Ontario's 45-Day Interview Rule Owes You a Status, Not a Verdict

If you had a final interview in Ontario in late October and haven't heard back, the date now works for you. Since Jan 1, 2026, employers with 25 or more staff have to tell every candidate they interviewed where things stand within 45 days of the last interview. For late-October interviews, that deadline falls in the first half of December. A November TechBullion explainer on AI screening also pointed people back to the rest of the rules. The posting itself now has to say whether AI screens you, whether the job is actually open, and what it pays.

What does Ontario's 45-day interview rule actually require?

A covered employer has to tell each candidate it interviewed whether a hiring decision has been made, and it has to do that within 45 days of the last interview. The duty is to report a status. It doesn't require a verdict, and it doesn't cover anyone who was never interviewed.

That's the part the "Ontario employer ghosting after interview law" headlines get wrong. Osler's employer-side guide describes the duty as telling the candidate whether a decision has been made. Read that way, a "no decision yet" email on day 44 appears to meet the rule. What day 45 guarantees you is a status update. It doesn't guarantee a yes or a no.

Here's how the regulation works:

• The clock starts on the date of the interview. If there were several interviews for the same posting, it starts on the date of the last one.
• An interview is a meeting where you're asked questions to assess your suitability. It does not include preliminary screening done before candidates are picked for that meeting, so the recruiter phone screen doesn't count.
• Rounds less than 45 days apart share one clock. The employer has to inform you once, counting from the last round. Rounds more than 45 days apart each start their own clock.
• The notice can be given in person, in writing, or using technology. An email counts.
• Applicants who were never interviewed get nothing. The employer still owes you no reply.

The Workers Action Centre, a Toronto worker-advocacy group, calls 45 days "still a long time to wait." I agree. The rule's real value isn't speed. It gives you a fixed date you can plan around and point to.

Is the job posting you're looking at covered?

A posting is covered if it's publicly advertised and the employer had 25 or more employees on the day it went up. If the employer had fewer than 25 that day, Part III.1 of the Employment Standards Act doesn't apply at all, and Part III.1 is where the job posting rules, including the 45-day notice, live.

Before you apply, or before you start counting days, check four things:

1. Is it a publicly advertised posting? That's the kind of posting the rules are written for.
2. Did the employer have 25 or more employees on the day it posted? Headcount is measured on the posting date. A careers page or company profile usually gives a rough size. A ten-person startup is out.
3. Does the posting carry the new lines? Look for a pay range, an AI statement and an existing-vacancy statement. If a large employer's posting has none of them, it's either outdated or out of compliance.
4. Was your conversation an interview or a screen? Only the real interview starts the 45-day clock.

The headcount test is where most confusion comes from. A company that grows past 25 after it posted doesn't pull that posting under the rule. A company that was over 25 when it posted and has since cut staff is still on the hook.

How to read the AI line in an Ontario job posting

The Ontario job posting AI disclosure only tells you whether AI is used to screen, assess or select applicants. It doesn't say what the AI does or how it scores you. It's useful for comparing one posting to another. It won't tell you how you'll be judged.

The Workers Action Centre is blunt about this: employers don't have to give any details of the AI system or how it's used, and the rules don't prevent or limit AI use. A "yes" tells you very little.

A "no" may simply be wrong. One law firm notes that the regulation's definition of AI is broad enough to cover screening features built into an applicant tracking system, including features the employer didn't choose and may not know about. Greenhouse, whose 2026 AI in Hiring report the TechBullion piece cites, lets employers reject candidates automatically based on a yes-or-no or multiple-choice answer, and recruiters aren't notified about those rejections. A knockout question is a screening question that rejects you automatically if you give the wrong answer. If a posting has knockout questions, an automated filter is already looking at your application, whatever the AI line says.

What you can do about it:

• Answer knockout questions literally and accurately. "Do you have 5+ years of X?" is a filter, not a conversation. If you have 4.5 years, the honest answer is no. Explain the context in your resume instead.
• Use the posting's own words. You can't see the scoring model, so the safest move is to show clearly how your background matches each listed requirement.
• Treat a "no AI" line on a big employer's ATS with suspicion. The software may be filtering anyway.

That second point is the tedious part, and it's the work Refolk takes off you: paste the posting, and Refolk rewrites your own resume against its requirements and shows you which ones you actually meet.

Recruiters rarely mention AI, and the ones who do are clustered in Ontario

Refolk's index shows how far apart the disclosure duty and recruiter practice are. Recruiters almost never put AI in their own headlines.

Where those few are located matters more than how many there are.

The samples are small, so read them as a direction rather than a measurement. Still, the AI-mentioning recruiters were about twice as likely to be based in Ontario (Toronto, the GTA, Ottawa, Brampton) as the recruiter pool overall. My read is that the new tools and the disclosure duty are both reaching the GTA first. BDO Canada, CGI, Accenture and Prophix came up among the AI-active recruiters in the sample. That says nothing about whether their postings comply. It shows where the tooling is in use.

AI also isn't clearing recruiters' desks. In Greenhouse's 2026 report, 62% of recruiters said their workload had grown, not shrunk. That's the backdrop the 45-day deadline lands in: more screening software, and recruiters with less time, not more.

