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Recruiting

Workable

UK / wider Europe Report an error

Panel rating · 6 judges · How to read the stars

Category median

Sovereignty: 3 of 4 dimensions proven

0–5 in half steps. 5 means the rubric's top anchor is met on the evidence.

by Workable Software Limited · www.workable.com

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Read this page as one judge. Each weighs the same scores by what they care about.

The Skeptic

Weighted verdict

Has read "DSGVO-konform" and "AI-powered matching" on every page in this category. Reads instead for the deletion deadline that is actually configured, the AI feature that can actually be turned off, and what the invoice does when a job goes out to three paid boards.

Same scores as the panel view — this lens weights them the way this judge cares.

Scored by The Skeptic

Applicant management & hiring workflow

How this is scored

The daily work of hiring: pipeline stages per job, collaboration with hiring managers, structured evaluation, interview scheduling and candidate communication — judged on whether a decision is documented rather than merely made.

0 — An inbox of applications with a status field; no stages per job, no shared evaluation and no record of who decided what.

3 — A fixed pipeline with drag-and-drop stages and email templates, but hiring managers see everything or nothing, and evaluation is free-text comments.

5 — Configurable pipelines per job, hiring-manager access limited to their own vacancies, structured scorecards, interview scheduling with calendar integration, and templated candidate emails in German.

8 — Approval workflows for requisitions and offers, role-based access per team and location, structured interview kits, bulk actions with automated but reviewable candidate communication, and a history on each candidate of every stage change and who made it.

10 — The pipeline is an auditable record of a fair process: every decision attributed and reasoned, evaluation criteria fixed before applications arrive, reporting on time-to-hire and drop-off per stage, and the full history exportable per candidate for an AGG dispute.

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The Skeptic

Requisition approvals with multi-level sign-off, offer approval flows, granular access rights configurable at each stage, and interview kits with scorecards are all stated, and audit trails tracking all changes plus logged, overridable agent decisions give a record of who did what. I found no public information on time-to-hire or drop-off reporting per stage, on bulk actions, or on exporting a candidate's full decision history for a discrimination dispute, so this stops short of an auditable fair-process record. 1 2 6

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Multiposting, career page & candidate experience

How this is scored

Getting a vacancy in front of the right people and letting them apply: job-board distribution for the German market, the career page, and an application process that does not lose candidates on a phone.

0 — No career page and no job-board distribution; vacancies are posted by hand elsewhere.

3 — A basic hosted job list and free aggregator feeds, with no named German boards, and an application form that requires an account or a desktop.

5 — A branded career page, multiposting to named boards including the Bundesagentur für Arbeit and at least one major German paid board, Google for Jobs markup, and mobile application without an account.

8 — Multiposting with booking and budget tracking per board from inside the system, source attribution per applicant, career page in several languages with an embeddable widget, accessibility stated, and an application form configurable per job.

10 — Distribution is measured, not only broadcast: cost and applicants per channel reported, the career page meets a stated accessibility standard, one-click or CV-parse application on mobile, and candidates can see their own status and withdraw themselves.

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The Skeptic

A branded careers-page builder with a website jobs widget, distribution to 200+ boards, Indeed and LinkedIn named as partner channels, and mobile-optimized applications with auto-fill are stated, and candidates can withdraw online directly. I found no public information naming German boards such as the Bundesagentur für Arbeit or a major German paid board, no Google for Jobs markup, no per-board booking or budget tracking, and no source attribution per applicant. 1 2 4

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Retention, deletion & talent-pool consent

How this is scored

What happens to the data of people who were not hired: automatic deletion on a configurable deadline, talent-pool consent that expires, data-subject requests, and access logging — the criterion the employer is actually liable for.

0 — Nothing stated about retention or deletion; applicant data stays until someone removes it by hand.

3 — Manual deletion and an anonymise button exist, but no automatic deadline, and talent-pool storage has no stated consent step.

5 — Automatic deletion or anonymisation after a configurable period after rejection, talent-pool storage only with recorded consent, and a documented way to answer an access or erasure request.

