What to Write in Workday and Greenhouse Application Form Questions

Workday and Greenhouse are the two most-used corporate ATS platforms in the UK and US. If you're applying to anything from a FTSE 100 retailer to a Series-B tech company to a Big 4 firm, you're probably filling in their forms. The two ATSes look different on the surface — Workday is the enterprise behemoth, Greenhouse the cleaner growth-stage option — but the application questions they push you through are remarkably consistent. This guide covers the standard prompts, what's different between the two, and how recruiters actually use the answers.

What kind of jobs use Workday and Greenhouse?

• Workday: enterprise hiring. Large corporates, financial services, retail HQs, professional services firms, NHS Trusts and central government departments at scale, US Fortune 500. The form usually feels longer and more bureaucratic — demographic fields, multiple legal disclosures, structured education and experience entry.
• Greenhouse: growth-stage tech, scaleups, modern professional services. Faster to fill in, more emphasis on supplementary short-answer questions, less legal scaffolding.

Both pass the answers to the recruiter and the hiring manager. Both are searchable by the recruiter inside the ATS — keywords from your CV and supplementary answers can be queried against future roles, which is why being specific in your answers helps you long after the current application is closed.

The standard prompts you'll see across both

Even though the UI looks different, the underlying prompts cluster into the same five groups:

1. Identity and contact — name, email, phone, LinkedIn, portfolio URL.
2. Work eligibility — visa status, right-to-work, current location, willing to relocate.
3. Experience — current role, prior roles, education. Often pre-filled from your CV upload.
4. Supplementary short-answer fields — "why this role?", "why us?", "what unique perspective do you bring?", "tell us about a project you're proud of." This is where most candidates win or lose.
5. EEO / demographic / source — gender, ethnicity, disability status (legally optional and aggregated, not seen by the recruiter), plus "where did you hear about this role?".

The supplementary fields in group 4 are the ones you spend real time on. Everything else is mechanical.

What's actually different between Workday and Greenhouse

• Field caps: Workday's short-answer caps tend to be looser (often 1000+ characters), but the form is longer overall. Greenhouse caps are tighter (250-word soft caps common) but you're answering fewer of them.
• Cover letter handling: Greenhouse usually surfaces a single optional "cover letter" file upload OR a long-form text field. Workday more often asks inline questions instead, with no separate cover letter.
• Education and experience structure: Workday forces structured entries (start/end dates, school name, qualification — even if you've uploaded a CV). Greenhouse usually accepts a CV upload and skips the structured re-entry.
• Save and return: Workday lets you save partial drafts under your candidate profile and reuse them across roles. Greenhouse generally does not — once you start, you finish in one session.
• Visibility of progress: Greenhouse shows percentage progress; Workday shows section pages. Workday's section length means budgeting 30–45 minutes per application is realistic.

How recruiters actually use the answers

The myth: "ATSes auto-reject based on keyword match." The reality at most companies using Workday and Greenhouse: the recruiter sifts manually, with the ATS sorting/filtering candidates based on flags they set (matching keywords, location, visa, prior application history).

The recruiter's first pass is fast — 6–10 seconds on the CV. If you pass that filter, the second pass reads:

1. The CV in full.
2. The supplementary short-answer fields — every one.
3. Cover letter, if attached.
4. LinkedIn (cross-checked against the CV for inconsistencies).

The supplementary answers are read in full at second pass, which is why specificity in those fields matters more than people think. This is also why "why this role?" being generic costs you so much: the recruiter sees the same template answer 50 times a week and you're indistinguishable from candidates with weaker CVs.

Short-answer questions: how to approach 100–300 word boxes

The most common short-answer prompts:

• "Why are you applying for this role?" — covered in detail in why do you want this job on an application form. Two specific reasons, one about the work, one about the company.
• "Why us?" or "What attracts you to [Company]?" — research-led. One specific public commitment, decision, or strategy point you can cite.
• "Tell us about a project you're proud of." — a STAR-shaped answer scoped to ~250 words. Cover the project, what you specifically did, and one numbered outcome.
• "What unique perspective do you bring?" — answer with one specific lens (a domain, an unusual route in, a counter-intuitive view) and one example of it. Avoid "I'm a strong communicator."
• "What questions do you have for us?" — when this is on the form, write one. Recruiters notice when this field is blank; they also notice when it's filled with "no questions at this time."

Use 80–95% of any visible word or character cap. The pattern that scores: one specific opening sentence, one or two evidence-backed reasons or examples, one closing sentence that links to the role.

Demographic and EEO sections: what's optional and why

Workday and Greenhouse both surface optional demographic fields — gender, ethnicity, disability status, sometimes veteran status (US) — for equal-opportunity reporting. These genuinely don't reach the recruiter. They're aggregated for compliance and diversity tracking. Filling them in helps the company report; declining doesn't disadvantage your application.

The "where did you hear about this role?" field is different — it does reach the recruiter and can affect prioritisation (referrals, employee networks, and named recruiters often get faster responses). Pick the most accurate option rather than defaulting to "LinkedIn" if a colleague referred you.

Common mistakes on Workday and Greenhouse forms

• Skipping supplementary short-answer fields because they're "optional." On Greenhouse and most Workday forms, the optional fields are where filtering happens. Skipping them signals lower interest.
• Pasting the same "why this role?" across multiple applications. Recruiters at the same company see this in the ATS — they know it's templated, and at scaleups the recruiter often sees applications across multiple roles.
• Truncating answers when there's still character budget. Anything under 60% of cap reads as low effort.
• Re-entering CV content into supplementary boxes. Recruiters already have the CV. The supplementary fields exist to add context, not to repeat experience.
• Leaving "questions for us?" blank. Even one short, specific question signals engagement.

If the slow part is starting from a blank textarea on the fifth supplementary question of a long form, AI Job Answers' Application Question tool drafts a 250-word answer from your CV and the job description in seconds — leaving you the time to add the specific company-research detail and the named conversations that turn a generic answer into a shortlisted one. The same patterns underpin competency-based written answers and the broader framework guide on online job application questions.