When a company says apply on our careers page, the page you land on was almost certainly not built by that company. It's a hosted product, and there are only so many of them. Once you can tell which one you're looking at, a few things get easier.
The ones you'll meet most
| System | Who uses it | How to spot it |
|---|---|---|
| Greenhouse | Startups through large tech | job-boards.greenhouse.io, or an embedded board |
| Workday | Large enterprises, banks, industrials | myworkdayjobs.com, a long URL, a slow form |
| Ashby | Newer, fast-growing startups | jobs.ashbyhq.com, a clean single-page board |
| Lever | Mid-size tech companies | jobs.lever.co |
| SmartRecruiters | Global consumer and retail | jobs.smartrecruiters.com |
| iCIMS | Healthcare, defense, older firms | careers-*.icims.com |
| Oracle, SuccessFactors, Phenom, Avature | Very large enterprises | Branded, but the form gives it away |
Why it's worth knowing
It tells you where the real posting is
If you found a job on an aggregator, the version on the company's own system is the authoritative one. It's more current, it's more complete, and it's where the application goes. When the two disagree about whether a job is open, the ATS is right.
It tells you how the application will go
Workday will make you create an account and retype your resume by hand. Ashby and Greenhouse usually take a file and a handful of fields. Knowing which one you're about to face is the difference between doing it now and putting it off, and putting it off is how a first-hour application turns into a third-day one.
It tells you what a job board can and can't see
Most of these systems publish a structured feed of open jobs, which is how aggregators build an index and also how a tool can read the source directly. The companies that don't use a standard system are the ones that get covered badly everywhere. That's why we have twenty-one hand-written connectors: Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, Goldman Sachs and several trading firms all needed their own.
The practical version
- When you find a job anywhere else, open the company's own careers page and apply from there.
- If it's a Workday shop you'll apply to more than once, make the account before you need it.
- Bookmark the ATS board for the ten companies you care most about. That page changes first.
- Or have something watch those pages for you, which is why this product exists.