How to Edit, Withdraw or Resubmit a Workday Application

You hit Submit on a Workday application and then notice it: the wrong resume attached, a typo in a job title, a screening answer you misread. The natural next step is to look for an Edit button in Candidate Home. There isn’t one.

This post covers what you can and can’t change after submitting, how to withdraw a Workday application and what that actually does, and whether you can apply again. As with everything in Workday, each employer configures its own site, so I’ll point out where behaviour varies and quote the employers that document it.

Can you edit a Workday application after submitting?

No. Once it’s submitted, a Workday application is locked for the candidate. The University of Wisconsin–Madison’s HR guide puts it plainly: candidates “can only view or withdraw applications once submitted.” Employer instructions say the same thing in their own words:

• Washington and Lee University: “You cannot change your application after submission.”
• McGill University: “After you submit your application, you will not be able to modify it.”
• City of Charlotte: “Once you submit your application, you will not be able to make any changes.”

What you can and can’t change after submitting

Contact details are the exception worth knowing about. The City of Charlotte’s FAQ says you can update your contact information on your profile and the change carries over to applications you’ve already submitted. Not every employer says this, but if your phone number changed, the profile is the place to start.

Recruiters can edit some things for you

Being locked out yourself doesn’t mean nobody can fix it. On the employer side, Workday lets recruiters edit a job application. UW–Madison’s guide for its HR staff says they can edit the source (where you heard about the job), your experience, and your application materials, meaning they can attach a corrected resume. Whether a particular recruiter will is up to them, but it’s the least disruptive fix.

A short email works best:

• The job title and requisition number (often like R12345).
• What was wrong, in one sentence.
• The corrected file attached, if it’s a document.

Reply to the confirmation email if it came from a person, or find the recruiter on LinkedIn. Candidate Home itself usually has no way to message anyone.

Tasks are the other way you’ll add information

Later in the process, an employer may ask you for more: references, a questionnaire, documents for an offer. These arrive as tasks. McGill’s guide describes getting an email that says tasks are waiting, then completing them under My Tasks in Candidate Home. That is new information on top of your application, not an edit to it.

How to withdraw a Workday application

Workday’s administrator guide describes candidate withdrawal as something the employer sets up: when enabled, external candidates get a Withdraw button on their job application in Candidate Home. The steps employers document look like this:

1. Go to the employer’s careers site and sign in.
2. Open Candidate Home and find the job under My Applications.
3. Open the actions for that application. Washington and Lee describes “the three dots in the Action column”; Intel and ALS describe a Manage option.
4. Choose Withdraw Application and confirm. Some employers ask for a reason.

Why there’s no Withdraw button

If you can’t find the option, it’s probably not a glitch. Workday’s guide says the employer chooses which stages allow withdrawal, and at any stage where it hasn’t set that up, the Withdraw button doesn’t appear for external candidates. Some employers also block it once a decision is made: Intel’s support page says “candidates cannot withdraw applications if they were not selected.” In either case, email the recruiter and ask them to withdraw you.

What withdrawing does

• It closes the application. Workday sets your status to the employer’s withdrawal status and closes the job application. It moves to your Inactive applications, usually shown as Withdrawn. (More on what each label means in Workday application status explained.)
• The employer may be notified. Workday lets employers set up a notification that fires on withdrawals, and some show you a confirmation message afterwards.
• You can’t undo it yourself. A University of Texas Workday update announced that recruiters can reactivate a candidate’s application if they were declined or withdrew, so if you withdrew by mistake, contact the recruiter quickly.
• It doesn’t delete your account. Your candidate profile and other applications stay. Deleting the account is a separate step; ALS’s FAQ, for example, puts it under account settings in Candidate Home.

If you’ve already interviewed, add a short email to the recruiter. It’s more polite than a status change, and it keeps the door open for other roles.

Can you reapply after withdrawing on Workday?

This is where employers differ most, so check before you withdraw.

• Some say yes. Case Western Reserve University’s HR FAQ says applications “will need to be withdrawn and you may reapply to the job opening to include any changes or revisions.” The City of Ventura’s FAQ describes the same withdraw-and-reapply route, as long as you do it before the posting closes.
• Some say no. McGill’s guide says “you will not be able to re-apply to the same position.” The City of Charlotte says “candidates cannot submit multiple applications for the same job posting,” though some postings allow it.
• Some suggest a workaround. Intel’s support page says to reapply to a withdrawn requisition by creating a new Workday profile with a different email address. That’s Intel’s own advice for its own site. Elsewhere, a second profile can confuse recruiters, so ask before you try it.

If reapplying is allowed, the posting usually needs to still be open. On the first screen you may see Use My Last Application, which Washington and Lee says lets you “edit all fields and add or replace documents,” so you aren’t starting from zero.

Should you withdraw and reapply, or contact the recruiter?

Knockout answers matter most, because they can close an application before a person ever reads it. I wrote about that in Does an ATS reject resumes?

Avoiding the problem next time

Since you can’t edit after submitting, the review page is your last chance. Two things cause most of the regret:

• Resume parsing errors. Workday’s Autofill with Resume often misplaces jobs and dates. I covered the causes and a checklist in Workday resume parsing errors. And since each employer has its own Workday account, the setup repeats every time; see why Workday makes you create an account.
• Attaching the wrong file. Name every tailored resume after the company and role, so the right one is obvious in the upload dialog.