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How Email Signatures Work in Recruitier

Every outreach email you send through Recruitier includes your email signature at the bottom. This signature is not something you need to build from scratch — Recruitier automatically imports it from your connected Gmail or Outlook account during the OAuth setup process. The imported signature is cached in your Recruitier profile and appended to every email you send, ensuring consistent professional branding across all your outreach. Your signature is an important part of your outreach because it reinforces your identity and provides the recipient with your contact details. A clean, professional signature builds credibility and makes it easy for prospects to call, email, or connect with you on LinkedIn after reading your message.
The signature is appended automatically to every outreach email. You do not need to paste it into each message or configure it for each flow. Once imported, it works across all email outreach throughout the platform.

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Auto-Importing Signatures

When you connect your Gmail or Outlook account to Recruitier, the platform performs the following steps:
1

OAuth Authentication

You authorize Recruitier to access your email account through Google or Microsoft’s secure login flow. This uses the gmail.settings.basic scope for Gmail or Mail.ReadWrite scope for Outlook.
2

Signature Retrieval

Immediately after successful authentication, Recruitier calls the Gmail API (using the Settings endpoint) or Microsoft Graph API (using the mailboxSettings endpoint) to fetch your current email signature.
3

Cleaning and Sanitization

The raw signature HTML is cleaned to ensure it renders correctly in outreach emails. This includes removing broken images, stripping problematic formatting, and removing redundant closing phrases that would conflict with the AI-generated message body.
4

Caching

The cleaned signature is stored in your Recruitier user profile, ready to be appended to every outreach email. No additional setup is required.
The signature import happens once during the initial OAuth connection. If you later change your signature in Gmail or Outlook, you will need to manually refresh it in Recruitier to pick up the changes (see “Refreshing Your Signature” below).

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Which Signature Is Used?

If you have both Gmail and Outlook connected, Recruitier uses the signature from the provider you have selected as your preferred email provider. You can set your preferred provider in the Settings page under Email Integration, where a “Preferred Email Provider” card appears with radio buttons for Gmail and Outlook when both are connected. Gmail is the default.
ConfigurationSignature Used
Only Gmail connectedGmail signature
Only Outlook connectedOutlook signature
Both connectedSignature from your preferred email provider (Gmail by default)
Neither connectedNo signature (you will need to connect an email first)
If you use different signatures for different purposes (e.g., a more formal one for client outreach and a simpler one for candidate communication), make sure the signature on your preferred provider matches the one you want for outreach.

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Refreshing Your Signature

If you update your signature in Gmail or Outlook and want Recruitier to reflect the change:
1

Open Settings

Navigate to the Settings page and find the Email Integration section.
2

Locate the Signature Indicator

Next to your connected email provider, you will see a small “Signature” badge if a signature has been imported. Hover over this badge to see a preview of your current signature in a popup card.
3

Click Refresh

Inside the signature preview popup, click the “Refresh from Gmail” or “Refresh from Outlook” button. Recruitier will call the Gmail API or Microsoft Graph API to fetch your current signature from the connected provider.
4

Verify the Update

The updated signature will appear in the preview popup. Review it to confirm it matches what you see in your email client. Note that the cleaning process may alter some formatting (see the Advanced section for details on what gets cleaned).
Refreshing your signature requires an active, valid connection to your email provider. If your OAuth token has expired, you may need to reconnect your email account first.

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Signature Management

Recruitier does not provide a manual signature editor. Your signature is always sourced directly from your connected email provider, ensuring it stays consistent with what recipients see when you email them outside of Recruitier. If you need to change your signature, update it in Gmail or Outlook first, then use the Refresh button in Recruitier to pull in the updated version.
If you want a different signature for outreach than your general business email, update your signature in your email provider before connecting or refreshing in Recruitier. The signature in Recruitier will always reflect what is currently set in your provider.

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How Signatures Are Appended to Emails

When you send an outreach email through Recruitier:
  1. You compose the message body in the message composer.
  2. If using AI generation, the AI may include a closing phrase (e.g., “Best regards, Thomas”). Recruitier checks the signature for redundant closings and removes them to avoid duplication.
  3. Recruitier appends your cached signature HTML after the message body, separated by a <br><br> line break.
  4. The complete message (body + signature) is sent via the Gmail API or Microsoft Graph API.
  5. The recipient sees your message with a professional signature, exactly as they would if you had sent the email directly from Gmail or Outlook.
The signature is added automatically. You do not need to paste it into each message or worry about formatting. It just works.
The separator between your message body and signature is a double line break (<br><br>). This creates visual separation without excessive whitespace. The signature starts on its own line, clearly distinct from the message content.

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Best Practices for Professional Email Signatures

A good recruitment email signature reinforces your credibility and makes it easy for prospects to take the next step. Here are guidelines:

Include Essential Information

Your full name, job title, company name, phone number, and email address. This is the minimum for any professional signature. In recruitment, your phone number is especially important — prospects often prefer to call rather than email back.

Keep It Clean

Avoid cluttered signatures with multiple logos, banner images, legal disclaimers, and social media icons. Clean signatures render well across all email clients (including mobile) and look more professional.

Add Your LinkedIn Profile

In recruitment, LinkedIn is essential. Include a link to your LinkedIn profile so prospects can verify your credentials, see your network, and connect easily. This builds trust and makes follow-up natural.

Skip the Quotes and Slogans

Inspirational quotes and company slogans in signatures look unprofessional in business outreach. Let your message speak for itself. Every element in your signature should serve a functional purpose.

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Example of a Strong Recruitment Signature

Thomas van der Berg
Senior IT Recruiter | Recruitier Agency
+31 6 12345678 | thomas@recruitieragency.nl
linkedin.com/in/thomasvdberg
This is clean, informative, and takes up minimal space in the email.

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What to Avoid

  • Large images or logos — they can be blocked by email clients, trigger spam filters, and slow email loading.
  • Multiple phone numbers — one mobile number is sufficient. Keep it simple.
  • Long legal disclaimers — these add unnecessary noise to outreach emails and distract from your message.
  • Animated GIFs — unprofessional and often blocked by email clients.
  • Color-heavy designs — they can render poorly on different email clients and especially on dark mode.
  • Social media icons for every platform — LinkedIn is the only one that matters for recruitment outreach. Skip Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

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Signature and Email Tracking

Your email signature is included in the tracked version of the email. Here is how tracking interacts with your signature:
AspectBehavior
Tracking pixel placementThe tracking pixel is placed in the email body, not the signature. It does not interfere with signature rendering.
Signature linksLinks in your signature (LinkedIn profile, website, phone) are not wrapped for click tracking. Only links in the message body are tracked.
DeliverabilityYour signature does not interfere with Recruitier’s delivery tracking or bounce detection.
Open countingA signature image (like a logo) loading does not count as an “open” — only the tracking pixel counts.
The decision not to track signature links is intentional. If your LinkedIn URL in the signature were tracked, every recipient who clicked your profile would inflate your click metrics, making it impossible to distinguish genuine interest in your message content from general profile curiosity.

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Troubleshooting

  • Verify that your email provider is connected in Settings.
  • Check that a signature was successfully imported by viewing the Signature section in Settings.
  • If the signature field is empty, click “Refresh Signature” to re-import from your provider.
  • Ensure your email provider actually has a signature set. If your Gmail or Outlook account has no signature configured, there is nothing to import.
  • Some complex HTML signatures do not render identically after Recruitier’s cleaning process. The cleaning is intentional and removes elements that could cause rendering issues.
  • Try refreshing the signature. If the issue persists, simplify your signature in Gmail or Outlook and then refresh it in Recruitier.
  • If your signature relies heavily on tables, images, or custom fonts, consider simplifying it for outreach. Simpler signatures render more consistently across email clients.
  • Recruitier caches your signature at the time of import. If you changed your signature in Gmail or Outlook, hover over the “Signature” badge next to your connected provider in the Settings page and click the refresh button to import the updated version.
If you see duplicate closings like “Best regards” appearing twice (once in the message body and once in the signature), this usually means the signature cleaning did not catch that particular closing phrase. To fix this, remove the closing from your actual email provider signature and then refresh it in Recruitier. The AI-generated message includes its own closing, so your signature should not include one.

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Advanced

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How Signature Cleaning Works Under the Hood

When Recruitier imports your signature from Gmail or Outlook, the raw HTML goes through a sanitization pipeline that handles several categories of issues: Broken Image Removal The cleaner identifies and removes images that would not render correctly in outreach emails:
  • Images with localhost URLs (common in signatures edited locally but never properly hosted)
  • Images with empty src attributes (placeholder images that never got set)
  • Images with excessively large dimensions that would break email layout
This ensures recipients never see broken image icons in your signature, which would look unprofessional. Redundant Closing Removal The cleaner strips common closing phrases from the signature to prevent duplication with the AI-generated message body. The AI typically generates messages that end with a closing like “Best regards, Thomas” or “Met vriendelijke groet, Thomas.” If your signature also starts with “Best regards,” the recipient would see the closing twice. The following types of closings are detected and removed:
  • English: “Best regards,” “Kind regards,” “Regards,” “Best wishes,” “Sincerely”
  • Dutch: “Met vriendelijke groet,” “Groet,” “Hartelijke groet”
  • Other common variations
This detection uses pattern matching, so unusual or creative closings may not be caught. If you notice duplication, remove the closing phrase from your signature in Gmail or Outlook, then refresh the signature in Recruitier.

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Where Signatures Are Stored

Signatures are cached on the user record in PostgreSQL:
FieldProviderDescription
gmail_signature_htmlGmailThe cleaned HTML signature imported from Gmail
microsoft_signature_htmlOutlookThe cleaned HTML signature imported from Microsoft/Outlook
Both fields can be populated simultaneously if you have connected both providers. The system uses the signature from the preferred email provider (configurable in Settings when both are connected, with Gmail as the default) when appending to outreach emails.

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How the Signature Is Appended to Emails

The signature attachment follows this precise sequence:
  1. The message body (your composed text or AI-generated draft) is finalized.
  2. A <br><br> separator is appended to the body HTML.
  3. The cached signature HTML is appended after the separator.
  4. The complete HTML (body + separator + signature) is packaged as the email content.
  5. The tracking pixel is inserted into the body portion (before the signature).
  6. Link wrapping is applied only to links in the body portion (signature links are excluded).
  7. The final HTML is sent via the Gmail API or Microsoft Graph API.
This means the signature is a static block that does not participate in message personalization or tracking. It is the same for every email you send, providing consistent branding.

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Interaction with AI-Generated Messages

When the AI generates a message, it receives a signature_instruction as part of its context. This instruction tells the AI:
  • Do not include a closing phrase that duplicates what is in the signature.
  • End the message with your name only, since the signature provides the formal closing.
This is why AI-generated messages typically end with just the sender’s name, relying on the signature to provide the full closing block with contact details. If you edit the AI output and add your own closing, be aware that the signature may create duplication.

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How Gmail and Outlook Signature APIs Differ

AspectGmailOutlook
API Endpointusers.settings.sendAs.list/me/mailboxSettings
Signature FormatHTML string in signature fieldHTML string in mailboxSettings.userPurpose.internalReplyMessageSignature or similar
Multiple SignaturesGmail supports multiple “Send As” identities, each with its own signature. Recruitier imports the primary one.Outlook supports separate signatures for new messages and replies. Recruitier imports the new message signature.
EncodingUTF-8 HTML, may include inline images as base64UTF-8 HTML, may include image URLs pointing to Microsoft CDN

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Edge Cases

If your Gmail or Outlook account has no signature configured, the import returns an empty string. Recruitier stores this as an empty signature, and no signature is appended to your outreach emails. If you later set up a signature in your email client, use “Refresh Signature” to import it.
Some email clients store small images (like logos) as base64-encoded data directly in the signature HTML. Recruitier preserves these as long as they are reasonable in size. Very large base64 images may be stripped during cleaning because they can significantly increase email size and trigger spam filters.
If you refresh your signature while an outreach flow is in progress, all future emails will use the updated signature. Previously sent emails retain the signature they were sent with — there is no retroactive update. This means recipients may see different signatures if you change it between steps, which is generally fine for minor updates but could be confusing for major redesigns. Consider completing active flows before making significant signature changes.
Your signature may look slightly different across email clients (Gmail web, Outlook desktop, Apple Mail, mobile clients). This is a fundamental limitation of HTML email, not specific to Recruitier. To minimize rendering differences:
  • Use simple HTML without complex tables or CSS.
  • Avoid custom fonts — stick to web-safe fonts like Arial, Helvetica, or Georgia.
  • Use inline styles rather than CSS classes.
  • Test by sending yourself a test email and viewing it in multiple clients.

Email Integration

Connect your email account to enable signature import.

Message Composer

See how signatures are displayed in the message composer.

Outreach Overview

Return to the outreach overview for a complete picture.

Creating Flows

Build outreach sequences that use your email signature.