The gap between applying and hearing anything is the part that stops people. Applications sit for weeks with no explanation, and nothing on the platform tells you whether that means you are still in the running or quietly out.
This is the sequence, what each stage means, and which parts you can influence.
The stages
Every platform here runs some version of the same five steps. The names differ, and so does how much each one asks of you.
- Apply. You pick a role and submit a profile or resume. On Terac, you cannot even reach this step until you have verified a government ID: the application stays locked until you do.
- Screen. An assessment, an AI interview, or both. micro1 runs an AI interview of 20 to 40 minutes. Mercor runs one of about 20 minutes and says it is the only way it screens. Terac’s screener is shorter, 5 to 10 minutes for a voice interview or 2 to 5 for a form. AfterQuery runs an interview and then a short domain assessment.
- Wait for a decision. The stage nobody explains, and the one most of this page is about.
- Contract and onboarding. Sign, get access to the software, usually get added to Slack, and complete whatever training the project requires.
- First task. Paid work begins once you have cleared the training.
What the statuses mean
micro1 shows a status against each application. It does not publish what they mean, so the readings below are how contractors consistently describe them, not micro1’s own definitions. Two of them look like the same outcome and are not.
| Status | What it means |
|---|---|
| Hiring manager reviewing | Your interview is done and a human is deciding. Can sit for weeks. |
| Hiring on hold | The project paused. Not a rejection, and applications have moved from here to selected. |
| Didn’t qualify | You did not clear the interview bar for that role. |
| Not selected | You cleared the bar, and somebody else got the seat. |
| Selected | You have the role. A contract email follows. |
“Didn’t qualify” is about your interview. “Not selected” is about the queue. If you keep getting “not selected”, the interview is not your problem and redoing it differently will not help; there were more qualified people than seats. If you keep getting “didn’t qualify”, the role is a poor match for how you answered.
Contractors report applications sitting in “hiring manager reviewing” for 15 days and beyond, and at least one report describes an application moving from “hiring on hold” to “selected” without warning. A stalled status is not a soft rejection.
How long each stage takes
It varies more than any published figure suggests, and the platforms mostly do not commit.
Mercor is the only one that publishes a number: it says applicants usually hear back two to four weeks after applying. Applicants frequently describe longer.
micro1, Terac and AfterQuery publish no decision timeline at all.
What contractors describe, for the fast cases, is a screen-to-decision gap measured in days rather than weeks on high-volume generalist roles, then a further day or two to onboarding, then training before any paid task. One detailed public timeline for a 10,000-opening video annotation role ran from application on a Saturday morning to a signed contract on Sunday, onboarding the same day, and a background check clearing on the Tuesday.
That is the quick end, and it is quick because the project was hiring at scale. A single-seat specialist role behaves nothing like it.
Seats behind a listing
You cannot know how many people applied. You can know how many the listing is trying to hire, and that varies enormously between platforms.
| Platform | Roles | Openings | Median seats per listing | Largest listing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mercor | 331 | 12,370 | 17 | 947 |
| micro1 | 243 | 58,237 | 45 | 10,000 |
| Terac | 54 | 6,647 | 26 | 901 |
| AfterQuery | 51 | 51 | 1 | 1 |
The typical micro1 listing is hiring dozens of people and its largest is hiring ten thousand. Every AfterQuery listing is hiring exactly one.
That does not tell you your odds, because nobody publishes applicant numbers. It does tell you the shape of what you are entering: a bulk annotation programme behaves like a hiring wave, and a single-seat expert role behaves like a normal job opening with one winner.
If you want a first contract rather than a specific contract, apply where the seats are.
Is the training paid?
Usually. Unpaid work is the main thing separating a real platform from a bad one, so it is worth knowing which parts are which.
Mercor states that some positions start with a paid onboarding period of six hours. Onboarding on these platforms generally means software access, a Slack workspace, and project-specific training you complete before your first real task, and that training is normally compensated.
What is not paid is screening: the interview and any assessment you sit before a decision. That is normal, and it is the same trade as an unpaid job interview anywhere. The line to watch is the one in how to spot an AI training job scam: multi-hour assessments that never convert to paid work are a different thing from a couple of paid onboarding hours.
What you can influence
Not much of the wait. Three things do move.
Which role you apply to. Applying inside your real specialism is the single biggest factor in clearing the screen, because the AI interview builds its questions from the background you describe.
How many you apply to. Public accounts describe dozens of applications before a first contract, including one contractor who reported 33 before being selected. That is not a sign of doing it wrong.
Doing well on the first one. Once you have completed a project, platforms route more work to you, and several accounts describe offers arriving for roles they never applied for. Mercor builds a profile from your screening and matches it against incoming projects, so the first contract is the thing that unlocks the rest.
Nothing you can do shortens “hiring manager reviewing”. Applying elsewhere while it sits is the only real answer.
What to expect, in short
- Screening is unpaid, onboarding and training normally are not
- A stalled status is not a rejection, and “not selected” is not the same as “didn’t qualify”
- Decisions run days on bulk projects and weeks on specialist ones, and only Mercor publishes a figure
- The first contract is the hard one
Browse the open roles to see what is listed now, and sort by openings if you want the listings with the most seats behind them.