8 — Retention rules per country or entity, consent with expiry and automated re-consent requests, candidate self-service for their own data, a log of who viewed or exported an applicant file, and permissions a works council can review.

10 — Governance that can be evidenced: deletion runs are logged and reportable, special-category data can be excluded or restricted by field, every export is recorded, and the vendor publishes how deletion propagates to backups and to the job boards and tools it syncs with.

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The Skeptic

The retention statement holds data as long as needed to provide the services or fulfil the original purpose — a purpose, not a configurable deletion deadline — and deletion happens on request; the talent CRM is marketed with no stated consent step, expiry or re-consent mechanism. GDPR rights free of charge and a DPO contact are documented, which covers answering an access request, but I found no public information on automatic deletion after rejection, deletion-run logs, view or export logs on applicant files, or how deletion propagates to backups and boards. 2 3

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AI screening transparency & control

How this is scored

Whether any automated ranking, matching, parsing or rejection is disclosed, explained and switchable — recruitment is a high-risk use under the EU AI Act, and an undisclosed score next to a candidate's name is a co-determination matter. A product without AI features is judged on stating so.

0 — AI matching or scoring is marketed with no statement of what it evaluates, where it runs, or whether it can be turned off.

3 — AI features are described as a benefit, with a general assurance that humans decide, but no documentation of inputs, no per-feature switch and no model or provider named.

5 — Each AI feature is described with its purpose and inputs, can be disabled per account, never rejects a candidate without a human action, and the model provider or subprocessor is named.

8 — AI outputs are shown with their reasoning to the recruiter, candidates are informed when AI is used, protected attributes are stated to be excluded, EU processing is available for the AI features, and the vendor publishes its EU AI Act position.

10 — The vendor treats recruitment AI as the high-risk system the law says it is: documentation a works council can base an agreement on, bias testing described and repeated, logs of every AI-assisted decision retained for audit, and every AI feature off by default until the customer enables it.

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The Skeptic

An account-level kill switch with data left intact, configuration per account, per job and per candidate of screening settings and scoring weights, reasoning shown with every score, logged reversible actions, low-confidence cases passed to a human, and protected characteristics excluded by design are all stated, alongside fairness-research participation and an EU AI Act alignment claim. The providers behind the third-party large language models are not named on the captured pages, I found no public information that candidates are informed when AI is used or that AI processing can run in the EU, and the privacy policy's statement that Workable does not engage in automated decision-making sits beside marketing that clear no's are routed out automatically — the captured pages give different pictures of automated rejection. 1 3 4 6

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HR handover, integrations & API

How this is scored

The hire does not end in the ATS: handover to the HR system and payroll, identity and calendar integration, e-signature for contracts, and an API a team can build on.

0 — No integrations and no API; a hired candidate is retyped into the HR system.

3 — A CSV export and an email integration, with a partner marketplace that names no German HR or payroll systems.

5 — A documented API, calendar and video-interview integration, and a named handover to at least one HR system common in DACH (e.g. Personio, DATEV-connected systems, SAP SuccessFactors).

8 — Maintained integrations with several named HR systems carrying the hire's data without retyping, SSO and SCIM, e-signature for offers and contracts, webhooks, and an API with published limits.

10 — Integration is designed rather than bolted on: a versioned API with a deprecation policy, handover that carries documents and consent status into the HR record, deletion that propagates to connected systems, and the vendor maintaining the German integrations itself.

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The Skeptic

A documented REST API with webhooks, MCP access, calendar and Zoom/Teams/Meet integration, e-signatures, single sign-on, and automatic export of a defined field set when a candidate reaches the hired stage are stated. I found no public information naming any specific HR system — not Personio, not a DATEV-connected system, not SAP SuccessFactors — since the handover page is a partner-program page, and there is no public information on SCIM, published API limits, or a deprecation policy. 1 2 7

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European sovereignty

How this is scored

Where applicant data lives, who the contracting entity is, who the subprocessors are — including the job boards, CV parsers and AI providers the system passes CVs to. Independently sourced by the sovereignty pipeline; weighted higher here than in categories holding the customer's own data, because every record belongs to a third party who never chose the vendor.

