What do I export from Greenhouse, Lever, Workable or Ashby?

There is no single export format

The question people ask before a migration is “what does a Greenhouse export actually contain?” \u2014 and it has no fixed answer. Two of the four let you choose the columns; two hand you a shape you do not control.

• Ashby and Workable build the file from fields you select, so two exports from the same account can legitimately differ.
• Greenhouse’s Essential candidate report has a fixed set of roughly 40 columns, arrives as XLS by email rather than CSV in the browser, and is capped at 1,000 applications per report.
• Lever’s data export is a fixed bundle, available to Super Admins only, behind a link that expires \u2014 14 days for the export as a whole, 7 for the candidates part of it.

So plan for the file you actually get rather than a format someone published. What matters is not which columns arrive, but whether our four can be produced from them.

Where the export lives

• Ashby \u2014 Reports › Build › Custom list, choose the Candidates subject, add the fields you want, then Export CSV.
• Greenhouse \u2014 Candidates, apply your filters, then Generate Report. Choose Email as XLS: custom candidate fields are only included in that version, not in the one you view in the app.
• Lever \u2014 the Candidates tab, select the people you want, Export, then Export as CSV. The full account bundle is a separate Super Admin export.
• Workable \u2014 the Candidate details report, exportable to CSV on any plan.

The one column no export will have

role_ref is ours, not theirs. No ATS emits a column with that name, so you create it \u2014 usually by renaming whichever column holds the job, requisition or opening the person applied to, and making the values match your roles CSV.

Everything else maps by renaming. Unknown columns are ignored rather than rejected, so there is no need to strip the export back first. The full list of what we read is in what columns the applicants CSV needs.

Resumes, and what stays behind

A CSV holds text, so resumes travel separately \u2014 we take them as a ZIP alongside the file, with resume_file naming each one. The ATSes differ sharply on whether you get those files at all.

• Workable states it plainly: resumes and other files are not included in the candidate details export. You download them separately or use their API.
• Lever does include profile files in their original format \u2014 the most complete of the four on this point \u2014 though notes come out as JSON and offers are excluded entirely.

Scorecards, interview feedback and internal notes are usually the first casualties of any export, and often need a separate request to the vendor. That is worth knowing before you cancel the old contract, not after \u2014 several of these export links expire.