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Administrator Guide
Last Updated: 2025-09-19
Setup Considerations: Recruiting Notes

Setup Considerations: Recruiting Notes

You can use this topic to help make decisions when planning your configuration and use of notes. It explains:
  • Why to set it up.
  • How it fits into the rest of Workday.
  • Downstream impacts and cross-product interactions.
  • Security requirements and business process configurations.
  • Questions and limitations to consider before implementation.
Refer to detailed task instructions for full configuration details.

What It Is

Recruiting notes enable users to create and view notes on job requisitions and candidate job applications.

Business Benefits

  • Notes support collaborative hiring by allowing recruiters, hiring managers, and interviewers to share updates during candidate assessments.
  • Protect data and ensure compliance by keeping all notes in Workday rather than in third-party tools.
  • Preserve candidate history by keeping notes attached to candidates across requisitions for long-term visibility.
  • Accelerate decision making by giving hiring teams timely context and consistent information.
  • Increase efficiency by reducing duplicate communication channels and making notes easily searchable.
  • Increase accountability by creating a clear, auditable record of hiring interactions and decisions.

Use Cases

Hiring managers, recruiters, and other hiring team members can use notes to:
  • Communicate updates to job requisitions or job applications.
    Example: A recruiter adds a note that a candidate has completed their technical assessment so the application can be advanced to the interview stage.
  • View and track recruiting and hiring activity on job requisitions and job applications.
    Example: A hiring manager adds a note after reviewing feedback from the candidate’s phone screen.
  • Discuss decisions to close or progress a job requisition or a job application.
    Example: A recruiter adds a note that the hiring team agreed to move a candidate forward to the final interview stage.
  • Share feedback among hiring team members.
    Example: An interviewer adds a note that the candidate showed strong presentation skills but struggled with a technical case question.
  • Reference external candidate materials.
    Example: A recruiter adds a note about a candidate’s GitHub repository asking managers to review coding samples.

Questions to Consider

Question
Consideration
What kind of recruiting activity do you want users to create notes for?
You can enable users to add, view, or modify notes on:
  • Candidates
  • Candidate job applications
  • Job requisitions
  • Prospects
Users must have access to the candidate profile to add notes to a candidate's job application.
Which roles do you want to enable to add or view notes?
You can enable users to view notes or view and modify notes.
Users can only see notes for candidates, job applications, prospects, and job requisitions that they have access to. You can use the
Maintain Recruiting Notes
 task to hide notes for masked candidate job applications.
Do you want to tag and notify other members of the hiring team on Recruiting Notes?
You can tag members of the hiring team by selecting their name or searching for them in the
People to Notify
 prompt. Tagging and notifications on Recruiting Notes enhance recruiting efficiency by:
  • Improving collaboration among hiring team members during candidate assessments.
  • Enabling faster decision making by speeding up responses.
  • Streamlining communication by reducing the need for separate messaging threads.

Recommendations

No impact.

Requirements

Your organization must use session storage in order to store notes data. Check your browser settings or confirm with your IT team.

Limitations

You can only currently add or view notes on job requisitions or candidate job applications.
Recruiting Notes are only available on desktop.

Tenant Setup

No impact.

Security

Domain
Consideration
Manage: Candidate Job Application Notes
Enables you to add, edit, and view notes on candidate job applications from the candidate profile.
Manage: Job Requisition Notes
Enables you to add, edit, and view notes on job requisitions.
Manage: Maintain Recruiting Notes
Enables you to use the
Maintain Recruiting Notes
 task to view or delete notes. This task is for administrators.
Manage: Candidate Notes
Grants access to add, edit, and view notes on the candidate and prospect profile.

Business Processes

Business Process
Consideration
Job Application
When you rescind or cancel a job application event, Workday removes any notes associated with the job application.
Job Requisition
When you rescind or cancel a job requisition event, Workday removes any notes associated with the job requisition.

Reporting

You can use these data sources to create custom reports on notes:
  • Candidate Job Application Notes
  • Candidate Notes
  • Job Requisition Notes

Integrations

No impact.

Connections and Touchpoints

When you purge a user, Workday removes their name from any notes they created. Optionally, you can also purge the content of their notes. When you purge a candidate, Workday also purges the job application or the notes on the candidate job application.
Workday offers a Touchpoints Kit with resources to help you understand configuration relationships in your tenant. Learn more about the Workday Touchpoints Kit on Workday Community.

Other Impacts

Workday hides notes for masked candidate job applications on the candidate profile and the
Maintain Recruiting Notes
 task.