# How to email a candidate

> Write, schedule and follow emails with a candidate from their OpenATS profile.

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.

*Email & sequences · Last updated 2026-11-11*

---

## Write an email

1. On the candidate’s profile, open **Conversations** and choose **Compose**.
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.
3. Edit the **Subject** and **Body**.
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](https://openats.ai/docs/integrations/connect-gmail) 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.

> **Note:** An email with an attachment, such as an interview confirmation’s calendar file, always goes through OpenATS’s email service, in your workspace’s name, with your address to reply to.

### Send from your own domain

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

1. Under **Send from your own domain**, enter an address, such as careers@ your company’s domain, and choose **Add domain**.
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.
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**.

> **Note:** What you see follows your access. Admins see every email with the candidate; others see mail on the applications they can see, and their own inbox’s mail.

---

Still need help? Write to the OpenATS team at https://openats.ai/support (or support@b150.ai). We reply by email.

Source: https://openats.ai/docs/email-and-sequences/email-a-candidate
OpenATS help center: https://openats.ai/docs