Pops wants me to use my Gmail account for job postings… but I’ve already worked so hard on setting up my Email with Purelymail and a custom domain. I’ve never had an issue of my Email getting flagged as spam before, but in this instance I sent him a zip file with no message body and it was sent straight to spam.
My question is: would you bother using Gmail just to ensure your Email replies to interested HR people don’t get sent to the spam bucket? In my opinion, the use of a custom email address indicates flair to potential hiring teams - because it shows that you are capable of setting that stuff up. BTW my TLD is Senegal (.sn) to phonetically match my last name (it’s a really cool email) but the actual name header displays as my full name just like any other email address would.
I think the issue was just your blank email with an attachment.
I have a custom domain email and I’m actively applying to places and have had no issues getting mostly rejection emails back. 🥲
I’ve also gotten a few interviews, so I think you’re fine.
Many email providers blacklist large parts of the internet for spam protection. When I switched from hosting my own email (doing SPF, or whatever existed back then) to paying fastmail to host my email a lot more email started going through. fastmail is large enough and has a good enough reputation that nobody can afford to block emails from them. I still have my own personal domain most people who email me have no clue that I’m not hosting it. I’d advise the same thing, pay fastmail to host your email, it doesn’t cost much and everything works.
There are companies other than fastmail that does this as well. Some of them are just as good, pick whichever you want.
The blank email with a zip attachment and coming from a Senegalese domain is Chinese/Soviet Union-flag levels of “red flags”. I’d be shocked if that made it through any half-decent mail filter. If you truly want to test the spamminess of your mail system, try it again with an email that mimics the ones you’d actually be sending to the recruiters. I bet that would go through just fine.
That being said, if you aren’t confident in your mail system, just use Gmail. There’s billions of dollars supporting that system, so you can pretty much count on it to work.