Former agency recruiter here who's placed people at Workday and knows a few folks on their internal team. The recruiter phone screen there is pretty standard but there are a few things that trip candidates up consistently.
Typical format: 30 minutes, sometimes 45. You're talking to an in-house recruiter, not a technical person. They're screening for fit, timeline, and motivations as much as they're selling the role.
What they actually ask: Walk me through your background / resume. Keep this to 3-4 minutes. They'll stop you if they want more on something. Why Workday? This matters more than at some companies. Workday is proud of their culture and ranking on Best Places to Work lists. A real answer about mission (democratizing enterprise HR for employees, not just companies) lands better than 'you're a big company with good comp'. What are you looking for in your next role? They're checking for red flags: wants to be a solo hero, hates process, doesn't care about customer impact. Comp expectations. Know your number. They'll share a band or ask for yours early. Being evasive slows things down. Availability / timeline. Workday moves at a mid-enterprise pace. Not slow, not frantic. If you're on an urgent timeline, say so early.
What they often don't ask: anything technical. If they do go technical it's surface-level (what languages do you work in, have you worked with enterprise SaaS before). The real technical screen comes next.
Logistics: most initial screens are video now (Zoom or Teams). You won't always get prep materials beforehand. Know the basics about what Workday actually does: cloud-native HCM, financial management, planning. Know they're Pleasanton-based. If you're applying to a specific team, have one thing you know about that area.