Case Study
Automated Job Listings Sync for Corporate Careers Portal
Solution
Workday Careers Integration | HR Systems Integration
Industry
Enterprise HR | Careers Platform
Core Technology
AWS Lambda | Algolia
Overview
A global enterprise needed its public careers portal to stay in sync with open roles managed in Workday, its HR system. However, while HR teams created and updated job postings on Workday, candidates expected fast search, filters, and accurate listings on the website.
Keeping the two systems synchronized manually was inefficient and risked outdated or missing job postings.
To solve this, we built a serverless integration layer on AWS that pulls job requisitions from Workday on a schedule, transforms them into a search-friendly format, and keeps the careers site index up to date through Algolia. The solution runs as managed Lambda functions with minimal infrastructure to operate and scales with traffic.
Business Challenge
The client needed its careers portal to reflect the latest opportunities from Workday without relying on manual intervention. However, disconnected systems combined with outdated job listings and the complexity of integrating enterprise HR data created significant operational and technical challenges, such as:
1. Disconnected systems
Open positions were authored and maintained in Workday, while the careers portal needed its own searchable catalog. There was no reliable, automated bridge between the two.
2. Stale or manual listings
Without automation, job postings could lag behind HR updates or require manual exports and uploads. That increased operational overhead and risked showing closed or outdated roles to candidates.
3. Poor candidate experience
Candidates expect to filter by location, country, job category, employment type, remote work, and recency. Raw HR exports do not support that experience out of the box.
4. Enterprise integration complexity
Workday exposes data through secured APIs and structured reports in XML. Connecting to it requires OAuth authentication, parsing non-trivial data shapes, and handling multi-location postings, date fields, and edge cases in job metadata.
the solution
Xavor designed and implemented a two-function serverless application deployed with the Serverless Framework on AWS.
1. Scheduled Job Import Pipeline
A Lambda function runs on a cron schedule every two hours. On each run it:
Authenticates with Workday:
Uses OAuth 2.0 refresh token flow to obtain a short-lived access token.
Fetches open job requisitions:
Calls a Workday custom report endpoint that returns structured XML.
Parses and normalizes the data:
Converts XML to JSON and maps each job into a consistent schema.
Refreshes the Algolia search index:
Clears existing records and replaces them with the latest batch so the careers site reflects current openings.
Prevents overlapping syncs:
Limits concurrency to one reserved execution for the import job to avoid overlapping runs corrupting the index.
2. Scheduled Job Import Pipeline
A second Lambda exposes a REST endpoint, GET /api/fetchjobdetails/{id}, behind an API Gateway with API key authentication. It retrieves full job details from Amazon DynamoDB by requisition ID. This supports job detail pages or downstream consumers that need the complete record rather than the search snippet.
Key Design Decisions
Serverless on AWS:
The job sync process and the job detail API run as AWS Lambda functions. This removes the need to maintain dedicated integration servers and keeps the architecture lightweight, scalable, and easier to operate.
Scheduled Import from Workday:
Open roles are pulled from Workday on a fixed schedule, running every two hours. This approach fits the way HR data is updated and avoids unnecessary complexity from real-time triggers.
Algolia for Search:
Job listings, filters, and sorting are handled through Algolia. This gives candidates fast search and filtering by location, country, category, employment type, remote eligibility, and posting date.
DynamoDB for Job Detail: Full job records, including detailed job descriptions, are stored separately in DynamoDB. When a candidate opens a specific role, the detail API retrieves the complete record by job ID.
Separate Data for Search and Detail: The same Workday feed is transformed into two different outputs: a lighter record for search indexing and a fuller record for job detail pages. This keeps the search fast while still supporting complete job information when needed.
Full Search Reindex on Each Sync:
The Algolia index is replaced during every scheduled sync. This ensures closed or removed jobs automatically disappear from search results without requiring custom comparison or different logic.
Custom Production Domain:
The API is exposed through the organization’s own production domain. This provides a stable, branded URL and makes the integration cleaner for production use.
outcomes & benefits
The automated integration eliminated manual job publishing while ensuring the careers portal consistently reflected the latest openings from Workday.
- 100% automated, hands-off sync: Job listings update on a fixed schedule without manual exports or file transfers, reducing HR and IT operational burden.
- Accurate candidate-facing data: Search results reflect the current open requisition set from the system of record, with closed roles removed on each sync cycle.
- 6+ advanced search filters: Candidates can filter by country, category, employee type, remote eligibility, location, and posting recency, improving job discoverability.
- Up to 70% lower infrastructure overhead: Lambda and API Gateway scale with demand, while the import job runs only when needed. No always-on integration servers are required.
Tools & tech stack
Cloud platform
Compute
Database
Search
HR source
conclusion
This project closes the gap between an enterprise Workday HR environment and a modern careers website experience. By combining scheduled serverless data pipelines, structured XML transformation, and Algolia-powered search, the organization delivers up-to-date job listings with the filtering and speed candidates expect, without maintaining custom search infrastructure or manual data workflows.
Moreover, the architecture is intentionally lean, so that one scheduled function owns data freshness, a separate API serves detail views, and everything is deployed as code through the Serverless Framework. This made the integration easy to monitor, extend, and operate across environments as hiring volume and site requirements grew.
Keep Your Digital Platforms Always Up to Date
Xavor helps enterprises integrate your HR and finance platforms with modern careers portals to automate and improve enterprise search.