A subdomain is a prefix to the root domain, as in blog.yourcompany.com where “blog” is the subdomain for yourcompany.com (as seen in the photo above). If you’ve never heard of a subdomain mail server before, this article covers the basics.
In order to maximize email-deliverability, you may need to make efforts— such as setting up a subdomain —to ensure the security of your email-sending infrastructure.
We encourage users to implement email subdomains because doing so greatly increases the chance of your outreach getting to your prospective candidates' inboxes. It also protects your company’s primary email domain, thereby ensuring your other activities won’t become disrupted, because subdomains are treated as distinct from other related subdomains.
Follow the instructions below to increase the likelihood of experiencing higher open rates so you can hire qualified candidates, faster.
To strengthen the security of your email infrastructure, configure SPF, DKIM, and DMARC by following our instructions for getting the most emails to candidate inboxes.
Gmail/Google Workspace Subdomain Setup
Go to admin.google.com and head to the Google Workspace Domains section
Click “Add a new domain” (choose to add a secondary domain, NOT an email alias)
Create a new subdomain. Keep it relatively simple— for example, if your company’s domain is “company.com”, choose a related term to use for your subdomain (e.g. “mail”, “team”, "hiring", etc). So, if your subdomain prefix is “team”, your outreach emails will come from yourname@team.company.com.
Then, you'll typically need to add a TXT verification record to your DNS, in order to verify that you own the primary domain. Follow the steps and verification code provided by Google in order to verify your domain (similar example below):
Once your domain is verified, click to "Activate Gmail" for your new subdomain. Google will provide you with an MX record, you'll need to add that into your DNS as well (example below):
Once you've added a DNS record, you'll go back to Google Workspace Admin, and add a new user to your Domain Account.
Once the new user is added and your MX record is confirmed, you can add the new user, let's call them joe@hiring.testcompany.com to your Google/Gmail as a new user. This will allow you to link your new user/sub-domain to RecruitBot or Salesbot.
And, once you've added a new email sub-domain, you'll need to strengthen your email security and experience higher open rates by configuring SPF, DKIM, and DMARC— follow our instructions for getting the most emails to candidate inboxes.
Google requires that each email subdomain have it's own DKIM email configuration, so don't forget to set that up--you'll find the DKIM settings in the Apps->Gmail under DKIM Authentication. Use the pull down menu to select your alternate subdomain and then generate/update the TXT record in your DNS.
If you do this, make sure you ramp up usage slowly using an email warmer, since these new accounts don’t have the credibility of older, more established accounts (see Step 8).
You can also use an email warming service like https://www.mailwarm.com/.
Other/Non-Gmail Setup
Go to your domain registrar.
Choose a needed domain.
Open DNS settings.
Add one record with following values: CNAME-record, "yoursubdomain" host.
Save.
Go to your email provider admin account. Click on "Add new domain".
Add a new subdomain+domain name. ...
Click on "Add a domain."
Domain activation may take a few hours.