Follow-up
A short, timed message that re-surfaces your application or interview to the person deciding, without asking them to do work.
A follow-up works when it is easy to answer and badly timed follow-ups are the reason people conclude it doesn't work. After an application, roughly a week is the floor and it should go to a human — a recruiter or the hiring manager — not to a careers inbox. After an interview, within a day, referencing something specific from the conversation.
The content that gets a reply is not "just checking in". It is a sentence of new information: something you thought about after the call, a relevant thing you shipped, a genuine question about the role's scope. It gives the other person a reason to respond that isn't purely administrative.
Two follow-ups is the practical ceiling. Beyond that you are not being persistent, you are being a task in someone's inbox that they'd like to close, and the answer that closes it fastest is no.
Ghosting
When an employer stops responding at any stage of a hiring process without ever declining you.
Application tracker
A single record of every role you applied to, with its date, stage, contact, and next action — the job seeker's side of an ATS.
Recruiter screen
The first conversation in most hiring processes — a 20–30 minute call confirming basics and deciding whether to pass you to the hiring manager.