Use case · SimpleVerifier Team
Cleaning a recruiting email list
Recruiters work two lists: candidates, mostly on personal Gmail, Outlook or Yahoo addresses, and hiring managers at client companies. Verify candidate addresses from your ATS or CV database before an outreach campaign, treat client contacts like any B2B list, and normalise candidate phone numbers to E.164 in the same file before you text.
A candidate database is built over years, one application at a time, and nobody updates their email address with a recruiter when they change it. The result is a list where the most promising profiles are often the oldest records.
Why candidate lists bounce
CVs outlive the addresses on them
Graduate CVs often carry a university address that the institution may close after the student leaves, and older CVs carry ISP or work addresses that have since been shut. These come back invalid with Mailbox not found or No mail server.
A current-employer address is the wrong channel
A candidate's work address may well be valid, but a job pitch sent there is read on their employer's systems. Prefer the personal address for candidate outreach; the business vs personal email guide shows how to tell them apart.
Personal mailboxes vary in what they reveal
Gmail answers per mailbox: of 44,298 gmail.com addresses in our Email List Health Report 2026, 6.0% were rejected as not existing. Yahoo answers yes to everything, so Yahoo candidates always come back risky. Both are covered in checking a Gmail address and checking a Yahoo address.
Hiring managers sit behind corporate mail filters
For business development, client contacts are B2B addresses, and 60.3% of domains behind a security gateway were catch-all in the same report. Expect more risky results on that list than on your candidates.
A candidate outreach workflow
Export the candidate pool as a CSV
Include the candidate ID from your ATS so results can be matched back. If the pool lives in a spreadsheet, the Google Sheets guide or the Sheets add-on works in place.
Verify emails and phone numbers in one pass
When the file has a phone column, each number also gets its international (E.164) form, country and plan-based line type in the results, which is what SMS recruiting tools expect.
Mark failed addresses in the ATS
Rather than deleting the candidate, flag the email as undeliverable so the next recruiter calls or messages instead.
Find hiring managers separately
For client development, run name plus company domain through the email finder to get an address the company's server confirmed, then verify that list on its own.
What to send, and to whom
| Result | What to do | Why |
|---|---|---|
| valid · personal address | Contact | Confirmed and private to the candidate. |
| valid · current-employer address | Avoid for candidate outreach | Deliverable, but read on the employer's systems. |
| risky · Yahoo or catch-all | Contact | Unconfirmable by design, not necessarily dead. |
| risky · Role-based address | Fine for client development, not candidates | careers@ or hr@ at a client company is a reasonable first touch for a business conversation. |
| invalid | Flag in the ATS, use phone | The address cannot receive mail. |
Common questions
- Can I verify personal Gmail addresses from candidate CVs?
- Yes. Gmail's servers say whether a mailbox exists during the check, so Gmail candidates come back valid or invalid rather than risky.
- Should I email candidates at their current work address?
- It may be deliverable, but it is read on the employer's systems. A personal address is the better channel for a job approach.
- Can I validate candidate phone numbers at the same time?
- Yes. A CSV with an email and a phone column gets both checked. Format, country and plan-based line type are included in Pro; live carrier lookups come with Email + Phone.
Verify your candidate list
Pro is $29.99 a month with no cap on verifications: CSV uploads, the API, the Google Sheets add-on and the email finder are all included. Cancel any time.
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