Workday - How to POST Application with source

Last updated: September 19, 2025

Overview

This guide illustrates the prerequisites needed and the steps you'll take subsequently to successfully POST an Application in your customer's Workday instance with the application's source attributed to you!

Prerequisites

Source
- Before you start POSTing Applications with source to Workday, your customer must add you as a Recruiting Source within their Workday Instance.
- They will need to follow the process outlined in this guide and share the Reference ID with you.

If your customer does not add you as a Recruiting Source and you attempt to POST Application with a source, Workday will return a failure indicating the source is not valid

POST Application

Base request

A sample request to create an Application is provided below. If you've done this for any other ATS, this should be familiar as it's the same request!

Note that the below request handles the scenario where the Candidate already exists. See this article on nested Candidates for more details

{
    "model": {
        "candidate": {
            "last_name": "LastName",
            "first_name": "FirstName",
            "attachments": [
                {
                    "file_name": "Candidate Resume.pdf",
                    "file_url": "https://mycandidatesresume.com/pdf/sample.pdf",
                    "attachment_type": "RESUME"
                }
            ],
            "phone_numbers": [
                {
                    "value": "123-456-7890",
                    "phone_number_type": "MOBILE"
                }
            ],
            "email_addresses": [
                {
                    "value": "[email protected]",
                    "email_address_type": "WORK"
                }
            ]
        },
        "job": "enter_a_merge_job_id",
        "current_stage": "enter_a_merge_job_interview_stage_id"
    }
}

Including a source

To include a source, you'll need to pass the Reference ID your customer provided in the source field of a POST Application request. Here's an example:

{
    "model": {
        "candidate": {
            "last_name": "LastName",
            "first_name": "FirstName",
            "attachments": [
                {
                    "file_name": "Candidate Resume.pdf",
                    "file_url": "https://mycandidatesresume.com/pdf/sample.pdf",
                    "attachment_type": "RESUME"
                }
            ],
            "phone_numbers": [
                {
                    "value": "123-456-7890",
                    "phone_number_type": "MOBILE"
                }
            ],
            "email_addresses": [
                {
                    "value": "[email protected]",
                    "email_address_type": "WORK"
                }
            ]
        },
        "source": "enter_your_recruiting_source_reference_id",
        "job": "enter_a_merge_job_id",
        "current_stage": "enter_a_merge_job_interview_stage_id"
    }
}

Including Current Company / Title

Workday requires you to include the start year of the experience if you would like to specify the candidate's current company and title.

Including Current Company / Title with a new candidate

The company and title is nested candidate object, and the candidate_start_year will be specified in the integration_params . Here's an example of a POST Application with a new candidate with source , current title, company, and start year

{
    "model": {
        "candidate": {
            "last_name": "LastName",
            "first_name": "FirstName",
            "company": "{current_company}",
            "title": "{current_title}",
            "attachments": [
                {
                    "file_name": "Candidate Resume.pdf",
                    "file_url": "https://mycandidatesresume.com/pdf/sample.pdf",
                    "attachment_type": "RESUME"
                }
            ],
            "phone_numbers": [
                {
                    "value": "123-456-7890",
                    "phone_number_type": "MOBILE"
                }
            ],
            "email_addresses": [
                {
                    "value": "[email protected]",
                    "email_address_type": "WORK"
                }
            ]
        },
        "source": "enter_your_recruiting_source_reference_id",
        "job": "enter_a_merge_job_id",
        "current_stage": "enter_a_merge_job_interview_stage_id",
        "integration_params": {
          "candidate_start_year": "{start_year_of_current_experience}"
        }
    }
}

Including Current Company / Title for an Existing Candidate

For an existing candidate, include all three in the integration_params. Here's an example of a POST Application with an existing candidate with source , current title, company, and start year

{
    "model": {
        "candidate": "enter_a_merge_candidate_id",
        "source": "enter_your_recruiting_source_reference_id",
        "job": "enter_a_merge_job_id",
        "current_stage": "enter_a_merge_job_interview_stage_id",
        "integration_params": {
          "candidate_company": "{company_of_current_experience}",
          "candidate_title": "{title_of_current_experience}"
          "candidate_start_year": "{start_year_of_current_experience}"
        }
    }
}