Workable Review 2024 – HR & Applicant Tracking Software Tested

What is Workable?

Workable is a SaaS that streamlines and enables you to scale your hiring process. As the job market becomes increasingly competitive, businesses need robust recruitment systems to stay ahead. This applicant tracking system and recruitment process software help hiring teams by providing a solid system for attracting the best talent to their company.

In our honest review of Workable, we dive into the platform’s features, pricing, and best use cases to help you decide whether Workable is worth the money.

Table of Contents Table of Contents

1. What is Workable?
2. Workable Pricing & Plans
3. Workable Overview
4. Top Features of Workable
5. Workable Integrations
6. Workable Customer Reviews
7. Workable vs. Top Competitors
8. Conclusion - Is Workable Worth It?
9. How We Test HR and Recruitment Software
10. How to Choose the Best Recruitment and HR Software
11. FAQs
12. References

Show Full Guide

Table of Contents

1. What is Workable?
2. Workable Pricing & Plans
3. Workable Overview
Show Full Guide
4. Top Features of Workable
5. Workable Integrations
6. Workable Customer Reviews
7. Workable vs. Top Competitors
8. Conclusion - Is Workable Worth It?
9. How We Test HR and Recruitment Software
10. How to Choose the Best Recruitment and HR Software
11. FAQs
12. References

Workable Pricing & Plans

The first thing we looked at in our review was the cost of the platform. While many HR software providers offer pricing on a quote-only basis, we found Workable’s pricing to be refreshingly upfront. You’ll find most of the fees listed on the Workable website.

The only downside is its high initial cost, but after this, its tiered structure is ideal for scaling your business up or down. The features are consistent across the plans, but there are small differences between them.

We were impressed to see that Workable offers a 15-day free trial. There’s also a flexible cancellation policy in the settings. Administrators can choose whether to downgrade to ‘read-only’ mode and store data or permanently close the account. As standard in the HR software industry, there are no refunds if you cancel part-way through a contract.

Workable Starter Plan – starts at $149 per month

Designed for occasional hiring, Starter lets you create two active jobs simultaneously and view up to 200 matches. This plan is for companies of up to 50 employees – there is no leeway on this limitation. It will also cost you more per month for add-ons such as:

• Video interviews
• Texting
• Assessments

We think that the high starting price and employee limit make the Starter plan unsuitable for small, budget-conscious start-ups. However, companies with more funding may appreciate the flexibility to add and drop extra hiring features when needed.

Workable Standard Plan – starts at $299 per month

With Workable’s Standard Plan, you choose between monthly payments or an annual commitment for a $732 discount. The features don’t change compared to the Starter Plan, but you can create unlimited active jobs and get 1,000 AI sourcing profile views as opposed to 200.

Standard offers a tiered pricing system within ranges instead of charging per employee. For example, it costs $730 per month for a workforce of 51 to 100, which rises to $1,140 for 101 to 250 employees. We liked the fact that the costs are predictable and transparent. In other words, no surprises when you move up a pricing tier.

Workable Premier Plan – starts at $599 per month

Premier has a similar size-tiered structure to the Standard Plan. However, we were surprised to see that it only allows annual commitments with an upfront payment (totaling an equivalent of $599 per month at the lowest rate).

Although Premier is double the price of Standard, we think that the extra features make it worthwhile. You get all of the following extras included in your plan:

• Video interviews
• Texting
• Assessments
• Dedicated account manager (much better than regular customer support)

There are no employee limitations on this plan. You can choose a bracket as low as 1 to 20 employees or as high as 500+ employees – your total cost will change accordingly.

Workable Overview

As Workable is mainly for the hiring process rather than other HR requirements, you can use it alongside the software you already have. With all-encompassing HR platforms, you’re often paying for unnecessary extra tools.

Top Features of Workable

As software for recruitment, Workable focuses on its hiring and onboarding capabilities. However, it also offers some employee management features. If you’d like to pair it with an HR solution for current employees, too, take a look at the top HRIS solutions of 2024.

What makes Workable stand out is the focus on recruiting and managing successful hires. We love how it uses AI to do this, a future-proof method that eliminates the manual work we still see on some recruitment software. Before we go into detail about each feature in our Workable review, we would summarize the most impressive ones as:

• Candidate sourcing
• Recruitment processes
• Employee onboarding tools
• HR management

Candidate Sourcing

Having incorporated AI into its tools, you can use Workable’s technology to collect market data, create instant job ads, and match with candidates.

You can access an impressive 200+ job boards directly through Workable by creating a single posting on the dashboard. Although this means you’ll post across more job boards than average, you won’t lose out on anything in terms of efficiency. The AI will review candidates, analyze their experience, and enable you to view only qualified candidate profiles, minimizing the risk of moving forward with the wrong candidates.

Among the candidate sourcing tools, we were most excited by Workable’s DEI features. For example, you can:

• Optimize job adverts to ensure the wording doesn’t deter underrepresented groups
• Expand your reach to niche job sites

As well as encouraging fairer hiring, this is particularly useful for smaller companies who don’t have a dedicated D&I team or lack this knowledge among their recruitment staff.

Recruitment Processes

When testing Workable’s hiring features, it felt very easy to collaborate internally. You can add various users to manage the interview process, then configure permissions so everyone only sees what they need to.

