A Workday account locked after too many sign-in attempts is usually a timer, not a ban. On most employer career sites you have two ways back in: wait out the lock, or click Forgot Password on that same employer's sign-in page and set a new password from the emailed link. How many attempts trigger the lock, how long it lasts and how many resets you get are settings that differ by employer, and a few employers publish theirs. This guide collects those published rules, the steps that work, the error messages that mean you have hit a limit, and when to stop trying and contact the employer.
Why Workday locks accounts
Workday is not one website with one login. Each employer that uses it runs its own instance, called a tenant, and the candidate account, Candidate Home, lives inside that tenant. Workday's administrator course manual says "Your published external career sites include Candidate Home" and that "Workday uses the candidate's email address as an identifier". It also says "Password rules from the tenant display on the Candidate Home account creation page", which is the clue that security settings belong to each employer.
That design sets up an easy mistake. You have accounts at several companies, made months apart with different passwords, and you type one company's password into another company's sign-in page. A few retries later, that account is locked. Or you never made an account at this employer at all, and the retries get you nowhere. The error text does not help. Candidates on NVIDIA's careers forum report the message "You may have entered the wrong email address or password or your account might be locked", which covers all three possibilities without telling you which one applies.
Here is what four employers that run Workday publish about their lockout rules:
| Employer | Lock trigger | Lock length | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Universities of Wisconsin | 5 failed sign-ins | 30 minutes | UW System knowledge base, updated 30 September 2026 |
| NVIDIA | 5 incorrect passwords | 30 minutes | NVIDIA careers forum, staff reply, November 2025 |
| Kohl's | 5 failed sign-ins in 24 hours | Wait 24 hours from the last attempt | Kohl's careers FAQ |
| Target | 10 failed logins | Not stated | Target careers FAQ |
Kohl's FAQ does not name Workday, but its sign-in links point to a
myworkdayjobs.com address. Target's FAQ calls Workday "our applicant tracking
system". The spread in this table is the point: a rule you read on a forum may
not be the rule at the employer in front of you.
Unlock steps
There is no "unlock" button for candidates. The two documented routes are the timer and the reset.
- Check the address bar. Workday career sites sit at addresses shaped like
company.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com. Make sure you are on the employer you think you are, because an account at one company does not exist at another. - Stop retrying the password. At Kohl's, the 24-hour wait counts from the last login attempt, so every extra try restarts the clock there.
- Wait out the lock if it is short. At an employer with a 30-minute lock, such as the Universities of Wisconsin or NVIDIA, waiting and then typing the password once, carefully, is enough if you know it.
- Or reset the password. The Universities of Wisconsin document Forgot Password as the way a candidate unlocks a locked account. That route is covered next.
If you signed up with Google, Apple or LinkedIn rather than an email and password, the Universities of Wisconsin note that you manage your password through that provider. Use the same sign-in button you used when you created the account. A Workday reset will not help.
Reset your password
The reset path is the same at every employer that publishes it, though the limits are not.
- On the employer's sign-in page, click Forgot Password (some sites label it "Forgot your password?").
- Enter the email address you used to create the account there.
- Open the email and use the link. The Universities of Wisconsin and NVIDIA
both describe it as a one-time link that expires after 2 hours. NVIDIA's
staff reply says its email comes from an
otp.workday.comaddress with the subject "Reset your password for your candidate account", so that is the kind of sender to search your inbox for. - Check spam and junk. Target's FAQ says the email goes to "the email address utilized to create your candidate home account" and tells you to check junk and spam folders.
- Set a new password that meets the rules shown on the page. Each employer sets its own.
Two traps catch people at this stage.
The reset limit. The Universities of Wisconsin and NVIDIA both state that Workday limits candidates to 5 password reset requests in 24 hours. Past that, you see "Failed to initiate password reset, please contact administrator". Both advise waiting 24 hours. Clicking Forgot Password again and again while you wait for a slow email is how most people hit this limit.
The used link. The link is single use. A candidate on NVIDIA's forum reported seeing "you have already used this link" while setting a new password from a reset email, and later found the new password had worked anyway. If you see that message, try signing in with the password you just set before you request another link, and mind the five-request limit.
If no email arrives at all, one common reason is that this employer has no account under that address. You may have applied with a different email, or created the account on another company's site.
When to contact the employer
Contact the employer when the self-service route is exhausted: you have hit the reset limit and cannot wait 24 hours, the reset email never arrives after you have checked spam and the address, or the account is tied to an application you cannot afford to lose.
Contact the employer, not Workday. Workday sells the software, and each employer's recruiting or HR team runs its own site. What the employer can do varies:
- The Universities of Wisconsin state that "Recruiters cannon modify candidate email addresses or passwords" (the typo is theirs), and that this information "can only be updated by the candidate". If you cannot reset, they suggest creating a new account with a different email address. If you had already applied with the old account, they ask you to email their help desk to merge the two, with the candidate ID for each.
- NVIDIA's careers team has acted from its side. In one forum thread the staff reply says the account "was locked due to too many invalid sign-on attempts" and that they "manually reset the account", which sent a new email. In another, the team "reactivated" the account. Workday's setup guide for employers lists a Manage External Accounts task that lets them lock accounts and reset passwords in bulk.
- Kohl's FAQ ends its sign-in troubleshooting with a link to contact the company.
Look for a "candidate support", "applicant help" or "contact us" link on the career site itself, or the employer's careers FAQ. When you write, give the email address on the account, the job title or requisition number if you have applied, and the exact error text. Do not send your password.
If a recruiter has asked you to sign in for a time-sensitive step, such as scheduling an interview, tell that recruiter directly. That is the situation behind the first NVIDIA thread, and a person on the hiring team can usually route it faster than a general inbox.
Avoiding it next time
One email for every application. Workday identifies you by email inside each tenant. One address means every reset link, verification email and status update lands in one place, and you never have to guess which address you used.
A password manager entry per employer. Save each Workday site under its own
myworkdayjobs.com address. Then you are never typing one company's password
into another company's sign-in page, which is an easy way into this
problem.
Finish account setup the first time. Kohl's notes that creating an account with email "requires email verification to complete the account setup process". Click that verification link when you create the account, not weeks later when you need to sign in.
Slow down on the error. When you see the message about the wrong email or password, check the address bar and your password manager before trying again. Three careful checks cost less than a 24-hour lock.
For the account step itself, the guide to creating a Workday account covers what each employer's sign-up asks for. Once you are back in, the post on Workday application status meaning explains what the labels in Candidate Home can and cannot tell you. And if you are wondering why every employer seems to need a new account, the guide to what an ATS is explains how Workday tenants work.
Where ApplyEze fits
Juggling a separate Workday account at every employer is part of why these applications take so long. ApplyEze completes applications on 12 platforms, Workday among them, in a browser on your own machine that you can watch, with a dry-run mode that fills the form and never clicks Submit. Workday applications need a connected application inbox. New accounts get 50 free credits, once per email address with no card, and a credit is used only when an application is confirmed as Submitted. Plans are listed at $19 a month for 700 applications and $99 a month for 3,000.