Ghosted? Treat it as a status, not a mystery

Every search collects silences. The application nobody answered, the recruiter who vanished after a great first call, the “we'll get back to you by Friday” that never came. Most trackers have no word for this, so the silences pile up as open questions — and open questions are what make a search feel out of control.

Name it and it stops costing you

Marking a role Ghosted isn't pessimism; it's bookkeeping. It closes the mental loop without deleting the record. The role stops occupying the corner of your mind reserved for “waiting to hear back,” and your pipeline shows only what's actually alive.

Before you mark it, send the nudge

One follow-up, about a week after the silence starts. Two sentences: you're still interested, you're happy to share anything else they need. That's it. Then a rough rule — one more week of nothing, and it's Ghosted. No anger, no third message, no re-reading the thread for hidden meaning.

• Silence after applying is common and rarely personal — postings close, budgets freeze, inboxes overflow.
• Silence after an interview deserves the nudge; you earned the conversation.
• A Ghosted status can come back to life — archive it, and if they write in three weeks, everything is still there.