Every real job posting sits on top of an internal approval record called a requisition. When that record changes state, your application changes with it, and nobody is obliged to tell you. Knowing the states will not make the process faster, but it will stop you from reading a budget decision as a verdict on your profile.
A quick boundary first: this piece is about real requisitions with real headcount behind them. Fake postings and pipeline-building ads are a different problem, covered in our article "What Ghost Jobs Are and How to Spot Them".
What a requisition actually is
Before a recruiter can advertise a role, someone has to approve the cost of filling it. In most companies that approval lives in a requisition: a record that names the hiring manager, the department, the level, the budget line and usually a target start date. The job ad you read on a careers page or a job board is generated from it, not the other way round.
This matters because in most ATS the requisition is the container your application is attached to. Systems like Workday, Greenhouse or SAP SuccessFactors organise candidates around a job record in some form. When the container is paused, closed or replaced, every application inside it is affected at once. The recruiter does not decide your fate one candidate at a time in those moments. A status flips on the parent record and everyone underneath inherits it.
Requisitions typically move through a handful of states. The names vary by company and by system, but the logic is stable: open, on hold, closed or cancelled, filled, and sometimes reopened.
Open and approved: the normal case
An open requisition has budget, an owner and a recruiter working it. Applications come in, get screened, move through stages and either advance or get rejected. This is the state everyone assumes they are in.
Two things are worth knowing even here. First, "open" does not mean "urgent". A requisition can stay open for months because the hiring manager is picky, the salary band is low for the market, or the team is busy. Second, a single requisition can cover more than one seat. In many systems a recruiter can attach several openings to one record, so a rejection for "this role" may simply mean the seat you were considered for went to someone else while another one stays live.
On hold or frozen mid-process
This is the state that produces the most confusion. A requisition goes on hold when the approval behind it is pulled or suspended: a budget review, a reorganisation, a hiring freeze across the business, the hiring manager leaving, or a re-scope of the team. The posting usually disappears from the careers page at this point, which is often the first sign candidates see.
Here is the part that frustrates people. On hold is not closed. In many systems, candidates on a paused requisition stay exactly where they were: "in review", "interview scheduled", "awaiting feedback". No rejection is sent, because nobody has rejected anyone. And no update is sent either, because the recruiter genuinely does not know whether the role comes back. Telling fifty candidates "we might resume, or not, at some point" is awkward, so most teams say nothing and wait for the budget decision.
That is why a hiring freeze usually looks like silence from the outside. It is rarely about you. If you were mid-interview when it happened, your file is typically still attached and your notes are still there.
A hold can end three ways: the requisition is released and resumes, it is cancelled outright, or it sits until someone tidies up the system and closes it in bulk. That last case is when many candidates finally get a generic rejection, sometimes months after their last interview.
Closed and reposted with a different title or level
Sometimes a role disappears and a near-identical one appears a few weeks later, with a new title, a different level or a revised salary range. This is the classic "why did a job posting disappear and come back" moment.
What usually happened: the original requisition was closed or cancelled, and a new one was raised with different parameters. Maybe the manager decided they needed a senior instead of a mid-level hire, or finance approved a different budget. A new requisition is a new record. In many ATS, applications do not migrate automatically from the old one. Your earlier application stays attached to the closed requisition, often marked as rejected or withdrawn by the system.
So if you see the role come back with a changed title or level, assume you need to apply again unless a recruiter tells you otherwise. Your candidate profile may still exist in the database, and a recruiter may find you through search, but your application to the new requisition does not exist until you submit it. (LinkedIn's own "Reposted" label is a separate thing, and our post on job listing labels explains it.)
If the role comes back unchanged, with the same title and level, it may be the same requisition re-advertised rather than a new one. In that case your application is likely still live, and reapplying can create a duplicate that some systems flag.
Filled internally
A requisition can close because someone already inside the company got the job. Sometimes that person applied through the same posting as you. Sometimes they were the front-runner from day one.
The second case is the one candidates find hardest to accept: why advertise a role you have already mentally given to someone? Usually because policy requires it. Many employers have rules that every opening must be posted, internally and often externally, for a minimum period before an offer is made. Public-sector bodies, unionised workplaces and companies with formal fairness commitments are the typical examples. The posting is not fake. The process is real and the role is real, but the internal candidate starts with a head start in context and relationships that an outside application rarely overcomes.
For you, the practical effect is a rejection that arrives without much explanation, or a requisition that simply closes. Some systems send a standard "we have decided to move forward with another candidate" email. Others send nothing. Either way, the outcome says little about how your profile compared, and it is worth noting the team for later.
Reopened months later
Requisitions come back. A freeze lifts in the next fiscal quarter, the internal hire leaves within their first months, or the external hire does not work out. When the original requisition is reopened rather than replaced, the old applications are often still attached to it.
That is when a recruiter may resurface you. They open the record, see candidates who already passed screening or reached interviews, and start there before advertising widely. If you were strong last time, being already in the file is a genuine advantage. The key point is that a reopened requisition, unlike a new one, tends to keep its history.
What you can do at each state
You cannot see the requisition, but you can act sensibly around it:
- Open: apply properly and keep a record of the exact title, the reference number if the ad shows one, and the date. That reference is how you will later tell a new requisition from the old one.
- On hold (posting vanished mid-process): assume the role is paused, not lost. Keep your notes from each interview, and keep your search moving. Do not withdraw.
- Closed and reposted with changes: compare the new ad with your saved copy. Different title, level or reference number usually means a new requisition, so submit a fresh application tailored to the new version.
- Filled internally: accept it, note the hiring manager and team, and watch for the backfill. The person who moved internally often left a role open behind them.
- Reopened: if a recruiter contacts you, update them briefly on what changed since your last conversation. If the same reference reappears and nobody contacts you, a short note to the recruiter you met is reasonable.
When you do reapply, make sure your CV matches the new version of the role rather than the old one. If your LinkedIn profile is the most up-to-date record of your experience, a tool like Postulit can turn it into a fresh CV quickly so you are not editing an old file for a changed title.
A requisition is a budget decision with a job ad attached. Save the ad and its reference every time you apply, so that when a role disappears or comes back you can tell which state it is in and whether you need to act.