Workable (which begins at $99 per job per month, billed monthly) is an applicant tracking (AT) solution designed for companies of all sizes. It has a wide range of features that help set it apart from competitors, including access to over 200 free and premium job boards, mobile-friendly application forms, more than 700 job description templates, and over 40 third-party integrations, including background checks and assessments. While it doesn't do as much as Editors' Choice pick BambooHR, it maintains focus as a dedicated AT system instead of an HR suite. Like our other Editors' Choice pick, Bullhorn Staffing and Recruiting, Workable offers a customizable, easy-to-use experience for customers of all levels. Workable may not be an Editors' Choice winner but it's a solid product nonetheless.
Workable's New Pricing
Workable currently offers two pricing schemes. The first plan, called "Hire as needed," is its $99-per-job-per-month subscription. This is billed monthly and is designed as a flexible option geared towards short-term or occasional hiring scenarios. This plan includes more than 200 free and premium job boards, more than 700 job description templates, mobile apps (Android and iOS), and more than 40 third-party integrations including background checks and assessments.
The second plan is called "Hire at scale," and this plan is its its Annual plan, which is priced annually depending on a company's specific needs. This has all of the features included with the first plan, but then adds advanced features including 400 million searchable candidate profiles, artificial intelligence (AI)-powered candidate sourcing, an external recruiting portal, offer letters, and approval workflows.
Unlike Workable, Bullhorn Staffing and Recruiting (Visit Site at Bullhorn) charges by the user and not by the number of active jobs in the system. This is probably a better price model for small businesses but it will get very pricey for large recruiting firms in which most employees use an AT tool.
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Custom Fields and Automation
Each job posting is listed in chronological order from newest to oldest on the tool's home page. From left to right, you'll be able to track the progress of each search. You'll find a tab that lets you manage the recruiters you used to source candidates, a tab that houses the profiles of all applicants, and tabs that show which candidates received a phone screen, an in-person interview, and who ultimately got the job. You can click into any of these tabs to find more detailed information about each step of the process.
Because Workable ties into your back-end corporate website, you'll be able to create custom fields that flow nicely into the AT tool. For example, if you ask prospective employees to provide you with their LinkedIn and Twitter profile links, then the tool inputs all of the data from the social networks into the new candidate's profile (and you can go into the apps themselves for a deeper dive). From this page, you can edit a candidate profile, schedule an interview, send the candidate an email, or discuss the candidate's eligibility with your coworkers. This discussion appears as a feed (similar to a Facebook timeline) and it includes data from other job postings (e.g., "John Smith also applied for a Senior Editor position four days ago").
On each candidate profile page, you'll see an image of the candidate (note: the system knows not to pull in cat photos or images of a Lamborghini, but it won't know not to pull in a photo of someone's teenage son), his or her contact information, and all communication that has occurred between users regarding the candidate's status.
Workable also recently introduced a People Search feature that lets you enter search criteria into the system to source potential candidates on social media and other job boards. After you enter criteria, such as education, skills, and location, you'll find a list of potential candidates, each of whom comes with a profile that can be pulled into Workable with one click. This is a neat feature for desperate recruiters who need to think outside of the box.
Social Sharing, Hashtagging, and Analytics
Workable automatically posts all published jobs to the free job websites that you've connected to the system. You can buy and publish listings on 15 job websites from one screen within the dashboard. This page also shows you how many views and applicants the posting has generated (which is a nifty way to determine if you'd like to continue using premium job boards or if you'd like to stick with free listings).
Beneath the available job boards, Workable also includes social buttons that let you share the posting on Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, and Twitter. With one click, a link to the posting will appear on the specified timeline. Unfortunately, you'll have to click on each social network individually rather than clicking once for all four websites. You also won't be able to send social messages to candidates through the system, so don't expect to slide into any candidate's direct messages (DMs) from within Workable.
Another interesting social feature Workable employs is candidate hashtagging. Within the system, you can attach a characteristic hashtag to any prospective employee (e.g., #Salesperson). Even after the candidate is disqualified for a position, the hashtag is still applied to his or her profile. So, if an HR team member goes into the system looking for a salesperson, he or she can search #salesperson and the candidate's profile will surface.
Workable features a robust candidate reporting platform as well. Analytics include hiring velocity, how productive each hiring team is in finding and recruiting candidates, and pipeline reports showing how many people interviewed for a given position, and the average time-to-hire for each HR manager.
An Easy-to-Use System Your Team Will Love
What Workable's user interface (UI) lacks in beauty, it more than makes up for in usability. It's not colorful or appealing but it's clearly labeled, requires no technical background and, unlike other UIs such as JobScore, Workable makes most key data accessible from every screen of the dashboard.
I hate that the search bar on the home page is the same grey as the dashboard's background. This made the field difficult to find when I attempted to input queries. This wouldn't be a major issue if the search bar was standard throughout the tool; you'd grow accustomed to typing information into the transparent grey bar. Unfortunately, Workable puts a grey, transparent search bar on some pages and a white, Google-esque search bar on other pages. Good grief! Forget about using the main search bar at the upper right side of the main navigation; this bar only surfaces candidate profiles rather than surfacing specific data from specific stages of the candidate's recruitment process (think of how your iPhone can surface keywords from specific messages within your mail app rather than just surfacing the mail app or the mail recipient's contact information).
An Almost-Perfect Standalone System
If you're hoping to manage all aspects of HR from within one system, then Workable isn't right for you. BambooHR and Editors' Choice tool Bullhorn Staffing and Recruiting are more suitable comprehensive HR software and management ecosystems. However, if you're just looking for something that handles recruitment and only recruitment from A-Z, then Workable is a phenomenal tool for businesses of all sizes. There isn't an easier-to-use AT tool on the market.
Workable offers a wide set of applicant tracking (AT) solutions. Access to a large pool of premium job boards as well as customization to help SMBs hire better candidates more efficiently.
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