applicant

UK/ˈæp.lɪ.kənt/US/ˈæp.lə.kənt/

nounB2+Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #9,916 of 15,258leans written

Other forms: applicants

An applicant is a person trying to get the job. The name at the top of the form, before anybody has met them.

The word covers anyone applying for anything — a job, a visa, a licence, a place at university — and it belongs to the paperwork side of the process. Once somebody reaches an interview they usually become a candidate instead. The verb is apply, which takes for, and the thing submitted is an application. Employers speak of a strong field of applicants when a lot of good ones have come forward.

Definitions of applicant

1nounapplicantA person who formally asks for a job, place or permission.B2+
“There were sixty applicants for a single post.”

Also accepted in games: candidate

Where it comes from

Latin
applicans
English, today
applicant

From Latin applicans, present participle of applicare. See apply.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Work & Careers, A Man Called Ove

First appears in chapter 23 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

applicant in the wild

The applicants are interviewed one by one in random order.
Secretary problem
During the interview, the administrator gains information sufficient to rank the applicant among all applicants interviewed so far, but is unaware of the quality of yet unseen applicants.
Secretary problem
If an applicant only meets the first three of these tests councils still have a duty to provide interim accommodation.
Homelessness in England
A case interview is a job interview in which the applicant is presented with a challenging business scenario that they must investigate and propose a solution to.
Case interview

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

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