The biggest misnomer I hear about Workable, is that we’re ‘recruiting software for small businesses’. A glimpse into the history of the company helps to understand how that story got started. Workable began as a ‘self-service’ product. Customers would purchase Workable by first signing up for a free trial, and then converting to one of our paid monthly plans. Typically, they did this without interacting with a single sales person.
A testament to this method, and the product itself, Workable was able to grow to over 6000 customers. Not only that, but many of our customers have been growing with us, like HireVue, now with two offices in the USA, two in Europe and another in Australia. Or Carwow, currently hiring in the UK, France, Germany and Spain.
Despite our own rapid growth, we realised we were missing out on customers who wanted to engage with us. Those who liked Workable’s intuitive interface and our approach to the hiring process, but needed help with implementation, or switching from pre-existing, outdated recruiting software. Worse we were leaving it to our competitors to tell the Workable story. And who could blame them for jumping in? While we were busy adding more features, they were talking about us more than we were talking about ourselves.
Learning from our customers and telling Workable’s own story
I joined Workable in November 2016, to build a sales organization to help grow our business. This was when we really began talking with our existing and potential customers. And here’s the thing, when you have 6000 customers, you’re going to have a very wide range of customers to talk to. We discovered that while we did have a number of faithful (busy!) smaller customers, many had grown, and many of our more recent customers were already hiring across different locations, industries and even continents.
If you’re evaluating whether Workable is the right hiring software for you, and asking the question ‘do companies like mine recruit with Workable?’, the answer is yes. Yes they do.
One of the biggest challenges I’ve had since joining Workable is trying to narrow the focus and target of who Workable is best for and how to tell this story. After 18 months, here’s my conclusion:
Workable is the best ATS and recruitment software for companies anywhere in the world, with less than 1000 employees. Sometimes we’re the best for companies between 1000-2000 employees, sometimes not. Enterprise organizations? Occasionally. Ryan Air is a nice example. Definitely when we work with a division, or single country who can operate independently. Rentokill, Dell-EMC, and M&S Digital are great examples among the many who successfully use Workable for part of their business.
The numbers behind the conversations
In addition to the conversations, we looked at the numbers; who was hiring, where they were based, and what kind of industry they’re in. We looked at where organizations were headquartered, where they were posting jobs (not always the same) and how many employees make up a hiring team.
How we did it
Firstly, let’s talk about how we calculate the numbers themselves. We use a data augmentation vendor for firmographic information, and despite its high quality, by the very nature of what we do, it’s outdated and understated. For example, ‘employee count’ is typically 6-12 months old, and most companies come to Workable and hire quickly, sometimes doubling in size within a short period of time. We also work with many new companies, so their data is understated as their employee count would read as zero by default.
Secondly, when it comes to average employee size, large companies (pockets of which might be using Workable, but can have between 5-50,000 employees) can influence the average count too much. For this reason, a median average is a much better indicator.
What we discovered
For every hiring plan, there’s a Workable plan
The ‘typical size’ of company who uses Workable will most likely depend on which Workable plan the company is on. For our monthly, Pay as you Go customers, the median number of employees is 30, the average is 157. This number includes a lot of our smaller businesses, who are typically hiring for less than 5 roles at any point. They enjoy the flexibility our Pay as you Go plan offers. You’ll also find some larger companies represented here—either small pockets using Workable, or others testing Workable out for a few months as part of their evaluation process.
When it comes to our Annual plans, companies on our most popular Workable plan, PRO, have a median of 125 employees, (an average of 849). These companies have on average 25 open jobs and 35 Workable users.
Our Enterprise plans offer some additional features for larger companies. These organizations have a median of 350 employees, (2522 average), and on average 50 open jobs and 66 users.
For smaller companies our Starter Plans are perfect, with median employee numbers similar to Pay as You Go, at 30 (with an average of 159). Starter Plans are also popular with fast growing companies, who use it as a stepping stone before they graduate to PRO.
Remember the customers who came to us with less than 20 employees? Well some of them have gotten pretty big now, and they’ve used Workable at every step along the way. These include Zapier, The Real Real and The Hut Group who have hired close to 1800 employees between them.
