By Haseeb Kamran, Founder of VeloApply, 8+ years in recruiting · Updated July 24, 2026 · 9 min read
Quick answer: Check your application status inside the system you applied through, not by email. Workday, Greenhouse, Lever and the rest each keep a candidate account with a status field, and that is the only place the information is reliable. The important thing nobody tells you: those status labels are configured by the employer, so the same words mean different things at different companies. Treat the label as a rough signal, not a verdict, and follow up with a human after one to two weeks of no movement.
Key takeaways
- Check status in the ATS account you created when you applied, not in your inbox.
- Status labels are configured by each employer, so identical wording can mean different things.
- Under review usually means a human has not looked yet, not that they are deciding about you.
- A status that never changes is common and does not always mean rejection.
- Workday keeps a candidate home for each employer, so you may have several separate accounts.
- After one to two weeks of no movement, a short polite follow-up to a person beats refreshing the portal.
- Track applications yourself. Relying on employer portals means checking a dozen systems separately.
On this page
Where to actually check your application status
Most people wait for an email. That is the least reliable place to look, because rejection emails are often not sent at all and confirmation emails say nothing about progress.
The reliable place is the applicant tracking system you applied through. When you applied, you almost certainly created an account, even if it felt like a throwaway step. That account has a candidate home with a status field on each application, and that field is what the recruiter's team is actually updating.
The catch is that these accounts are per-employer, not universal. Applying to twelve companies that all use Workday leaves you with twelve separate Workday accounts on twelve different subdomains. There is no single dashboard, which is the root of the frustration behind this question.
How to check on each major system
| System | Where to look | What you usually see |
|---|---|---|
| Workday | The employer's candidate home, one account per employer | A status on each submitted application |
| Greenhouse | Usually no candidate portal, so email is the main channel | Confirmation, then contact from the recruiter |
| Lever | Usually no candidate login, email driven | Confirmation, then direct contact |
| iCIMS | A candidate profile with an application history | A status label per application |
| Taleo | A candidate account, often with a job submission list | A status per submission |
| LinkedIn Easy Apply | Your own applied jobs list on LinkedIn | Whether you applied and when |
| Indeed | Your Indeed account's applications page | Application sent, and sometimes viewed |
Two things stand out from that table. First, systems built around a candidate portal, mainly Workday, iCIMS and Taleo, are the ones where checking is actually possible. Second, Greenhouse and Lever generally do not give you a portal at all, so if you applied through one of those, there is no status page to refresh and your only real option is a follow-up message.
On the job boards, LinkedIn's guidance on applying to jobs covers where your submitted applications are listed, and Indeed's applying for a job guidance covers the same for applications sent through Indeed. Both show that you applied. Neither tells you what the employer thinks.
If you want the mechanics of each system, we have platform guides for Workday, Greenhouse, Lever, iCIMS and Taleo.
What the status labels actually mean
Here is the part that most articles on this topic get wrong, and it matters.
Status labels are configured by the employer, not fixed by the software. A recruiting team sets up its own hiring stages and decides which of them a candidate can see. That means the same phrase can mean genuinely different things at two companies using the same system, and it means a label you find explained on some other website may not describe what your employer meant by it.
With that caveat, the general pattern across systems looks like this:
| Roughly means | Common wordings | What is actually happening |
|---|---|---|
| Received | Submitted, Application received, In progress | The system has it. Nobody has read it yet |
| Being screened | Under review, Under consideration, In review | It is in a queue a human works through |
| Active | Interviewing, In process, Advanced | You are in the live process |
| Paused | On hold, Position on hold, Requisition closed | Often about the role, not about you |
| Closed | Not selected, No longer under consideration, Position filled | This one is a decision |
The most misread of these is under review. It sounds like someone is weighing you up right now. In practice it usually means your application has entered a queue and has not been opened yet. It is a holding state, not a verdict, and it can sit there for weeks.
What it means when the status never changes
This is the most common experience and it is worth being honest about it. A status that stays the same for a month usually means one of four things:
- The queue is long. Nobody has reached your application yet.
- The role paused. Budget, a reorganisation, or a hiring freeze. This is about the requisition, not about you, and it is far more common than candidates assume.
