Email suppressions and delivery problems

See which email addresses have stopped receiving mail from your organisation, why, and how to put one back.

When an email address hard-bounces, Recruit stops sending it further email from your organisation. The addresses that have been blocked this way are listed under Settings > Email Suppressions, where a System Admin or HR user can see why each one was blocked and lift the block. This article also covers the other reasons an email does not arrive (unsubscribes, spam complaints, SMS opt-outs) and how to work out which one applies.

What a suppression is

A suppression is a block on one email address, created automatically when an email to it comes back as a permanent failure, for example because the mailbox does not exist. It applies to your organisation only. The block is not shared with other Recruit customers. Nobody adds an address to the list by hand.

The block covers emails Recruit would send as part of your hiring process, including messages you write yourself from a candidate's profile, stage emails, rejection emails, offers and scheduling invitations. A small group of essential system emails, such as password resets, user invitations, approval requests, reference requests, reminders to complete forms and interview cancellations, are still attempted to a suppressed address. They may fail at the email provider, but Recruit does not hold them back.

Why an email can fail to reach someone

Hard bounce. The receiving server refused the email for good. The address is added to the suppression list and no further emails are sent to it.
Soft bounce. A temporary problem, such as a full mailbox or a server that is busy. Nothing is blocked, and later emails to the address are still sent. Recent soft bounces are listed for reference (see below).
Spam complaint. The recipient marked an email as spam. Recruit unsubscribes that address from all non-essential email from your organisation. This is recorded as an unsubscribe, not as a suppression, so it does not appear in the suppression list. If the email complained about was one of the essential system emails listed above, no unsubscribe is created.
Unsubscribe. The recipient used the unsubscribe link in an email. Email of that type, or all non-essential email if the unsubscribe was global, is no longer sent to them.
SMS opt-out. The recipient replied STOP to a text message. Recruit adds "Reply STOP to opt out." to outgoing texts and stops sending texts to that phone number.

Who can view and remove suppressions

System Admin and HR users can open Email Suppressions and lift a suppression. Other roles do not see the card in Settings, and opening the page directly shows the message "Only admins and HR users can view email suppressions." The Email Activity tab of the Audit Log, which is useful for diagnosis, is available to System Admins only.

The Email Suppressions screen

Go to Settings and select Email Suppressions. The page has two tabs.

Blocked (permanent bounces)

This tab lists every blocked address, newest first, 20 to a page. Use the Search by address box to find one. It matches any part of the address. The columns are:

Address: the blocked address, shown in full. An Also unsubscribed label appears beside it if the address has also unsubscribed.
Reason: the explanation returned by the receiving mail server. If the server gave none, Recruit shows the bounce type, or No reason recorded. Hover over a long reason to read all of it.
Triggered by: the type of email that bounced and the date it was sent. If that original email has since been removed from Recruit's records, this reads Original email no longer on record.
Suppressed: the date and time the address was blocked.
Actions: the Lift button.

If nothing is blocked, the tab reads No addresses are suppressed. A search with no results reads No addresses match your search.

Temporary bounces

This tab lists soft bounces from the last 30 days. These addresses are not blocked, so there is nothing to lift. The columns are Recipient, Email type, Reason and Email sent. The same search box applies. When an email went to several recipients at once, Recruit cannot tell which address bounced, so those addresses are partly hidden and cannot be searched. Emails sent to a single recipient show the address in full.

Lifting a suppression

Open the Blocked (permanent bounces) tab and find the address.
Select Lift in the Actions column.
In the Lift this suppression? box, read the message and select Lift suppression. Select Keep suppressed to leave things as they are.
A confirmation reads Suppression lifted for followed by the address, and the row disappears from the list.

Lifting deletes the entry and the address can receive email from your organisation again. It does not guarantee the next email arrives. If that email hard-bounces, the address is suppressed again. The lift is recorded in the Audit Log with the address, the original reason and the date it was suppressed. The entry cannot be restored once lifted, but a later hard bounce creates a new one.

Lift only after you have reason to think the address now works, for example when a candidate confirms it is correct or a full mailbox has been cleared. If the address really does not exist, lifting only produces another bounce.

When Lift is greyed out

If the address has also unsubscribed or complained, the row shows Also unsubscribed and the Lift button is disabled. Lifting the block would not restore delivery, because the recipient has withdrawn consent. If you try anyway, the message reads "This address withdrew consent, so lifting the suppression would not restore delivery." Unsubscribes and SMS opt-outs cannot be removed from the Email Suppressions screen.

What recruiters and candidates see

Sending from a candidate's profile

If you send an email from a candidate's profile and their address is blocked or unsubscribed, a red message reads Email not delivered: "Nothing was sent to [name], their address is unsubscribed or blocked, or the send was rejected." Nothing reaches the candidate. In a bulk email, candidates with a blocked address are left out and listed as excluded, and the rest are sent as normal.

The Communications tab

Every email is recorded on the candidate's Communications tab with one of these statuses: Queued, Scheduled, Sending, Sent, Cancelled, Failed or Bounced.

Failed means Recruit did not deliver the email. Hover over the status to see the reason, for example "Recipient address is suppressed (bounced or complained)", "Recipient had unsubscribed", "Sending limit reached", "The email provider rejected the send" or "No template or content was configured". Opening the row shows the same text under Reason. A spam complaint also moves an email to Failed.
Bounced means the email was sent but the receiving server sent it back later. Both hard and soft bounces set this status.

Failed and Bounced emails have a Resend button. It opens a box with the Recipient address filled in, which you can correct before selecting Resend. If the corrected send succeeds, Recruit also updates the stored email address for that person. Resending to an address that is still suppressed or unsubscribed fails again.

Offers

Offer emails are treated like any other email. If the candidate's address is suppressed or unsubscribed, the offer is still marked as sent, and the offer text message is queued separately, but the offer email itself is not delivered. The Communications tab shows a Failed email with the reason. Check the tab after sending an offer to a candidate whose address has caused problems, and contact them another way if it failed.

Text messages

Once a candidate replies STOP, texts to that number are not sent. They appear as failed on the Communications tab, and in the Audit Log under SMS Activity the number carries an Opted out label.

Working out why an email did not arrive

Open the candidate and go to the Communications tab. Find the email and read its status.
If it is Failed, hover over the status for the reason. "Suppressed" means the address hard-bounced: search for it under Email Suppressions and check the address is right. "Had unsubscribed" means the candidate opted out, and you will need to reach them another way.
If it is Bounced, look the address up under both tabs of Email Suppressions. A hard bounce appears on the Blocked tab and a soft bounce on the Temporary bounces tab.
If the status is Sent but the candidate says nothing came, a System Admin can open the Audit Log, choose the Email Activity tab and filter by Status and date range. Statuses include Sent, Delivered, Bounced, Complained, Failed, Rate Limited, Unsubscribed and Suppressed. Bounced rows show a Bounce Reason.
If the address was mistyped, use Resend and enter the correct one. The corrected send goes to the new address, which is not blocked.

The daily delivery issues email

Each day, if any emails failed or were not sent in the previous 24 hours, Recruit emails every active System Admin a summary titled "Email delivery issues in the last 24h". It lists counts by email type and reason. It does not include candidate names, addresses or message content, so use the Communications tab and Audit Log to find the individual emails.

The email is on by default. A System Admin can turn it off under Settings > Notifications > Configure defaults, using the Send admins a daily email about delivery issues switch under Email delivery issues digest. The switch changes only this email. Other notifications are unaffected.