How to apply for a job on Workday: accounts, autofill and status

How does a Workday job application work?

Workday is software that employers use to post jobs and collect applications. You never apply to Workday itself. You apply to one employer through that employer’s Workday career site, which often has an address containing myworkdayjobs.com, and the employer decides which pages, questions and documents its application includes.

That is why two Workday applications can look different. The State of Nebraska adds a veterans’ preference question and asks for a DD214 if you claim preference; a university may ask about prior employment there and work authorization. The building blocks, though, are consistent enough to plan for: an account called Candidate Home where required, a choice of how to start the application, sections such as My Information and My Experience, application questions, voluntary disclosures, a review page and a submit button.

Current employees usually apply another way. Oregon, for example, tells current state employees to apply through their Workday worker account rather than the external site. If you already work for the employer, check its internal instructions first. For the general routine that applies to any employer, see how to apply for jobs online.

How do you create or sign into a Workday Candidate Home account?

Many employers ask you to sign in or create an account when you click Apply, although Workday lets each employer decide whether a Candidate Home account is required. The account is created on that employer’s career site, and Iowa State University tells applicants to use the same login each time they apply there. When an employer does ask for one, expect it to be separate from accounts you made with other employers, and keep one email address for all of them so you always know where your messages go.

If you create an account, verify your email before you do anything else. Nebraska’s guide warns that trying to sign in before verifying may lock the account for 24 hours. If a password reset or verification email does not arrive within a few minutes, check your spam or junk folder before requesting another.

1. Open the posting on the employer’s career site and click Apply, or click Sign In and then Create Account.
2. Enter an email address you will keep for years; Nebraska suggests avoiding a work or school address.
3. Create a password that meets every requirement listed on the screen, then save it in a password manager under the employer’s name.
4. Accept the terms, click Create Account, and open the verification email to confirm your address.
5. If you forget the password later, use Forgot your password? on the same employer’s sign-in page; the reset email is sent only if an account exists for that address.

Autofill with Resume, Apply Manually or Use My Last Application?

After you click Apply, Workday usually offers three ways to start. The labels below come from the Oregon, Nebraska and Iowa State guides; your employer may show fewer options or add others.

Some employers also turn on Apply with LinkedIn. Workday’s documentation says it fills in country, contact information, education, experience and skills from your LinkedIn profile, so the result is only as current as that profile. Whichever route you pick, start with a resume already tailored to the job description, because the employer reads the attached file as well as the form.

• Autofill with Resume: upload your resume and Workday fills in what it can. Nebraska notes that it does not support photo uploads and that some fields may remain blank.
• Apply Manually: you type everything yourself. It is slower but gives you full control, and it is the fallback when parsing goes badly.
• Use My Last Application: available once you have applied to that employer before. Iowa State warns that if you do not upload a new resume or cover letter, the system uses the last ones you sent, which may have been written for a different job.

How to check and fix what Workday parsed from your resume

Parsing turns your resume into form fields, and it is imperfect. Nebraska’s guide says plainly that resumes are sometimes formatted in a way that puts information in the wrong fields. Simple layouts parse more reliably, which is one reason career centers recommend an ATS-friendly resume with no tables, text boxes or contact details hidden in headers.

Go through My Information and My Experience line by line. Confirm your legal name, address and phone number, then open every work experience entry and check the job title, company, location and dates. Education fields are often searchable lists: if your school or field of study does not appear, try a shorter keyword, and use an option such as School Not Found only when the search truly fails.

Attachments usually go in the Resume/CV area of My Experience, where you can add a cover letter or other documents. Limits are set by the employer. Iowa State accepts Word or PDF files under 5 MB, while Nebraska lists .docx, .pdf, .jpeg and .png as recommended types. If a cover letter is requested, attach one written for this posting.

Application questions, voluntary disclosures and self-identification

Application Questions come next, and required ones carry a red asterisk. They vary by job: Nebraska lists examples such as specific licenses, preferred location and willingness to travel or work certain shifts. Answer exactly and truthfully, and make sure your answers agree with the experience you entered.

Then come pages usually called Voluntary Disclosures and Self-Identify, which ask demographic questions and show the employer’s terms and conditions. Employers handle these differently. Nebraska describes both sections as optional but notes that once you click into one, you must finish the requested details before moving on. Oregon’s guide says questions marked with an asterisk on its Voluntary Disclosures page are required. When a demographic question is required, look for a choice such as I do not wish to answer.

Read the terms before you check the box. They typically ask you to confirm that the information is accurate, which matters because recruiters compare your form, your attachments and later your interview answers.

Saving a draft, submitting and confirming it went through

Click Save and Continue often. Oregon advises doing it early and often so you do not lose work, and suggests typing long answers elsewhere and pasting them in. To return to an unfinished application, sign in, open Candidate Home, find it under My Applications on the Active tab, and choose Continue Application.

Do not leave drafts sitting. Oregon warns that if the employer unposts and reposts a job while your application is still a draft, you will not be able to submit it and must start again. Iowa State notes that after a posting closes you can no longer submit or view it, so save a copy of the job description before you start.

On the review page, use Back to fix anything, then click Submit. Iowa State says you will see a submitted status and receive a confirmation email. Oregon adds that a message may say additional tasks require your attention; finish them, because Oregon counts them as part of a complete application, and check that Candidate Home shows zero To Do items.

Checking status, making changes and withdrawing

If you have a Candidate Home account, that is where you follow up. My Applications lists your active and inactive applications with a status, and the employer may send tasks there later, such as questionnaires or interview scheduling. Status wording is set by each employer, so a label like In Review does not tell you how many people have read your file. Record each application in a job application tracker so you can follow up at the right time.

Expect submitted applications to be locked. Iowa State and Nebraska both say you cannot change an application after you submit it. If you spot a real error, such as the wrong resume, contact the employer’s recruiting team rather than withdrawing: Iowa State lets applicants apply to a position only once, so withdrawing to fix a mistake can end your candidacy.

To withdraw because you are no longer interested, open the actions menu next to the application in My Applications and choose Withdraw Application. Oregon notes that if an employer does allow you to reapply, you must do it before the application deadline.

Common Workday problems and where to get help

Most problems come from accounts, uploads or old drafts. The fixes below cover the ones employers’ guides mention most. When you cannot solve something yourself, contact the employer, not Workday: the employer owns the posting and your application, and many list a help email or phone number on the career site, as Nebraska does.

If you need an accommodation to apply, ask the employer. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission says employers must provide reasonable accommodation so a qualified applicant with a disability has an equal opportunity to take part in the application process, unless it would cause undue hardship. Before you enter personal details, confirm the career site is linked from the employer’s own website; our guide to job search scams explains the warning signs. Other systems work differently; see how to apply on Taleo and iCIMS.

• Cannot sign in: make sure you are on the right employer’s site, verify your email first, and use Forgot your password? there.
• Account locked: Nebraska warns that signing in before verification can lock the account for 24 hours, so wait it out rather than creating duplicates.
• Upload rejected: check the employer’s file types and size limit, remove photos, and export a clean PDF or .docx.
• Wrong details after Use My Last Application: go back through each section and upload the resume written for this job.
• Draft will not submit: the posting may have been updated; start a new application if it is still open.