How to email a candidate

On a candidate’s profile, open Conversations and choose Compose. Pick a template or start blank, then Send now or Schedule. Conversations also shows every email with them from your team’s connected Gmail inboxes, so the whole thread is in one place.

Write an email#

Step 1: On the candidate’s profile, open Conversations and choose Compose.
Step 2: Choose a Template, or Blank.
A template fills in the subject and body, and its merge tokens, such as their first name, are filled in for this candidate. At an agency, the role’s client’s saved visa answers are listed there too.
Step 3: Edit the Subject and Body.
Step 4: Choose Send now, or Schedule and pick a time.
A scheduled email goes out within a quarter of an hour of the time you picked. Until then, Cancel send stops it.

Who it’s from#

An email you write goes from you. When your Gmail is connected with sending on (its card lists Sends email), it goes from your own Gmail, so it’s in your Sent folder and their reply lands in your inbox and here. Otherwise OpenATS sends it in your workspace’s name, from your own domain if an admin has set one up, with your address to reply to, so their answer still comes to you.

Send from your own domain#

Admins choose what candidates see in Settings → Email → Email sending, under Email to candidates comes from.

Step 1: Under Send from your own domain, enter an address, such as careers@ your company’s domain, and choose Add domain.
Step 2: Add the three CNAME records shown where your domain’s DNS is hosted.
How to add them at your DNS host has tips. You don’t need to change your SPF record, and these records don’t affect your own email.
Step 3: Choose Check now.
Once the records are found, the address shows Verified and email to candidates goes from it.

Replies to automatic emails sets where answers to emails nobody sent by hand go. Replies to an email someone on your team wrote always go to that person.

When OpenATS won’t send#

Just before sending, OpenATS checks the person again. It doesn’t send if their address changed since you wrote, they’re off-limits, the address bounced before, or they asked not to be contacted or unsubscribed. Unsubscribing from outreach doesn’t stop emails about their own application.

It also doesn’t send from your Gmail if you’ve left the workspace since writing it, or through OpenATS while your workspace’s email to candidates is paused after too many bounces or complaints. Admins see Email to candidates is paused in Settings → Email → Email sending; contact support to resume it. Email from your own Gmail still goes.

Reading the history#

Label	Where it came from
Sent from connected inbox	A teammate’s Gmail, synced into OpenATS.
Automation	An automatic email or a sequence.
Manual	Written in Compose.
Received	The candidate wrote to someone on your team.

Each email shows its status: Sent, Scheduled, Sending, Not sent (with the reason), Unconfirmed (it may have gone out, so OpenATS won’t send it again) or Canceled.