Recruitment
Part of Applicant tracking systems
Comparing recruiting pipelines in ATS products
Compare ATS pipelines with the same job and application scenarios. Check stage meanings, exceptions, cross-job reporting and changes to a live pipeline.
Workable, Greenhouse Recruiting and JobAdder organise recruiting pipelines differently. Workable maps job pipelines to one reporting pipeline, Greenhouse builds an interview plan per job, and JobAdder offers custom drag-and-drop workflows. Compare them by moving the same sample applications through each proposed setup.
Column count alone says little. A stage may hold several interviews, while an approval or message may occur within a stage. Check what each stage means, what action moves an application on and how different jobs appear in reports.
Define stages and exceptions
For one representative job, write the path from application through screening, interview, decision and offer. Give each stage an entry condition, an owner and an exit decision. Keep rejection and withdrawal distinct from progress through active stages.
Add a second job with a different interview sequence to see whether combined reports retain a clear meaning.
| Pipeline question | What to ask the supplier to show |
|---|---|
| Stage meaning | What decision or action moves an application in or out? |
| Different jobs | How do different sequences appear in a combined report? |
| Work within a stage | Where are interviews, scorecards, approvals and candidate messages recorded? |
| Exceptions | How are a skipped step, move back, rejection and withdrawal recorded? |
| Change control | What happens to active applications, automations and reports when a stage is renamed or removed? |
Agree the expected result before each demonstration, then record the configured behaviour shown.
Compare Workable, Greenhouse and JobAdder
Workable pipelines are made up of stages such as Phone Screen, Assessment and Offer, managed under Settings > Workflow. You can use one pipeline for all jobs, with candidates skipping stages as needed, or multiple pipelines that must all fit into an overall reporting pipeline.
In Workable's example, the stages Technical Interview and VP Interview both fit into the Interview stage of the reporting pipeline, so different jobs still report on common categories. A pipeline can have a maximum of 32 stages, though Workable says the most effective pipelines have 12 stages or less.
Change control in Workable is broad: editing a pipeline affects all jobs that are using or have used it, and changes to the reporting pipeline affect all pipelines. Workable recommends against frequently adjusting the reporting pipeline and suggests making most changes to specific pipelines. Ask who may edit stages and how a change is reviewed before it reaches live jobs.
Greenhouse Recruiting builds an interview plan for each job. The plan is made up of stages, and each stage holds one or more interviews; a face-to-face stage, for example, may have one interview with the hiring manager and another with the team. By default, each plan starts with Application Review and ends with Offer, and everything in between is up to you.
In Greenhouse, the scorecard is configured before the interview plan, and interview kits are part of the plan. Change control sits in permissions: editing interview plans is available to Site Admins and Job Admins with the right permission, and only Job Admins with the user-specific permission to create new job stage names can create custom stages.
JobAdder gives one main dashboard with a drag-and-drop workflow and custom workflows to suit any pipeline. From the dashboard, users review applicant stages, change statuses and rate applications out of 5. Ask how custom workflows for different jobs combine in reports.
Side by side, Workable controls reporting through one shared reporting pipeline, Greenhouse through stage names set per job and permission to create new ones, and JobAdder through its custom workflows. Ask how the proposed templates and permissions would let the team adapt interviews without fragmenting reports.
Comparing Recruiting Pipeline Structures in ATS Products (Workable, Greenhouse, JobAdder)
- Pipeline StructureWorkable: Shared reporting pipeline with up to 32 stages; multiple pipelines can map to one reporting pipeline. Greenhouse: Interview plan per job with custom stages and interviews. JobAdder: Drag-and-drop workflows with custom templates for each job.
- Stage ManagementWorkable: One pipeline controls all jobs; changes affect all jobs using it. Greenhouse: Per-job interview plans with role-based permissions. JobAdder: Custom workflows per job with flexible drag-and-drop setup.
- Reporting Across JobsWorkable: All jobs report under a single shared pipeline structure. Greenhouse: Reports reflect individual job plans; consistency depends on standardisation. JobAdder: Custom workflows may fragment reports unless templated consistently.
- Change ControlWorkable: Broad impact—editing affects all jobs. Greenhouse: Permissions-based (Site Admins and Job Admins). JobAdder: Configurable via user roles and workflow templates.
- Flexibility for ExceptionsWorkable: Supports skipped steps and backtracking; exceptions recorded within stages. Greenhouse: Interview plans allow skips and reorders; scorecards and kits tied to stages. JobAdder: Full flexibility via drag-and-drop; exceptions tracked in workflow history.
Compare results on the same cases
Use synthetic applications. Move one through the ordinary path, return one for another interview, reject one at screening and withdraw one after interview.
Add a person with applications for two jobs. For each case, capture the stage history, pending work, decision reason and report category. Check separately whether a stage move starts a candidate message.
Mark each result as shown, shown after configuration, manual or unverified. Give every manual step an owner. Prefer the pipeline whose stages and reports remain understandable across the jobs the organisation actually recruits for.
Further reading: Customizing the recruiting pipeline (help.workable.com).
