What your application status means in Workday, Greenhouse, Lever and iCIMS

Applications go into an applicant tracking system, and the system shows you a status. People refresh it for weeks. Here is what the statuses mean in the four systems you will see most, and what a recruiter is usually doing on the other side.

Workday

Workday is the one with the portal you create an account for. Its statuses are the most watched and the least informative.

• Submitted or Received: it is in. Nothing else has happened.
• Under Review or In Review: the application is visible to the recruiting team. It does not mean a human has opened it. Many Workday setups put every application here automatically.
• In Process or Interviewing: someone moved you forward. This is the first status that means a person acted.
• Not Selected, No Longer Under Consideration: a rejection, often sent in a batch when the role closes, sometimes months later.
• Position Closed or Withdrawn: the requisition was cancelled or you withdrew.

Silence on Workday is normal and says nothing. The status to hope for is In Process. Everything before it is the queue.

Greenhouse

Greenhouse is what many tech companies use. Candidates usually see very little, because the status detail lives on the recruiter's side.

• Your confirmation email is the receipt. After that, the candidate view rarely changes.
• Internally, recruiters move applications through stages: application review, phone screen, interviews, offer. A scorecard is filled in at each stage by the people who met you.
• Rejected emails come when a recruiter processes the stage, which may be the day they read you or the day the role closes.

With Greenhouse, no news means nobody has moved you yet. A screen invitation is the signal.

Lever

Lever shows candidates even less than Greenhouse, by design.

• You get a confirmation email. There is no portal to check.
• Internally your application sits in a pipeline stage: new applicant, reached out, phone screen, on-site, offer. Recruiters work from the "new" pile, often newest first.
• Rejections are email, usually templated, sometimes delayed to the role's close.

Lever favours applications that arrive early, because the pile is read from the top down and the top is the most recent.

iCIMS

iCIMS is common at large employers outside tech. Its statuses are closer to Workday's.

• Submitted, Received: in the system.
• In Process, Under Consideration: visible to the team, not necessarily read.
• Interview: a person acted.
• Not Selected, Closed: the end, often batched.

What statuses can't tell you

Whether anyone read your application, how many others applied, or whether the role is still really open. For the last one, check the company's careers page: if the role is gone there, the process is over whatever your status says.

When silence means no

A reasonable rule: if a role is still open after three weeks and your status hasn't moved, one short follow-up to the recruiter is fine. If the role has closed and you heard nothing, treat it as a no and move on. Batch rejections arrive weeks later or never.

What we do with this

IdealJob's tracker records what you applied to, and a week later asks whether anyone replied. Those answers, across many people, tell the Career Agent which companies answer and which don't, so the roles it emails you lean toward the ones that do. Apply with IdealJob also knows which systems need an account, like Workday, and which it can submit to directly, so you aren't surprised at the form.