How to contact a candidate, what they see, and how to read Sent, Read, and Accepted correctly.
This article covers what happens when you contact someone in Gorilla Sourcing: what they see, where their reply goes, and what each status label tells you.
Approx. read time: 4 minutes
In this article
- Connecting your mailbox
- Contacting a candidate
- Writing your message
- What the candidate sees, and when
- Where replies actually land
- Reading the Sent / Read / Accepted states
- Attaching an assessment
- Common questions
Connecting your mailbox
You must have a connected mailbox before contacting a candidate. The possible options are Google, Outlook & IMAP (for all other email providers).
This mailbox is shared by all users of the account.
Note: If you use Gmail or Google Workspace, connect via Sign in with Google rather than IMAP to ensure incoming candidate replies sync to your inbox.
Contacting a candidate
Contacting a candidate costs 1 Sourcing invite, charged the moment your message sends. You can contact anyone in your results, whether they're skills-tested or not.
Two things can stop your message from landing, and they're treated differently:
- No usable address found at all: your message doesn't go out, and your invite is refunded automatically.
- An address was found but the send still failed (for example, it bounced): the invite isn't refunded.
See How Gorilla Sourcing credits work for more on refunds.
Writing your message
You write the subject line and the message yourself, or start from an AI-suggested draft and edit it into your own words. Either way, treat it like any other outreach email: say who you are, why you're reaching out, and what you're asking them to do next.
What the candidate sees, and when
The email is sent from your connected mailbox so from the very first message, the candidate sees your real name followed by “via TestGorilla” and the email address of your connected mailbox, the same as they would with any email you sent them directly.
Candidates can directly reply to your email or learn more about the role from the custom page TestGorilla generates for your job. Candidates can mark their interest on that page and also start the assessment from there (if one is included).
Where replies actually land
A candidate replies the same way they'd reply to any email: straight back to your connected mailbox. Gorilla Sourcing picks up on that reply and updates the candidate's status, so you don't have to go looking for it to know one arrived. To read what they actually wrote, you can click on the candidate row in Gorilla Sourcing or check your connected mailbox, the thread is a normal email conversation between the two of you.
Reading the outreach states
Every message you send shows one of these states:
|
Status |
What it means |
|---|---|
|
Sent |
The message has gone out. No response yet. |
|
Read |
The candidate has replied. |
|
Interested |
The candidate has said yes. |
|
Not Interested |
The candidate has rejected the invite. |
Important: "Read" doesn't mean the candidate opened the email. We've turned off open and click tracking, for deliverability reasons, so there's no way to tell whether someone has simply opened a message without acting on it. "Read" only updates once the candidate actually replies. Don't read "Sent" as "ignored": a candidate may well have read your message while their status still shows "Sent."
Attaching an assessment
Whether to include an assessment is your call, made when you send your message. Attach one and it goes out with your first message. You can also choose to invite them to an assessment later.
Common questions
Will the candidate know I found them through TestGorilla?
Yes. It arrives as a normal email from your name followed by “via TestGorilla” and your connected mailbox address, exactly like any other email you'd send them.
Why does a message still say "Sent" even though I know the candidate opened it?
We don't detect that someone opened a message, only that they've replied. A candidate can absolutely have read your message while their status still shows "Sent."
Can I resend or follow up on a message?
Reply from your connected mailbox the same way you would with any email thread. Follow-ups don't cost another invite, only the original message does.
I contacted a candidate, then reconnected my mailbox, and now I can't find their reply.
If your mailbox is connected via IMAP, check your connected mailbox directly: replies to messages sent before a reconnection may not come through to Sourcing, and older threads get blocked from follow-up here. This doesn't happen on a Google or Microsoft-connected mailbox.
🚀 Next steps
- Getting started with Gorilla Sourcing
- How Gorilla Sourcing credits work
- Where Gorilla Sourcing candidates come from
Need help? Contact our support team at support@testgorilla.com