Let’s be honest…
There is nothing more soul-destroying in this job than spending hours crafting the perfect business development sequence…
Sourcing the data… Personalising the openers… Checking the LinkedIn profile to find that one nugget of gold… Hitting send…
And then… silence.
No replies. No “not interested.” Just tumbleweed.
It makes you question your ability. “Is my copy rubbish?” “Is the market dead?” “Have I lost my touch?”
But 9 times out of 10, the problem isn’t your sales pitch. The problem isn’t that the client hates you.
The problem is that your recruitment emails go to spam. They went straight to the junk folder to die.
And it hurts. Especially when you’ve put the graft in.
With Google and Outlook clamping down harder than ever on bulk senders in 2024 (thanks to their new sender requirements), getting into the primary inbox is becoming a serious art form.
If you’re finding your open rates are tanking or you’re just getting paranoid that no one is reading your stuff here are 5 fixes you need to look at today.
I know, I know. “I’m a recruiter, Luke, not an IT technician.”
But if you want to run a business (or a successful desk) in the modern era, you can’t afford to faff about with this anymore. You can’t just rely on “hope” as a strategy.
Think of SPF, DKIM, and DMARC as your digital ID card.
When your email arrives at a client’s server (let’s say, Google’s gatekeepers), a digital bouncer checks your ID.
If you turn up to the club without your ID, the bouncer isn’t letting you in. They’re detaining you in the Spam folder along with the Prince of Nigeria who wants to give you his inheritance.
You need to log into your domain provider (GoDaddy, Namecheap, etc.) and ensure these records are set up.
If you don’t do this, you look like a scammer. Simple as that.
This is a classic rookie error I see Founders make all the time.
You buy a new domain (e.g., luke@recruitment-hero.com), you set up your email address, and because you’re desperate to get some cash in the door, you immediately blast out 500 emails on Day 1.
Big mistake.
If a brand new email address suddenly starts sending high volume, the email providers see that as “unnatural behaviour.”
Normal humans don’t send 500 emails on their first day at work. Bots do.
You need to warm up your inbox. You need to prove to Google that you are a human being behaving normally.
Here is a rough schedule you should stick to for a new domain:
I know it feels slow. I know you want to get stuck in. But if you try to cheat the system, you’ll get burnt, your domain will get blacklisted, and nothing will get through.
We’ve all done it. Scraped a list from somewhere dodgy, or dug out a dusty spreadsheet from 2019 that’s been sitting on your desktop…
“I’ll just email them all and see what sticks.”
The problem is, people move jobs. Companies go bust. Emails get deactivated.
If you send emails to addresses that no longer exist (known as a Hard Bounce), your “Sender Reputation” takes a massive hit.
If you have a bounce rate higher than 2–3%, Google assumes you’re a spammer who doesn’t know their recipients. They think you’re just guessing.
How to fix it: Before you load a list into any campaign tool, run it through a cleaner (there are loads out there). Or, if you’re doing it manually, check the LinkedIn profile first to make sure they are actually still at the company.
Bin off the bad data. It’s not worth the risk.
Believe it or not, spam filters are reading your content.
They are looking for “Trigger Words” — phrases that are historically associated with scams, aggressive marketing, or clickbait.
If you write like a used car salesman, you’ll get treated like one.
The Subject Line Hall of Shame (Avoid these): ❌ “$$$ URGENT: CANDIDATE AVAILABLE!!!” (Too many symbols, all caps). ❌ “Earn extra cash now” (Trigger word: Cash/Earn). ❌ “Guarantee / Free / Risk-Free” (Trigger word: Guarantee).
The Good List (Do this instead): ✅ “Quick question regarding [Company Name]” (Conversational). ✅ “Hiring at [Company Name]?” (Direct). ✅ “Software Engineer profile” (Boring, but effective).
The trick is to write like you are emailing a mate, or a colleague. If you wouldn’t say it in a pub, don’t put it in your subject line.
Keep it boring. Boring gets opened. “Salesy” gets blocked.
If you are trying to send bulk campaigns directly from your standard Outlook or Gmail interface using “BCC”… you are asking for trouble.
They aren’t built for it.
And on the flip side, if you use a massive marketing platform (like Mailchimp), you often end up in the “Promotions” tab. That’s the graveyard where newsletters go to die. You don’t want to be there; you want to be in the “Primary” inbox next to their mum and their boss.
You need a tool that is specifically designed to drip-feed emails out at a human pace.
This is exactly why we built our Bulk Email Tool for recruiters.
We designed it specifically for agencies that need to send volume but want to stay safe.
It’s about working smarter, not just firing out thousands of emails and hoping for the best.
If your domain is fully warmed up, I usually recommend capping it at 50–100 emails per day per inbox. Could you do more? Maybe. But is it worth risking your entire business email just to send an extra 50 messages? I don’t think so. If you need to send more, buy a second domain.
100%. If Google sees that you send 1,000 emails and only 5 people open them, they assume you are sending rubbish. This hurts your reputation, meaning future emails are more likely to land in spam. High engagement = High trust.
I’d avoid it. Images increase the code-to-text ratio, which can trigger spam filters. Plus, many corporate outlook servers block images by default, so your email ends up looking like a broken mess anyway. Text only is the way to go.
The game has changed.
You can’t just “spray and pray” anymore. The tech giants are too smart for that.
If you want to get replies, you need to respect the inbox.
Sort your tech out, clean your data, warm up your domains, and use a system that keeps you safe.
Otherwise, you’re just shouting into the void.
Good luck out there 🫡
P.S. If you are looking for a system that handles your bulk outreach without the headache (and helps you avoid the spam folder), go and have a look at our recruitment email tool here. It might solve a problem for you.
