In this article, we’ll look at why candidate emails appear in your external inbox and not in Personio.

If you’re reading this article, then you’ve already set up an email connection using our Google integration, Microsoft integration, or SMTP. Part of this process involves setting up an email redirection. You can tell there’s a problem if candidate emails appear in your company inbox but not in Personio.

Before you start

To try the suggestions in this article, you need permissions for your company’s Recruiting settings.

Go to Settings > Recruiting > Email setup to see which recruiting email option is active. If you've set up connections for different legal entities, check each one.

You need to involve your internal IT team in solving the issue. This is because the troubleshooting suggestions require adjustments to your IT environment.

Check if your Personio recruiting email address is reachable

Send a test email to the Personio-generated inbound address for your account.

1. Go to Settings > Recruiting > Email setup.
2. In the summary view, find the Inbound email address shown for the relevant entity.
3. Send a test email to that address. You can send it from your personal email, for example.

If the test email appears in Recruiting > Unassigned messages, the mailbox is working. If it doesn't arrive, ask your IT team to help.

Make sure you’ve set up an email redirection

To receive candidate emails in Personio, you need to set up an email redirection. You do this as part of the Recruiting email setup. It involves setting up a forwarding rule from your custom email address to your Personio recruiting address. You set up the redirection in your company’s email provider (for example, Microsoft 365 or Gmail).

To test if the redirection works, follow these steps:

1. Go to Settings > Recruiting > Email setup.
2. Click Edit for the relevant entity.
3. In the Inbound step, click Send test email. 

If everything is set up correctly, you'll receive the test email in your unassigned messages (Recruiting > Unassigned messages). If the test doesn’t work, review the forwarding settings. Ask your IT team to help.
 

Tip:
The setup process depends on your email provider. For example, with Microsoft 365, external forwarding must be allowed. For Gmail, review their guide on setting up forwarding.