also allows users to send self-scheduling emails to applicants when they move to specific stages of the hiring process.
Workable’s mobile app, available on iOS and Android, could be a handy tool for recruiters. Its integration with Outlook and Gmail allows seamless syncing across your devices and the team’s calendars.
Workable’s mobile app lets you stay on top of recruiting even when on the go. (Source: GetApp)
The app allows users to view upcoming events, screen and communicate with candidates, and create self-scheduling links for applicants. You can even view assessment results, fill in scorecards, and watch video interviews. With the app’s push notifications, the team will immediately know when they’re needed.
The app has an average user rating of 3.3 out of 5 from 20+ reviews on the Apple Store and also 3.1 out of 5 from 170 reviews on Google Play. It’s interesting that still the most recent comments on the Google Play store involve difficulty in logging in. Based on my experience, the login was smooth though. Workable was also quick to respond to comments that specified their concerns, which I believe is a plus.
Workable offers various canned reports based on the data you want to analyze. You can choose from the following:
- Current pipeline
- Candidate breakdown
- Activity
- Hiring plan
- Hiring performance
- Candidate flow
- Candidate sources
- Hiring velocity
- Time to hire
- Productivity
- Historic pipeline
The reports are classified into two categories including:
- Status reports: Show users the immediate and current view of the account. These include current pipeline, candidate breakdown, and activity.
- Historical reports: Provide information on productivity, efficiency and processes. These include candidate flow, candidate sources, and hiring velocity.
Easily generate recruiting reports with Workable using premade reports. (Source: Workable)
- Easy-to-navigate interface
- Live chat and phone support
- Responsive customer support
- Help Center
Workable has a clean layout with four main menus broken down into different manageable functionalities. However, Workable didn’t get a perfect score in this criterion because it comes with a slight learning curve with all the features in the system, plus it doesn’t offer live phone support.
In case of any technical issues, the provider has a Help Center, where users can view troubleshooting guides. Subscribers can also call the company if they need immediate assistance.
| Users Like | Users Don’t Like |
|---|---|
| Easy to learn, implement, and use | Slight delay in syncing emails from provider into Workable inbox |
| Organized candidate information | AI search results aren’t always accurate |
| Effective automation and reporting features | Occasional bugs in self-scheduling |
| Responsive customer support | Interface looks cluttered when you have several positions open |
Workable is a popular recruiting software praised for its intuitive layout. Many users like that they can see candidate information like resumes, scorecards, and assessment results in one place. Users also revealed that its reporting features, though basic, are helpful, while its automation capabilities are effective in trimming time spent on mundane tasks. Although Workable is easy to use, users agree that if they need any support, customer support is always responsive.
Some users noticed that the AI Recruiter function doesn’t always show the best candidates, while some experienced glitches in the self-scheduling links, which caused both recruiters and candidates some frustration.
At the time of publication, Workable earned the following scores on popular user review sites:
- Capterra: 4.4 out of 5 based on 400+ reviews
- G2: 4.6 out of 5 based on about 400 reviews
Bottom Line
Workable is a modern recruiting software that can accommodate small or large businesses with sufficient budget. Its candidate sourcing feature and drag-and-drop job creation tool makes it easy to list open jobs and find talent, perfect for those without any background in recruiting software. With its automation capability and mobile app, recruiting is more efficient.
Sign up with Workable for a 15-day free trial—no credit card required.