0 — Non-EU vendor and contracting entity, hosting unstated, subprocessors unnamed, and CV parsing or AI processing of unclear location.

3 — EU hosting offered as an option while the contracting entity is non-EU, or the subprocessor list is absent, or CV parsing and AI features run outside the EU without saying so.

5 — EU hosting as standard and an EU contracting entity, but parts of the chain — parsing, AI, email delivery — are non-EU without an explained safeguard.

8 — EU hosting on named infrastructure, EU contracting entity, subprocessor list published including parsing and AI providers, and a DPA that covers applicant data as the customer's processing.

10 — Sovereign end to end and evidenced: vendor, entity, hosting and every subprocessor European, certification published, and the AI and CV-parsing features run within the EU on providers the customer can see.

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The Skeptic

The privacy policy states the services are hosted and operated in the United States through Workable, Inc., with storage on servers in the USA as well as possibly the EEA but no customer-selectable EU region described, and the contracting entity is the London company under English law with transfers relying on SCCs and the Data Privacy Framework. A sub-processor list exists as a link while the hosting provider itself is not named in the captured text, and where the third-party AI models process candidate data is not stated — for applicant records, this is US-default hosting with no EU option described. 3 4

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Pricing transparency

How this is scored

Whether a buyer can compute the real annual cost from public pages alone: the pricing model (per employee, per open job, per recruiter seat), job-board posting costs, add-ons for AI, career page or integrations, and the minimum term.

0 — No public prices at all; every tier is a sales conversation.

3 — A starting price exists, but the pricing basis (employees, jobs, seats) or which features sit in which tier is unstated — the invoice is unknowable.

5 — Tier prices public with the pricing basis and main limits given, but at least one commonly needed piece (paid job-board postings, AI features, integrations, extra seats) is unpriced.

8 — Every tier priced publicly with its basis and limits, add-on prices listed, job-board posting costs or the booking model stated, minimum term and VAT treatment given.

10 — Complete price computability: annual invoice derivable for a given company size, number of open roles and recruiter seats, with every add-on, posting package and overage published.

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The Skeptic

Three bundles are priced with add-ons itemised — texting, video interviews, assessments, performance — and AI is priced unusually concretely in credit bundles with per-action costs, one-year expiry, a renewal cap of five percent with 45 days' notice, and a 15-day trial without a credit card. But the captured pricing pages do not say what the monthly price is based on — jobs, employees or recruiter seats — and I found no public information on job-board posting costs or the booking model, the minimum term, or VAT treatment, so a real annual invoice for a given company size cannot be computed from public pages alone. 1 2 4

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European sovereignty — proven facts

3 of 4 dimensions proven

Built only from facts shown on the vendor's own pages. A dimension we could not prove is left open, not scored as zero.

Ownership Not determined — uncited Report an error
Data residency US by default ⚠ unverified 0/3 pts 3 Report an error
Subprocessors US CLOUD Act reach ⚠ unverified 0/2 pts 3 Report an error

Where this could be wrong

What we left out

A claim that does not survive our checks costs us the claim, not the page. This is what was taken off this one.

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Sources (7)

The pages every claim on this page was read from — each one checked, dated, and kept verifiable.

  1. 1 Vendor homepage www.workable.com Checked 22 Sep 2026 Details →
  2. 2 Pricing page www.workable.com Checked 22 Sep 2026 Details →
  3. 3 Privacy policy www.workable.com Checked 22 Sep 2026 Details →
  4. 4 Terms of service www.workable.com Checked 22 Sep 2026 Details →
  5. 5 Applicant management & hiring workflow — found from sitemap www.workable.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  6. 6 AI screening transparency & control — found from sitemap www.workable.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  7. 7 HR handover, integrations & API — found from sitemap www.workable.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →