# The Application Portal Status Reference, Each Label Keyed to One Tracker Move

*For any portal label on a live application, state what it proves under the ATS that set it, whether it describes you or the job, and the one tracker move it earns.*

- Canonical URL: https://www.refolk.ai/candidates/guides/application-portal-status-labels-reference
- Pillar: Applying at volume
- Format: Reference
- Published: 2026-11-10
- Last reviewed: 2026-11-10
- Reading time: 19 min
- Keywords: what does under consideration mean on my job application, workday application status meanings, application status in review for weeks, no longer under consideration but job still posted, greenhouse application inactive no rejection email, how to tell if job application was rejected

## Key takeaways

- In iCIMS, any status the employer never gave a candidate-facing label shows as Under Review, so that label alone cannot prove a human looked at your application.
- Greenhouse switches an application to Inactive only after a rejection email is sent or 4 days after a rejection with no email, and it does not notify the candidate, so Active can lag a decision by at least 4 days.
- The word Completed means you finished the form in Taleo but means declined or requisition cancelled in UW-Madison's Workday setup, so every label has to be read together with the ATS that set it.
- Some labels describe the job, not you: the UN's inspira system shows Under consideration to all applicants until someone is selected, and a closed posting is not a rejection.
- In Refolk's index, 9,295 US profiles list iCIMS as a skill against 6,646 for Workday Recruiting, a 1.40x lead that suggests the Under Review fallback is widespread.
- How long a label has sat unchanged tells you nothing, because fallback labels hide movement between internal statuses; assign tracker moves from triggers and emails instead.

This reference is for anyone running a wide search with dozens of applications sitting in employer candidate portals and a tracker that needs to match reality. Each row pairs a label with the applicant tracking system that set it. It says what the label can prove, how it misleads, whether it describes you or the job, and the one tracker move it earns. None of it depends on how long a label has sat unchanged, because that number carries no information.

## How do you read a candidate portal label correctly?

Read every label as a pair: the applicant tracking system (ATS) that produced it plus the word on the screen. An ATS is the software an employer uses to receive and move applications. The same word means different things in different systems, and many labels are defaults that nobody at the employer chose.

Every label you see falls into one of three classes:

- **Form-level.** The label describes your application form, not a decision. Taleo's "Complete" means you finished the form.
- **Vendor fallback.** The system shows this when the employer configured nothing. iCIMS shows "Under Review" for any status without a configured candidate label.
- **Employer-configured.** An admin mapped internal statuses to candidate-facing words. SuccessFactors gives every status both an Internal Label and a Candidate Label.

Underneath all three sits the recruiter's internal view, which you never see. In SAP's own example, the recruiter sees "Interview" while the candidate sees "In Progress". In UW-Madison's Workday setup, a candidate profile has a Status, a Stage and a Step, and changing the Step does not change what the candidate sees.

#### What sits behind one portal label

1. **Job status** - Whether the posting or requisition is still open, filled, or cancelled
2. **Employer-configured label** - An admin's chosen word for one or more internal statuses
3. **Vendor fallback label** - The default shown when nobody configured a label, such as iCIMS Under Review
4. **Internal status and step** - What the recruiter actually sees, invisible to you

*The word on your screen is the thinnest layer, and the recruiter's internal status underneath can change without it moving.*

> **Rule:** Never look up a label without its ATS
>
> Key every tracker row by ATS and label together. "Completed" means a finished form in Taleo and a declined or cancelled requisition in UW-Madison's Workday, so the word alone can send you to the wrong row.

## Which ATS is behind your portal, and how common is each?

You can usually identify the ATS from the portal URL or the domain of the confirmation email, such as icims.com, myworkdayjobs, or hire.lever.co. That tag decides which rows below apply to the application.

For a sense of footprint, Refolk's index of professional profiles shows how many US professionals list each ATS as a skill. These are people who work with the system, not candidates who applied through it, so treat the numbers as a rough guide to how many employers run each system.

| ATS skill | US profiles | Ratio vs Workday Recruiting | Clean count? |
|---|---|---|---|
| iCIMS | 9,295 | 1.40x | Yes |
| Workday Recruiting | 6,646 | 1.00x | Yes |
| Greenhouse | 6,392 | 0.96x | No, mixed with horticulture |

**9,295 - US profiles in Refolk's index listing iCIMS as a skill**

That is 1.40x the 6,646 listing Workday Recruiting, which suggests iCIMS's Under Review fallback covers a large pool of employers.

The Greenhouse count is contaminated. In a 25-profile sample, 2 of the top 10 employers were horticulture firms (Sierra Gold Nurseries and Hort Americas), because "greenhouse" is also a word for a building. Do not compare Greenhouse to the others without checking employer names first. The ratios are derived from these counts. They say something about footprint, not about how many of your applications run through each system.

## What does each system show when the employer configured nothing?

Each ATS has a default state, and that default is what you see whenever the employer did not do the setup. The table below gives the fallback label and who or what changes it. It is the most useful single lookup in this guide.

| System | Label when nothing is configured | Who changes it | Source class |
|---|---|---|---|
| iCIMS | Under Review | Admin, per status and per site | Vendor doc |
| Greenhouse | Active, or nothing if sharing is off | Rejection event plus timer | Vendor doc |
| SuccessFactors | Candidate Label per status (SAP example: In Progress) | Admin | Vendor KBA |
| Workday | Submitted / In Progress (UW-Madison) | Stage mapping | Employer doc |
| Taleo | Complete (form finished) | Candidate action | Secondhand Oracle |
| Lever | No portal | n/a | Blogs only, unverified |

Notes on each row:

- **iCIMS.** Admins set candidate-facing labels for each status and each career site. Any Recruiting Workflow bin or status without a label displays as "Under Review". Two unlabeled statuses look the same to you.
- **Greenhouse.** Statuses appear in MyGreenhouse only if the employer turns them on. Applications are Active by default. The MyGreenhouse Stages view is a separate opt-in that offers standardized candidate-facing stages. MyGreenhouse is only available to external candidates, and in Greenhouse's own words, "MyGreenhouse doesn't show every internal hiring step." Applications sent through LinkedIn or Indeed may not appear at all.
- **SuccessFactors.** Each status has an Internal Label and a Candidate Label. A status can also be enabled separately for internal and external candidates, so a colleague applying internally may see a different label set from yours.
- **Workday.** I found no vendor documentation of candidate labels. UW-Madison's published setup maps the Review stage to "Submitted" and every later active stage to "In Progress". Other employers may map their stages differently.
- **Taleo.** The vendor-defined submission statuses are Draft, Complete and Withdraw. This comes from a secondhand source citing Oracle.
- **Oracle Recruiting Cloud (ORC).** New applications are set to "New". The delivered partner statuses are New, Under Consideration, Screening, Interviewing and Offer Extended.
- **Lever.** Blogs say Lever has no candidate portal. I found no Lever primary source, so treat that as unverified and rely on email for these rows.

## The label lookup tables, one row per label

Each row below gives one of four tracker moves. Every row in your tracker gets exactly one:

- **Keep live.** The application is open and the label gives you no reason to act. Spend no attention on it this sitting.
- **Start the follow-up clock.** The portal will not tell you more, so you set a follow-up date counted from your last dated event: submission, an email, or an interview. The clock never counts from the label's age.
- **Close.** The row records a decision against you. Mark it closed and set a re-check date.
- **Reallocate.** The job closed or stalled at the job level, not because of you. Move your effort to other postings, often at the same employer.

### Open-sounding labels

| Label (ATS) | What it proves | How it misleads | Move |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under Review (iCIMS) | Only that the application exists | Read as "a recruiter opened it"; may be the fallback | Start the follow-up clock |
| Active (Greenhouse) | No rejection email, and no rejection older than 4 days | A rejection may sit inside the 4-day window | Keep live |
| In Progress (SuccessFactors) | Whatever the admin mapped to it | Can hide an interview stage; read as stuck | Keep live |
| Submitted (Workday, UW-Madison) | You are in the Review stage | Step changes under it are invisible | Start the follow-up clock |
| In Progress (Workday, UW-Madison) | You moved past Review | Read as stuck; later stages share one word | Keep live |
| Under Consideration (ORC, Greeley) | Default state of a new application | Read as a human advancing you | Start the follow-up clock |

### Closed-sounding labels

| Label (ATS) | What it proves | How it misleads | Move |
|---|---|---|---|
| Complete (Taleo) | You finished the form | Read as rejected | Start the follow-up clock |
| Completed (Workday, UW-Madison) | You declined, or the requisition was cancelled | Same word means "form done" in Taleo | Close |
| Completed (Northrop, secondhand) | No offer, so you are out | Source is an aggregator, not the employer | Close |
| Inactive (Greenhouse, employer-set) | Rejection email sent, or rejection 4+ days old | You may also have set it yourself, which does not withdraw | Close |
| No longer under consideration (any) | Off this requisition | You may have been moved to another role, or it may be reversed | Close |
| Rejected by Employer (ORC, Greeley) | Rejected, with an email (secondhand) | Can be returned to a prior phase | Close |

### Job-level labels

| Label (system) | What it proves | How it misleads | Move |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under consideration (UN inspira) | The job is in shortlisting, interview or recommendation | Shown to all applicants until someone is selected | Keep live |
| Job status (USAJOBS) | Where the job is in hiring | Not your application status, which is a separate view | Keep live |
| Inactive tab (UW Workday, secondhand) | The posting closed | Read as a rejection | Reallocate |
| Recruitment Closed or Canceled (Louisiana) | Recruitment stopped | Read as a judgment on you | Reallocate |
| Position Filled (Louisiana) | Someone else was hired | Rarely misread | Close |

> A label that never changes is not a slow process. It is a label that cannot report movement.

The disagreement among blogs explains why these tables are split by system. I collected 13 employer and agency sources. "Completed" has at least three meanings across them: form finished (Taleo), declined or requisition cancelled (UW-Madison), and no offer means out (Northrop). "Under Consideration" also has at least three: a job-level process (UN), the default for a new application (Greeley's ORC), and an early New step (Taleo). Five of those 13 sources are known only through aggregator blogs. Nobody has published a systematic count across 10 or more FAQs per label, so if your employer publishes its own status FAQ, its definition overrides these rows.

## What closes an application, and will anyone tell you?

Only some systems document what flips an application to a closed state, and the two that do (Greenhouse and UW-Madison's Workday) send no notice when the status changes. In practice, a closed label usually appears silently, and an open label can stay up after the decision is made.

| System | Trigger for closed state | Automatic notice? |
|---|---|---|
| Greenhouse | Rejection email sent, or rejection + 4 days | No, the status change is silent |
| Workday (UW-Madison) | Status or requisition change | No |
| ORC (Greeley config) | Rejected by Employer state | Yes, email (secondhand) |
| iCIMS / SuccessFactors | Recruiter moves status | Not established |

Greenhouse documents its trigger exactly. An application turns Inactive in one of three cases: a rejection email is sent, a scheduled rejection email goes out, or 4 days pass after the rejection date with no email scheduled or sent. UW-Madison states that changing a candidate's status in Workday, including removing them from consideration or closing the job requisition, sends no notice of any kind.

#### How a Greenhouse application reaches Inactive

1. **Rejection recorded** - The recruiter rejects you internally; your portal still shows Active
2. **Email path** - A rejection email is sent now or scheduled for later
3. **Timer path** - No email is scheduled or sent, so a 4-day clock runs from the rejection date
4. **Inactive** - The label flips silently when the email goes out or the 4 days end

*In Greenhouse the closed state follows the rejection by an email or a 4-day timer, and the candidate is never notified of the change.*

**4 days - Minimum lag between a Greenhouse rejection and the Inactive label when no email is sent**

Greenhouse documents this timer and does not notify the candidate when the status changes.

For iCIMS, SuccessFactors and Taleo, labels appear to change when a recruiter changes the status, with no documented automatic timer. I could not find that confirmed publicly, so do not assume these portals ever close on their own.

## Is the label about you or about the job?

A job-level label describes the requisition and is shown to every applicant. A candidate-level label describes your application. Before you act on any label that sounds like a decision, check which kind it is, because a posting closing is not a rejection.

The clearest examples:

- **UN inspira** shows "Under consideration" to all applicants throughout shortlisting, interview and recommendation, until a candidate is selected. It tells you the job is moving, not where you are.
- **USAJOBS** separates job status from application status. The job status "tells you where the job is in the hiring process". Your own status sits in a separate view. An agency can also cancel a job announcement at any time after posting.
- **Louisiana Civil Service** uses separate statuses for Position Filled, Recruitment Closed, Recruitment Canceled and Eligible for Consideration. Only the last describes you.
- **University of Washington (Workday)**, per a secondhand source, moves the application to an Inactive tab when the posting closes.

#### Which move a label earns by scope and tone

Horizontal axis runs from Candidate-level to Job-level. Vertical axis runs from Open-sounding to Closed-sounding.

| Quadrant | What it means |
| --- | --- |
| Closed, about you | Close the row and set a re-check date |
| Closed, about the job | Reallocate effort to other postings |
| Open, about you | Keep live if configured; start the follow-up clock if a fallback |
| Open, about the job | Keep live; it says nothing about your file |

*Only a closed-sounding label about you earns Close; a closed-sounding label about the job earns Reallocate.*

### When the status says you are out but the job is still posted

No vendor documents what happens to your status when a sibling requisition opens or a posting is taken down, so this is not established publicly. Here is what is documented. UW-Madison says closing a requisition sends no notice. UC Santa Cruz routes only the most recent application when one candidate has duplicates for the same position and withdraws the others. In one candidate's account, a recruiter moved them to a different role and the original application then showed "No longer under consideration". A live posting next to that label can mean the role went to someone else, or it can mean you were moved elsewhere. Close the row, then check your inbox for any mention of another requisition.

## How to clear a 40-row board in one sitting

The procedure below takes every application from a raw label to exactly one tracker move. It works from evidence you can check (the ATS, whether the portal shares statuses, the label class, the scope, and your inbox) and never from how long a label has sat unchanged. Most ranking blogs use time rules, such as following up after 7 to 10 business days. I reject any rule that keys on a label's age, because fallback labels do not move when your application does.

#### Board clearance, one row at a time

1. **Tag each row with its ATS** - Identify the system from the portal URL or sender domain (icims.com, myworkdayjobs, hire.lever.co). About 30 seconds per row; done when every row has an ATS tag.
2. **Check whether the portal shares statuses** - Greenhouse statuses need an admin toggle and Lever has no portal. Mark each row portal speaks or email only.
3. **Classify the label** - Use the fallback table to mark each label form-level, vendor fallback, or employer-configured.
4. **Split job-level from candidate-level** - Check the posting and any separate job-status field, such as USAJOBS job status or a UW Inactive tab. Mark each row job-level or candidate-level.
5. **Search your inbox for a rejection** - Greenhouse lets recruiters schedule or delay the email, so search the employer and ATS domains. Mark the email check yes or no.
6. **Assign one tracker move** - Use the lookup tables to give each row keep live, start the follow-up clock, close, or reallocate. No row ends with zero moves or two.
7. **Set re-check reminders on closed rows** - Put a dated reminder on every closed row, because Lever and Oracle Recruiting Cloud let recruiters reverse a rejection.

Two rules settle most conflicts during step 6:

1. **An email outranks a label.** A rejection email closes the row whatever the portal says, and Greenhouse in particular can show Active while the email sits scheduled.
2. **An email-only row has no portal signal.** Treat it like a fallback label and start the follow-up clock from your submission date.

Copy these columns into your tracker so every row carries the evidence behind its move.

**Tracker columns for portal status**

```
Employer | Role | ATS | Portal speaks or email only | Label as shown | Label class (form / fallback / configured) | Scope (job / candidate) | Rejection email (yes / no) | Move (keep live / follow-up clock / close / reallocate) | Last dated event | Next action date | Re-check date
```

*Paste as a header row; fill one line per application and keep the evidence columns even after you close a row.*

Reallocate rows are where the sitting pays off. Once a row is marked, the job is to put that effort into a posting that is still open. [Refolk](/candidates) tailors your resume to each new posting from your own work history, drafts the cover letter, and scores how well you fit. Moving attention off a dead requisition then takes a few minutes, not an evening of rewriting.

## How label reading goes wrong

Most errors come from reading a label as more certain than it is, in either direction. Each failure below names the misreading, the reason it happens, and the check that catches it.

1. **iCIMS "Under Review" read as human review.** Some blogs say it means a recruiter opened the file. It may just be the fallback for an unlabeled status, and two unlabeled statuses look identical. *Check:* the portal cannot settle this, so treat the label as no information and start the follow-up clock.
2. **Greenhouse "Active" read as alive.** A rejection may sit inside the 4-day window or behind a scheduled email. *Check:* wait for the trigger (an email or the Inactive flip), not for a time rule.
3. **Taleo "Complete" or "Completed" read as rejected.** In Taleo it means the form is done. In UW-Madison's Workday the same word means declined or cancelled. *Check:* confirm the ATS before you read the word.
4. **A job-level label read as candidate-level.** UN "Under consideration" and UW's Inactive tab describe the job. *Check:* look for a separate job-status field and remember that a posting closing is not a rejection.
5. **"No longer under consideration" read as final.** The recruiter may have moved you to another role, and some systems allow reversal. Lever supports unarchiving, and Greeley's ORC guide documents returning a rejected candidate to the prior phase (both secondhand). *Check:* close the row but set a re-check date.
6. **A missing status read as dead.** Greenhouse sharing may be off, and applications sent through LinkedIn or Indeed may not appear in MyGreenhouse at all. *Check:* mark the row email only and work from your inbox.
7. **SuccessFactors "In Progress" read as stuck.** In SAP's own example, that is what the candidate sees while the recruiter sees "Interview". *Check:* keep live; one unchanging label can cover several internal stages.
8. **The "Greenhouse" footprint count read as clean.** The skill keyword picks up horticulture profiles. *Check:* read the employer names before using that count for anything.

> **Watch out:** Do not mark yourself Inactive to tidy up
>
> In MyGreenhouse, an application you mark Inactive yourself is not withdrawn, and you cannot undo the change. If you want out, withdraw through the employer; if you only want a clean board, change your tracker, not the portal.

The reverse error is just as costly: holding a row open because the portal looks hopeful. Greenhouse's portal can be trusted when it shows a closed state and never when it shows an open one. For the open-sounding rows, the follow-up clock is your only real instrument.

## Keeping closed rows honest after the sitting

A cleared board goes stale in two ways: closed rows that reopen and open rows whose labels never move. Plan for both with re-check dates, not with daily portal visits.

Reversals are documented, but only in some systems. Lever supports unarchiving and Greeley's ORC configuration supports returning a rejected candidate to the prior phase, both from secondhand sources. In SuccessFactors, a candidate can be disqualified at any point, even when a specific In Progress status is required, so an open label there can close without warning. A "team-match hold" that reverts a rejection is often mentioned but has not been established publicly. Whether iCIMS, SuccessFactors or Taleo ever close an application on a timer is also not established. If an employer publishes its own applicant status page, as UC Santa Cruz and UW-Madison do, read that page and let it override the rows here.

For follow-up clock rows, send one short message to the recruiter or the hiring contact on the date you set. Keep it to a single question the recruiter can answer in one line.

**Status check on a fallback-label application**

```
Subject: Application status - Senior Analyst, req 12345

Hi Jordan,

I applied for the Senior Analyst role (req 12345) on the 3rd and my portal still shows Under Review, which I understand can be a default label. Could you tell me whether my application is still active for this role or has been moved to another requisition?

Thanks,
Alex Rivera
```

*Send once per follow-up date; swap in the role, the requisition number if shown, and your real submission date.*

When a reply moves a row to keep live, Refolk's fit score is a quick way to decide which of your many open rows deserve the next follow-up and which can wait.

> **Tip:** Re-check closed rows on a date, not by mood
>
> Give every closed row one dated re-check and stop there. Systems that support reversal (Lever, ORC) usually reach you by email, so a second portal visit rarely adds anything.

#### Before you call the board cleared

- [ ] Every row carries an ATS tag taken from the portal URL or sender domain.
- [ ] Every row is marked portal speaks or email only.
- [ ] Every label is classed as form-level, vendor fallback, or employer-configured.
- [ ] Every row is marked job-level or candidate-level.
- [ ] Every row has the inbox rejection check marked yes or no.
- [ ] Every row has exactly one move: keep live, start the follow-up clock, close, or reallocate.
- [ ] No move was assigned because of how long a label sat unchanged.
- [ ] Every follow-up clock row has a next action date counted from a dated event.
- [ ] Every closed row has a re-check date.
- [ ] No application was marked Inactive by you inside MyGreenhouse.

## Frequently asked questions

### What does under consideration mean on my job application?

It depends on the system that set it. In the UN's inspira system, Under consideration is a job-level label shown to all applicants until someone is selected. In one Oracle Recruiting Cloud setup it is the default for a new application, and in Taleo it maps to an early New step. None of these readings means a human advanced you. Find the ATS first, then look up the row for that system.

### Why is my Greenhouse application inactive but I never got a rejection email?

Greenhouse marks an application Inactive 4 days after a rejection if no rejection email was scheduled or sent, and it does not tell the candidate the status changed. An employer-set Inactive with no email is still a rejection, so close the row. One exception: if you marked it Inactive yourself in MyGreenhouse, that does not withdraw the application, and you cannot undo it.

### What do Workday application statuses like Submitted and In Progress mean?

Workday has no published vendor list of candidate labels, because each employer maps its own stages. In UW-Madison's documented setup, Submitted is the Review stage and every later active stage shows as In Progress, so moving from Submitted to In Progress means you advanced. Changes to the Step underneath do not change what you see. At other employers the mapping may be different.

### Why does my application say no longer under consideration when the job is still posted?

A posting that stays up after your status changes is not a contradiction. A recruiter may have moved you to a different role, the employer may have removed a duplicate application, or the decision may later be reversed in systems that allow it. Close the row, set a re-check date, and check your inbox for any mention of another requisition.

### My application has been in review for weeks. Is it dead?

The time in that status tells you nothing. In iCIMS, Under Review is the fallback shown for any status the employer never labeled, so a recruiter can move you through several internal steps and the label stays the same. Start your follow-up clock from your submission date or your last real contact, and close the row only on a rejection email, a closed-state label, or a confirmed job-level closure.

### How can I tell if a job application was rejected?

Look for one of three things: a rejection email in your inbox, a closed-state label you can read with confidence for that ATS (such as an employer-set Greenhouse Inactive or Completed in UW-Madison's Workday), or a job-level closure such as Position Filled. An open-sounding label that never changes is not evidence either way, and a Taleo Complete only means you finished the form.

---

*From the Refolk guide library. I revise these guides rather than replacing them, so the current version is always at https://www.refolk.ai/candidates/guides/application-portal-status-labels-reference*