What the existing vacancy and pay lines tell you

The Ontario job posting existing vacancy disclosure tells you whether there's a real role to fill right now. The pay range, which can't be more than $50,000 wide, tells you whether that role is worth your time. Together they're the fastest way to sort which postings deserve real effort.

An existing vacancy is a position that's open now, as opposed to a speculative posting. A Lexology analysis describes speculative postings as ones meant to gauge talent or gather market data. If a posting says "not an existing vacancy," you're applying to a pipeline, not a seat.

On pay, Achkar Law points out a detail that's easy to misread. If expected pay is above $200,000, or the range tops out above $200,000, the posting doesn't have to include pay at all. That's an exemption from disclosing pay. It doesn't let an employer post a range wider than $50,000.

Here's how I'd sort postings:

• Existing vacancy, pay range overlaps yours. Tailor fully and apply this week.
• Existing vacancy, no pay listed. Either the role pays over $200,000, the employer isn't covered, or the posting doesn't comply. Check headcount before you assume it's a senior role.
• Not an existing vacancy. Send a lighter application and expect a long wait. You probably won't be interviewed soon, so the 45-day clock may never start.
• Range wider than $50,000. The posting doesn't comply. Note it and decide whether that's a sign of how the employer runs hiring.

Why December is the month this rule gets tested

Late-October interviews reach their 45-day deadline in December, and they land in a weakening market: Ontario's unemployment rate hit 7.3% in October, above the national 6.7%.

With 648,000 Ontarians out of work, every week spent waiting on a silent employer costs more. Before 2026, that silence could last indefinitely. Now a covered employer has to send something by day 45. Expect plenty of "we're still deciding" messages in December. Those appear to be compliant, and they're more useful than they sound, because they tell you the role hasn't been filled yet.

If you're searching in Toronto, here are roles you can apply to now while you wait on earlier interviews.

How to date your follow-up to the 45-day clock

Count 45 days from your last real interview. Send a short nudge around day 30. If day 45 passes with nothing, follow up in writing on day 46 before you think about a complaint.

Here's what that looks like for late-October interviews:

Step by step:

1. Log every round with its date. Leave out the recruiter screen, since it doesn't count as an interview.
2. Check the gaps. A new round within 45 days of the last one resets the clock. A final round on Nov 20 pushes your deadline to Jan 4, past the holidays.
3. Send the day 30 nudge. Two lines are enough: you're still interested, and you'd welcome a timeline. Don't cite the law yet.
4. Send the day 46 follow-up in writing. Give the date of your last interview and ask whether a hiring decision has been made. That's the exact question the rule says they must answer.
5. Keep everything. Interview invites, calendar entries and your follow-ups are your evidence if you escalate.

The 45-day rule doesn't fix the bigger cost of being ghosted. One silent company isn't the problem. The problem is the weeks spent refreshing your inbox instead of building the next pipeline. And the rule does nothing for the applications that never reached an interview.

Where to report a missed 45-day notice

You can file a free complaint with Ontario's Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development (MLITSD) through its online portal or by calling 1-800-531-5551. File against the employer, not the job board.

After a complaint, an employment standards officer can investigate and issue orders, and the Act's penalty and prosecution provisions apply. On conviction, a corporation faces:

• Up to $100,000 for a first conviction
• Up to $250,000 for a second conviction
• Up to $500,000 for a third or later conviction

Hicks Morley flags a trap here. Individuals can't file complaints under section 96(1) of the ESA for breaches of the platform-specific requirements. If a job board mishandles something, that isn't your complaint to file. The employer's missed notice is.

Before you file, gather:

• The posting (a screenshot showing the date, if you can)
• Interview invitations and the dates you attended
• Your day 30 and day 46 follow-ups
• Any evidence the employer had 25 or more staff when it posted

Be realistic about what a complaint gets you. It won't get you the job. It puts the missed notice on record with the body that can investigate it, and it ends a waiting game you've already lost.

FAQ

Does a recruiter phone screen start the 45-day clock?

No. The regulation defines an interview as a meeting where questions are asked to assess your suitability, and it specifically excludes preliminary screening done before candidates are selected for that meeting. Your clock starts at the first real interview and resets with each later round held within 45 days of the previous one.

Does the employer have to tell me whether I got the job?

Not exactly. Employer-side guides such as Osler's describe the duty as telling you whether a hiring decision has been made. A message on day 44 saying no decision has been made yet appears to comply. The rule asks for one notice, so after that the follow-up is on you. Use the update to decide how much more time to invest.

What if the company has fewer than 25 employees?

Then none of the Part III.1 job posting rules apply, including the 45-day notice, the AI line and the vacancy line. Coverage is based on headcount on the day the job is posted, so a startup that hires quickly afterward doesn't bring its older postings under the rule.

Can a second round months later start a new deadline?

Yes. If interviews for the same posting are more than 45 days apart, each one starts its own 45-day clock. If they're less than 45 days apart, the employer only has to inform you once, counting from the last round. Keep dated records of every round so you know which deadline applies.