Workable customers are national, international and global
At last count, we have companies headquartered in 88 countries recruiting in 22,900 cities across the world, including all 50 US States, DC and Puerto Rico. Visit the Workable Job Board, and you’ll see jobs posted from Paris to Baghdad, Vancouver to Kuala Lumpur, Boise to Tel Aviv.
1450 Workable customers post jobs in 2 or more countries. From fast growing startups expanding internationally, like Peakon, to regional restaurant chains opening in new locations, such as Joey’s restaurants.
A broad range of industries are using Workable to hire
Along with the geographical diversity, this is the MOST interesting thing about my job, and never gets old. Each week I send a company wide email sharing 3 of our newest clients and the reasons why they purchased Workable.
From a Canadian school district in Alberta to a marketing tech firm from Boston. An Events Services company in New York, a Fintech company in London and a Behavioral Healthcare clinic in Houston. Sharing these stories helps keep the product team connected to the customers and ensures everyone understands the value and the mission of our organization.
Some recruiting challenges unite every organization
How can all of these types of companies be the ‘right type’ of company for Workable? I read the call notes and summaries for every new customer. Remarkably, the same challenges cut across every industry and geography. From a dog grooming business in California, to a Korean gaming company recruiting in the UK. They share the same goal of recruiting the right employees fast enough to meet their business goals in a cost effective way. It’s that simple.
Now is always a good time to evaluate your hiring process
Now, the event that prompts people to evaluate Workable is slightly different for every customer. But typically it’s because companies are using some type of manual, ad hoc recruiting process and their needs are outgrowing their emails and spreadsheets, or existing system. They are typically going through a major growth initiative and need to hire quickly and effectively. Maybe they’re opening a new office or restaurant, or perhaps, like fellow Bostonians and Workable users Zaius, they just got a new funding round. In new companies, they want ‘a process’, or maybe they’ve hired a new head of Talent Acquisition to help scale their growth.
We also hear from more traditional companies who are struggling to hire in the current economy. Mid-market companies including; accountancy firms, marketing agencies and engineering companies. Regional brick and mortars such as; auto dealers, restaurants, daycares and dentists.
They want a system that has the flexibility to retain the good parts of their hiring process, while allowing them to modernize their approach. Candidate experience is a priority to all, and companies chose Workable because they want a solution and service that people will actually use because it adds value to their work, versus being a burden.
What this means for you and Workable
Now, back to that ‘Word on the Street’ that Workable is only for small companies. Workable has a wide range of customers, and this has always been the case. The addition of the sales team and new product features over the past 18 months, has increased the number of customers on our PRO and Enterprise accounts, influencing our customer base to include a heavy presence of mid-market customers less than 1000 employees. With this growth, Workable has strengthened our product, services and partnerships, to help this support our expanding account base.
Firstly our Sales Team (located in 3 countries, 4 offices) includes Account Management. This is vital to ensure that we can provide a dedicated point person at Workable for everyone on an Annual Account. We think personal relationships are important. Hiring is important. So it’s good to know the name of the person you’re relying on to help when you need it.
Secondly, our Customer Success, Professional Services and Training teams help onboard customers, recommend and build customer configurations and provide new hire training and ongoing support. Our global support team is responsive 24/7, providing world class support for ALL of our customers.
When we expand our team to our partners, the Workable support team gets bigger. We have exceptionally strong relationships with LinkedIn and Indeed. Our uninterrupted partnership with LinkedIn started way back in 2013 and we became a member of their Preferred Partner Program in 2017. We’ve recently implemented LinkedIn Recruiter System Connect. Workable is a preferred partner for Glassdoor and Indeed and most recently we’ve integrated with Indeed assessments.
If you’re interested in seeing how Workable can help with your own hiring challenges, let’s setup time with a member of the sales team. We’ll plan a time that’s convenient to you, and we’ll talk you through the ways that Workable is helping companies of all shapes and sizes (including ones your own size) to hire more effectively.
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This post was written by Rachel, our SVP of Sales and Marketing. Read more of Rachel’s posts on Workable, or find her on twitter @rachelabates
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