The notifications and updates make it impossible to lose track of candidates. Workable also features a centralized schedule that synchronizes with popular tools like Google Calendar, but this isn’t particularly unique compared to other recruitment software. One highlight is the ease of accessing a candidate’s profile and reviewing the candidate prior to the interview. This has all the relevant information such as resume and which stage the candidate is at in the process, making life a bit easier for a hiring team.

With remote hiring being a significant evolution in today’s workplace, it’s useful to have recruitment software that accommodates a global team. Workable enables you to communicate seamlessly with candidates in different languages, including French and Portuguese.

Employee Onboarding Tools

Feeling like part of the team early on is an important part of a new starter’s journey – one of the standout features in our Workable review was branded employee onboarding. New hires can use a customized, self-service portal to add and manage their details rather than something generic.

Aside from the self-service side of onboarding, handling new employee data internally calls for strong security. Workable is GDPR compliant and allows you to self-manage safeguarding through features like custom privacy notices and automated data retention.

HR Management

It’s no surprise that Workable doesn’t offer as many employee management features as an all-in-one HRIS platform. However, as it can integrate with top providers like BambooHR and Rippling, its limited tools aren’t an issue. You might even prefer the flexibility to mix and match recruitment and HR platforms according to business needs.

If your company has quite basic HR needs, you could rely on Workable’s simple yet versatile employee management tools, including:

• Employee directory
• Organization charts
• Leave management tools

Workable Integrations

Like all good recruitment software, we found that Workable integrates with a variety of tools. The most notable and popular integrations include:

• Email and calendar – Gmail, Outlook
• Video conference – Zoom
• Job boards – Indeed, Monster
• HR – ADP, Rippling, BambooHR
• Background checks – Checkr, Certn
• Assessments – TestGorilla, Mercer
• Video interview tools – Human, Willo
• Onboarding tools – Kallidus, Clickboarding
• Sourcing – Jobbio, Otta
• Referrals – GreatPeople, Trusty
• Single sign-on – Okta, Azure AD

Workable Customer Reviews

As part of our own review, we check out what third-party users think of the platform too. We only use the most reputable, trusted review sites for this information. The general opinion of Workable is largely favorable. Users scored it a rating of:

• 6 out of 5 on G2
• 3 out of 5 on Capterra

When we looked at Workable reviews, we noted that customers most commonly praise the platform for being user-friendly and flexible.

Many Workable reviewers also liked its collaboration tools, which allow hiring managers to streamline and oversee the hiring process.

While analyzing customer reviews, we noticed many high ratings were in different languages. We thought this proved how well it does in terms of multilingual capabilities.

We found very few negative user reviews, but some complaints included not good value for small businesses and how Workable handles updates to the user interface

Workable vs. Top Competitors

We compared Workable against its competitors to get a clear picture of its strengths and weaknesses. Here’s how it stacks up against three main Workable alternatives:

Workable vs. BambooHR

Choosing between Workable and BambooHR comes down to your needs. Workable’s versatile recruitment tools make it perfect for hiring large volumes of candidates as a priority. On the other hand, as a top payroll service provider as well as human resource management, BambooHR is more suited to promoting staff retention than hiring new people.

Although it’s a competitor brand, you can, in fact, integrate BambooHR into Workable – the two together might be able to solve a lot of your HR and business needs in one fell swoop. Read our BambooHR review to learn more.

Learn more in our BambooHR review.

Workable vs. ClearCompany

We recommend ClearCompany over Workable for an all-in-one HR solution. Unlike Workable, the platform encompasses:

• Recruitment
• Employee management
• People enablement tools

That said, for smaller businesses that need to grow in numbers quickly, Workable is better for flexibility as a stripped-down tool with a variety of integrations.

Workable vs. ZohoRecruit

Like Workable, Zoho’s focus is recruitment, but the main difference is the pricing plan. We like the fact that Zoho has a free option, as well as fees per user, instead of bracketed ranges.

We would suggest choosing Zoho over Workable if you’re budget-conscious and your workforce numbers fluctuate a lot. However, Workable is better for its inclusion of basic self-service onboarding options too.

For more comparisons, check out our reviews of the best recruitment software.

How We Test HR and Recruitment Software

To provide a thorough assessment, our team explores every aspect of software use:

• Pricing – We compare pricing structures and offers against competitors and market data.
• Features – We test all available tools across different recruitment scenarios.
• Integrations – We analyze the integrations list to see whether the range is sufficient or if there are notable omissions.
• Automation – We perform tasks and note how long they take, how many steps are required, and the quality of the results.
• Ease of use – We test out the platform without any guidance to see how intuitive it is. We also analyze help desk articles and watch how-to videos to assess the support available.
• Third-party reviews – To get a fuller idea of the user experience, we read reviews on trusted sites like G2, Capterra, and Trustpilot.

How to Choose the Best Recruitment and HR Software

When choosing software that handles people in your business, we recommend considering all of these factors:

• Type of HR software – Depending on your needs, you’ll find a wide range of functions from time tracking to onboarding to payroll services. Check the limitations.
• Essential HR features – Rather than focusing on how many tools you get for the cost, check out the must-have features for your specific business. You don’t want to end up overpaying for tools you won’t use.
• Pricing – Refine your search by creating a budget and only looking within that range. It’s also worth checking whether a free trial is available.
• Ease of use – Choose intuitive software to guarantee your employees can use it effectively. If not, training might be costly.
• Integrations – To avoid juggling separate platforms, ensure it offers reliable integrations with other tools you use.
• Customer support – Responsive customer support agents should be able to handle issues promptly – check their opening times and contact methods.

FAQs