Candidate didn't receive my email

If a candidate says they didn't receive an email you sent from CVViZ, this article walks through how to confirm what actually happened — and what to fix.

Step 1 — Confirm CVViZ sent it

Open the candidate's profile and look at the email timeline:

1. From the job pipeline, click the candidate's name to open the profile.
2. Switch to the Email / Timeline tab. Each email you sent appears as an entry, organized by source — Gmail, Outlook, or System Email depending on which path was used.
3. Click an entry to expand it. You should see the subject, body, and recipient(s).

If the entry exists, CVViZ accepted the send. If there's no entry, the email was never actually sent — see Step 5.

Step 2 — Find out which sender path was used

The timeline labels each email with its source. The path matters because failures look different:

• Gmail / Outlook — sent through your connected mailbox. The message also appears in your Sent folder there. Bounces from the recipient land in your inbox.
• System Email — sent through CVViZ's transactional infrastructure (e.g. automation messages, system notifications, certain templates). Bounces aren't visible in your personal inbox.

Step 3 — Ask the candidate to check the obvious places

• Spam / Junk / Promotions tab. Gmail's Promotions tab is the most common "missing" place. Have them search for the sender address.
• Filters / rules. Mail rules may be silently archiving CVViZ messages.
• Mailbox full. Some providers reject delivery if the recipient's mailbox is at capacity.
• Personal vs. work email. Confirm you sent to the address they actually check. Candidates often apply with a personal Gmail and miss it because they only watch a different inbox.

If they previously marked any CVViZ email as spam, future messages from the same sender will keep going to spam. They have to mark one as "Not spam" to undo that.

Step 4 — Check for bouncebacks

If the email went via a connected mailbox (Gmail / Outlook), open that mailbox and search for "Mail Delivery Subsystem" / "Undeliverable" / the candidate's email address. The bounce message tells you exactly why — typical reasons:

• "Address not found" — typo in the candidate's email or the address was deactivated.
• "Mailbox quota exceeded" — recipient's inbox is full.
• "Message rejected for spam" — sender reputation or content was flagged.
• "Recipient policy violation" — corporate filter blocked it.

For System Emails (no connected mailbox), you can't see the bounce yourself. Ask support to check.

Step 5 — Email isn't even in the timeline

If you tried to send but no entry appears, the send itself didn't go through. Check:

• The mailbox connection at Settings → Integrations — does Gmail / Outlook show Connected? If not, reconnect.
• Did you click Send all the way (the send button can briefly look unresponsive on slow networks)?
• Is your Reply-To address valid? Set/correct it under Settings → Email Preferences.
• For automation-sent emails, check the automation actually fired — see Settings → Automations.

Step 6 — Resending

1. Open the candidate profile.
2. Click Compose (or reply to an existing thread).
3. Double-check the To address is the candidate's correct email.
4. Use a simple template — image-heavy, link-heavy emails are more likely to be classified as spam.
5. Hit Send.

Step 7 — Patterns to investigate further

If many candidates aren't receiving messages, the problem is with sender setup, not individual recipients. See Email not sending or landing in spam for the deliverability checklist (SPF, DKIM, DMARC, Reply-To). Common patterns:

• Only candidates at certain domains (e.g. only gmail.com) report missing — usually filter behaviour at that provider.
• Bulk campaign emails go missing while one-off emails arrive — campaign volume is hitting rate limits or trust thresholds at the provider.
• Suddenly nothing arrives — token on the connected mailbox expired; reconnect.

Need help?

Open the help widget at the bottom-right of any CVViZ page. For what to include in a bug report or message, see Getting help and reporting issues.

When you reach out about this, please include:

• Candidate's email address.
• Job ID and candidate ID.
• Approximate time you sent the message (with timezone).
• Whether the email is in CVViZ's timeline view, and what source label it has.
• Whether your connected mailbox shows the message in Sent.