Styled Emails and Customize with AI
Most recruiting emails work best as a short, plain personal note. When you want something that looks designed, such as a newsletter, an event invite, or an office announcement, use Style email to build it from blocks, or let Customize with AI design it for you in your brand.
Where it works: any email composer in HiringCenter: a one-to-one email in Conversations, Email Templates, Campaigns (one-time sends and sequence email steps), and email Automations.
Anyone who can send email can use it. Customize with AI and the Templates use your account's Brand Kit, so ask an admin or owner to set it up first.
Simple editor vs. Style email
The composer opens in the simple editor: a toolbar with bold, italic, underline, bullet list, link, and image, plus merge-field chips such as {{firstName}}. The right side of that toolbar has two buttons:
- Style email — opens a wide design view with blocks, a style inspector, templates, and AI.
- Import HTML — paste, drop, or upload HTML you already have. HiringCenter opens it in Style email so you can edit it as blocks. Complex HTML may not convert perfectly.
Closing the Style email view brings you back to the simple editor with your draft kept.
Build an email with blocks
- Click Style email.
- Add blocks from the block row:
- Content: Heading, Button, Image, Bulleted list, Numbered list, Quote, Divider
- Layout: 2 columns, 3 columns, 4 columns, Header (colored banner with a headline), Callout (highlighted note box), Spacer, Table (label and detail rows), Footer (company details)
- Click a block to change its colors, spacing, and alignment in the style inspector (Block settings).
- Switch between Desktop width and Phone width to see how it looks on each. Columns stack on phones.
- Click Send test to email it to yourself and check it in a real inbox.
Heading, Button, and Image land where your cursor is. Layout blocks always go at the top level of the email so sections never end up nested inside each other.
Start from a template
Click Templates in the Style email toolbar to start from one of three layouts:
| Template | Good for |
|---|---|
| Announcement | A new office, an event, a big change |
| Conversation starter | A short, text-only note to open a conversation |
| Update | A monthly newsletter or team update |
The template fills in with your brand kit colors, fonts, button style, logo, tagline, social links, and account name. Picking a template replaces what is in the email (you're asked to confirm first when the email already has content). To keep your own copy and only borrow a layout, use Start from in Customize with AI instead.
Customize with AI
- In Style email, click Customize.
- Type (or dictate) what you want, for example: "Warmer and shorter, dark green header, button to book a call."
- Click Apply changes (or press Cmd/Ctrl+Enter). HiringCenter AI rewrites the whole email, including content, styling, and layout, and you'll see Updated the email.
- Not what you wanted? Click Undo to go back to the previous version.
Quick fixes. One click sends a ready-made instruction: Shorter, Warmer, More professional, Clearer call to action, Fix typos and flow. Anything typed in the box is left alone.
Start from. Pick This email (default), Announcement, Conversation starter, or Update. With a template selected, describe what the email is about (for example "We're opening a new office in Austin and want agents at the launch party") and click Write announcement (or Write conversation starter / Write update). AI uses the template as a starting point, rewrites all its sample copy, and keeps what you already wrote. An empty box writes a recruiting email of that type.
What AI follows:
- Your brand kit: logo, colors, fonts, button style, voice, and design notes.
- Images: AI only uses images already in the email, your brand kit logos, or your image library. It never adds outside images.
- Merge fields like
{{firstName}}are kept.
Images
- Insert image in the toolbar uploads a picture into the email. After you upload, HiringCenter offers Save to image library with an AI-written description you can edit, so Customize with AI can reuse it later.
- Images (in Style email) inserts a picture from your image library. Its description becomes the alt text.
- Brand kit opens Settings → Brand Kit in a new tab. A dot on the button means the brand kit is empty.
Tips and gotchas
- Line spacing works like Gmail and Outlook. Press Enter once for a new line with no gap. Press Enter twice for a blank line. What you see is what gets sent.
- Inbox preview text is written for you automatically when you save a template, campaign, or automation. One-to-one emails from Conversations don't get a preview line.
- Device Handoff can't send designs. Your phone's mail app receives plain text only. When a handoff email has buttons, images, columns, or colors, HiringCenter warns you and offers Remove styling to turn it into plain paragraphs and links. See Device Handoff.
- For one-to-one recruiting, a short plain email usually gets more replies than a designed one. Save styled emails for newsletters and events.