- They moved on without updating you. Many teams simply never update the status field for candidates who were not selected.
- An internal or referred candidate is in front. The role may be technically open while a preferred candidate goes through the process.
None of those four is something you can fix by refreshing the portal. Three of them are not about the quality of your application at all. This is the practical reason we argue in why you get no response from applications that the number of applications in flight matters more than any single one.
How to ask about your status without annoying anyone
After one to two weeks with no movement, a short message to a human is worth more than any amount of portal checking. The rules are simple.
- Write to a person, not to a no-reply address. The recruiter named on the posting, or someone on the team you found on LinkedIn.
- Keep it to four sentences. Who you are, which role and when you applied, that you remain interested, and one specific reason why.
- Ask about timeline, not about yourself. "Is there a timeline for next steps?" gets answered. "Have you looked at my application?" puts them on the spot.
- Once, then once more. One follow-up after a week or two, one more a fortnight later, then let it go and put the energy into the next application.
We cover the wording in more detail, including what to send and when, in how to follow up after applying.
Why you should track applications yourself
Everything above leads to one conclusion: employer portals were built for the employer, not for you. Twelve applications means twelve logins, twelve inconsistent status vocabularies and no way to see your own search in one view.
Keeping your own record solves that, and it takes very little. For each application, note the company, the role, the date you applied, the link, and the date you last followed up. Those five fields are enough to tell you what needs a follow-up this week and where your time is actually going. A spreadsheet does this perfectly well.
It also makes the labour market visible in a useful way. Hiring volume moves around, and the public data on openings and hires sits in the Bureau of Labor Statistics Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey. Your own numbers, tracked over a few months, tell you something similar about your specific search: whether responses are speeding up, slowing down, or concentrated in one kind of role.
How VeloApply helps
VeloApply keeps the record for you as you apply, so the tracking step does not depend on you remembering to log it. Applications land in your own dashboard with the company, role, date and link, which is the view the employer portals cannot give you because each one only knows about itself.
The Chrome extension is the part that removes the work before that. It reads the application step by step and fills it as it goes, including multi-step Workday forms, and its AI drafts answers to custom screening questions and shows each one for your review. Nothing is submitted until you submit it. The mechanical part gets faster, which leaves you time for the follow-ups that actually move applications forward.
Apply faster, and keep the record without thinking about it
VeloApply fills the repetitive fields, drafts your screening answers for review, and logs every application so you can see your whole search in one place.
See how it works →Frequently asked questions
How do I check my job application status?
Log in to the applicant tracking system you applied through rather than waiting for email. Workday, iCIMS and Taleo give you a candidate account with a status on each application. Greenhouse and Lever usually have no candidate portal, so for those your only real option is a follow-up message to the recruiter.
What does under review mean on a job application?
Usually that your application has entered a queue and has not been opened yet, rather than that someone is actively deciding about you. It is a holding state that can last weeks. Bear in mind employers configure these labels themselves, so the same wording can mean different things at different companies.
How do I check my Workday application status?
Sign in to that employer's Workday candidate home, which is a separate account for each company. Your submitted applications are listed there with a status on each. If you applied to several companies that use Workday, you will have a separate login for each one, since there is no shared dashboard.
My application status has not changed in weeks. Is that bad?
Not necessarily. The four usual causes are a long screening queue, the role being paused or the requisition closed, the team moving on without updating the field, and an internal candidate being ahead of you. Three of those have nothing to do with the quality of your application.
How long should I wait before asking about my application status?
One to two weeks after applying is reasonable. Write to a named person rather than a no-reply address, keep it to about four sentences, and ask about the timeline for next steps rather than about your own application. One follow-up, then one more a fortnight later, is enough.
Why do different companies use different status wording?
Because the wording is configured by the employer, not fixed by the software. Each recruiting team sets up its own hiring stages and decides which ones candidates can see, so identical phrases can mean different things at two companies running the same system.
Keep reading
How long it takes to hear back after applying →
How to follow up after applying →
Why you get no response from applications →
How to apply on Workday →
Why autofill breaks on Greenhouse and Workday →
Applying on a specific platform?
Workday · Greenhouse · Lever · iCIMS · Taleo · Ashby · SmartRecruiters · BambooHR · JazzHR · Jobvite