Verification for recruiters chasing candidates
Recruiting runs on two kinds of address and they fail differently. A personal address a candidate gave you two years ago usually still works. A work address built from a first-name-dot-last-name pattern often does not.
The pattern-built address is where verification earns its cost, because the alternative is finding out by bouncing off a company's mail server with your sending domain attached.
A guessed address is a guess until something confirms it
Sourcing tools produce addresses by applying a company's observed pattern to a name from a profile. The pattern is usually right and the person is sometimes gone, so a meaningful share of what you send to has never existed.
Corporate domains are exactly where catch-all servers are common. A 250 from an accept-all domain confirms nothing about the mailbox, and a verifier that reports those as valid is guessing on your behalf.
Candidates also change jobs faster than anyone else in your database, which is the entire point of the industry. A verified list is a snapshot, and the shelf life is months rather than years.
How the work gets done
The order that matters for recruiters, rather than a generic checklist.
Verify pattern-built addresses before the first touch
Anything a sourcing tool generated rather than a person typed. This is the segment that produces the bounces.
Read catch-all as unconfirmed, not as valid
Large employers frequently run accept-all servers. Those addresses are a maybe, and treating them as confirmed is how a campaign to one company generates a wall of late bounces.
Keep the personal address as the fallback
A candidate's own address survives a job change and the work address does not. Verify both and you keep a route when someone moves.
Re-verify the pipeline quarterly
In a database of people whose job is to change jobs, quarterly is not cautious. It is the interval that matches the decay.
What verification will not do here
What it costs
Sourcing volumes usually sit between $25 for 10,000 and $89 for 50,000. Credits never expire, which suits a business with a hiring cycle rather than a steady monthly burn.
Every tier works the same way. Unknown results and duplicates are never billed, and credits do not expire.
Questions we get asked
Can you confirm someone still works at a company?
No. A resolving mailbox does not mean the person is behind it, and no SMTP check can see employment.
Why do so many corporate addresses come back catch-all?
Because large employers commonly run accept-all mail servers, often deliberately, to stop address harvesting. Every address at that domain returns 250.
Is verification worth it for a small sourcing list?
At $5 per thousand, checking a few hundred pattern-built addresses costs less than one bounce against your sending domain.
Try it on your own list first
100 free checks a month, no card. Run a sample and read the unresolved count before you decide anything.