Email templates are useful to ensure that your hiring teams speak with a consistent voice throughout the hiring process. They also help teams comply with regulations (e.g. GDPR) by including all relevant and necessary information.

Only administrators of your Workable account can add and edit email templates. Your templates can be found in menu accessed by clicking your user icon in the upper right of Workable:

New templates can be added using the Add new template link to the top right of the ‘Email templates’ section, and customized as outlined below.

All users on your account will be able to send these templates to candidates, but only admins can create and permanently edit templates.

You’ll also see a list of default templates which cover the most common recruiting communication. Rollover the template name to reveal the ‘preview’, ‘edit’ or ‘delete’ options:

The default templates provided will work ‘out of the box’ for most companies—however, they’re easy to customize too. Select ‘edit’ (on the right of the template name) to get started:

Placeholders

There are a number of ‘placeholders’ you can add to your email templates. These are shown in your working file as green pill-shaped labels inside the email text. They are replaced with a dynamic value (e.g. the candidate’s first name, your name or the position title) when the email is sent, to add a more personal touch to your mass communication. Add or edit placeholders via the [*] icon in the menu bar:

Templates can also include text in curly brackets, eg: {interview-date}. These are to highlight text which must be filled in by the person sending the email. If an account member is using your template and forgets to enter the relevant text, they’ll get an automatic warning to update it.

Adding attachments

Attachments can be added to email templates using the paper clip icon at the bottom right of the window, (see the template image shown above). More than one attachment can be added to a template, and should you add an attachment by mistake it can be deleted quickly using the trashcan icon.

When a template with an attachment has been created and saved, people using the template will still have the option to delete the attachment should they need to, or to add additional attachments when required.

Department and location segmentation 

Restrict access to templates based on a job’s department and/or location to ensure that the right teams use the right communication style.

When editing a template set the department and location fields based on your company’s structure. You can set multiple departments and locations for a single template.

In order for account members to use that template, the job they are working on must have a matching department name and a matching location.

• If both the department and location fields are left blank then the template will be available for all jobs.
• If either the department or location field is blank then the template can be available for any department or location respectively. E.g. a blank department with a “Boston, MA” location would mean that the template is available for all departments, but the job must be in Boston.
• If you create a job without a department or location then you will only be able to select templates without a department or location respectively.

Set a broad location to make the template available for jobs in a big region. The location could be set to “Canada” and the template will be available to jobs in Canada, even though the job itself is likely to be in a specific office (e.g. “Vancouver, Canada”).

Recruiting Admins that are assigned to specific departments/locations, can create templates for the segments they are assigned to. When a Recruiting Admin selects the envelope icon to email a candidate, a "Save template" button will appear. They will be able to save the message they've typed in defining the department and location they want this template to be visible under: