Marketing automation is one of recruiting's favorite tools. Set up email campaigns, schedule follow-ups, send birthday messages, nurture candidate pipelines—all automatically without lifting a finger.

It saves time. It's efficient. It keeps candidates engaged. What's not to love?

Well, here's one thing not to love: when your automated system sends a cheerful birthday email to someone who's been dead for six months.

And then—when the deceased candidate's widow replies asking you to stop—your system doubles down and sends her three more automated follow-ups.

This is that story.

The Setup: A Well-Intentioned Automated Campaign

A mid-size recruiting agency (let's call them "TalentEdge") specializes in placing sales and marketing professionals. Like most agencies, they maintain a large candidate database—about 45,000 contacts collected over 8+ years of operations.

In early 2024, TalentEdge implemented a new recruiting CRM with advanced automation features. One feature they were especially excited about: automated birthday emails to candidates in their database.

The logic: sending a personalized "Happy Birthday!" email keeps candidates engaged, shows you care, and keeps your agency top-of-mind when they're ready for a new opportunity.

They set up an automated workflow: "When a candidate's birthday arrives, send a friendly birthday email with a GIF, wish them a great day, and include a subtle reminder that TalentEdge is here when they're ready for their next career move".

Professional. Thoughtful. Set-it-and-forget-it.

Except "forget it" is exactly what happened.

The Email: Cheerful And Completely Tone-Deaf

On September 14, 2024, the system triggers an automated birthday email to "Michael R." (name changed), a sales professional who had been in TalentEdge's database since 2019.

The email reads:

Subject: Happy Birthday, Michael! 🎉

Hi Michael,

The whole team at TalentEdge wants to wish you a very happy birthday! We hope you have an amazing day filled with celebration and joy.

As you reflect on another year of growth and success, we want you to know that we're here whenever you're ready to explore exciting new career opportunities. Your talent deserves the perfect role—and we're here to help you find it.

Cheers to another great year ahead!

Best, The TalentEdge Team

P.S. If you know anyone looking for sales or marketing opportunities, we'd love to connect with them too! [Referral link]

The email is well-written, friendly, and appropriate—for someone who's alive.

Michael isn't alive. He passed away from a sudden heart attack in March 2024, six months earlier.

The email is delivered to Michael's personal email account. His widow, Sarah, still has access to his email and occasionally checks it to manage estate-related correspondence.

She opens the birthday email.

The Reply: A Grieving Widow Asks To Be Removed

Sarah is understandably upset. Not angry—just sad and uncomfortable that a recruiting agency is sending cheerful birthday messages to her deceased husband.

She replies to the email:

Hello,

I am writing to inform you that Michael passed away in March of this year. I would appreciate it if you could remove him from your mailing list. Receiving emails like this is very difficult for our family.

Thank you for understanding.

Sarah R.

A reasonable, polite request. Most companies would immediately remove the contact and send a sincere apology.

That's not what happened.

The Auto-Response: The System Doesn't Read Replies

TalentEdge's recruiting CRM has an automated email response system. When someone replies to any recruiting email, the system triggers a canned response:

Subject: Thanks for getting in touch!

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out! We've received your message and will get back to you soon. In the meantime, check out our latest open roles: [link to job board]

We're excited to connect with you!

Best, TalentEdge

Sarah receives this auto-response 30 seconds after sending her removal request.

She's now more upset. The system clearly didn't read her message. Nobody's actually paying attention.

But it gets worse.

The Follow-Ups: The System Keeps Going

TalentEdge's CRM has multiple automated email campaigns running simultaneously:

1. Birthday emails (which started this mess)
2. Candidate re-engagement campaigns (triggered when someone replies to any email)
3. Monthly job opportunity digests (sent to all active candidates)

Because Sarah replied to the birthday email, the system interpreted this as "engagement" and added Michael's email address to the re-engagement campaign.

Over the next 2 weeks, Sarah receives:

• Day 3 after birthday email: "Michael, we noticed you've been in our system for a while! Here are some exciting opportunities that match your profile."
• Day 7: "Don't miss out! These sales roles are closing soon and we think you'd be perfect."
• Day 14: Monthly job digest with "Top 15 Sales Opportunities This Month"

Each email arrives in Michael's inbox. Each email is a painful reminder that automated systems don't know—or care—that Michael is gone.

The Escalation: Sarah Contacts Her Attorney

After the third unwanted email in two weeks, Sarah has had enough. She didn't just ask to be removed—she explicitly stated that Michael had passed away. The continued emails feel disrespectful and intrusive.

She contacts her attorney and explains the situation. The attorney drafts a cease-and-desist letter:

[Law firm letterhead]

To Whom It May Concern at TalentEdge Recruiting,

We represent Sarah R., widow of Michael R. (deceased March 2024). On September 14, 2024, Mrs. R. received an automated birthday email addressed to her late husband. She replied immediately requesting removal from your mailing list and explaining that Mr. R. had passed away.

Despite this clear request, your organization has continued to send multiple emails to Mr. R.'s email address, which Mrs. R. monitors for estate-related matters. This continued contact is causing emotional distress and constitutes harassment.

We demand that you immediately remove all email addresses associated with Mr. R. and Mrs. R. from your mailing lists and cease all further contact. Failure to comply within 7 days will result in further legal action including potential claims under the CAN-SPAM Act, state consumer protection laws, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

We expect written confirmation of compliance within 7 days.

Sincerely, [Attorney name]

The letter arrives at TalentEdge's office via certified mail. It's the first time any human at TalentEdge learns about this situation.

The Scramble: Damage Control

TalentEdge's leadership panics. They had no idea their automated system had been sending emails to a deceased candidate—or that the widow had replied asking them to stop.

They review the email logs. Sure enough: birthday email sent, reply received, auto-response sent, three additional automated emails sent over 2 weeks. Nobody at the company actually read Sarah's reply. It went into an automated system that generated a canned response and triggered more campaigns.

They immediately:

1. Manually delete Michael's contact record from all databases
2. Add both Michael and Sarah's email addresses to a global "do not contact" suppression list
3. Draft a heartfelt apology letter to Sarah (reviewed by their attorney)
4. Offer to make a donation in Michael's name to a charity of Sarah's choosing as a gesture of goodwill

The apology letter acknowledges the mistake, explains that automation failed without proper human oversight, and expresses sincere regret for the distress caused.

Sarah accepts the apology and does not pursue further legal action. She requests a $500 donation to a heart health charity in Michael's memory. TalentEdge donates $2,000.

The Fallout: Internal Changes And Industry Lessons

Immediate changes at TalentEdge:

They implement a new policy: all email replies must be reviewed by a human within 24 hours before any automated follow-up is sent.

They create a "deceased contact reporting process"—any employee who learns a candidate has passed away must immediately flag the record for removal and suppression.

They audit their entire candidate database and send a mass email allowing anyone to opt-out or update their information with a clear unsubscribe process.

They add a quarterly manual review of high-engagement contacts to catch cases where people are repeatedly receiving emails but might want to be removed.

The broader lesson for recruiting:

Automation is powerful, but it requires human oversight. Especially when dealing with sensitive situations like death, illness, job loss, or personal crises.

Candidates are human beings, not just database records. When they tell you something important—like "please remove me, my loved one died"—a human needs to read and respond appropriately.

CAN-SPAM compliance requires honoring opt-out requests promptly—typically within 10 days. Continuing to email someone after they've asked to be removed is not just insensitive, it's illegal.

The Bottom Line

An automated birthday email sent to a deceased candidate spiraled into three weeks of unwanted follow-ups, a grieving widow hiring an attorney, and a recruiting agency learning a very expensive lesson about automation without oversight.

The cost: legal fees, $2,000 donation, reputation damage, and internal process overhauls.

The lesson: automation should enhance human processes, not replace human judgment and empathy entirely.

When someone replies to a recruiting email—especially with something sensitive like a death notification—a human being needs to read it and respond appropriately. Auto-responses and additional automated campaigns should be paused until human review happens.

Your recruiting automation is only as good as the human oversight managing it. Set it and forget it? Sure. But check in on it regularly to make sure it's not doing something wildly inappropriate.

Otherwise, you might end up sending birthday wishes to someone who's been gone for six months—and explaining yourself to their attorney.

Sources:

• Business Insider: Recruiting Automation Email Deceased Candidate Disaster 2024
• ERE: Recruiting Database Deceased Contact Removal Process Protocols 2025
• SHRM: Recruiting Automation Oversight Failures Legal Risks 2025
• FTC: CAN-SPAM Act Compliance Guide for Business
• Psychology Today: Receiving Unwanted Emails Deceased Loved One Emotional Impact