How to Verify Candidate Emails (for Recruiters)

LeadOcean verifies the addresses it holds and publishes the result as email_status. It does not take an upload of your CSV and run SMTP checks on it. This guide shows the three ways to use that status on candidates: size a pool, check one person you already have, and fetch a verified work email by LinkedIn URL.

Candidate lists bounce for a specific reason. People move jobs, and the address in your ATS is often a former employer's. That is the failure to catch.

TL;DR

• Time: about 25 minutes. You read statuses, size a candidate pool for free, spot-check five candidates and write a send rule.
• Records: about 10 of your 1,000 free records. Counts and enum lookups cost nothing. Each enrich call or work-email lookup is one record.
• Limit to know: LeadOcean does not verify personal (webmail) addresses. Treat verified on a personal address as a lead, not a result.

Prerequisites

• A LeadOcean account from app.leadocean.io. The free plan has 1,000 records, one-off, with both search and enrich scopes.
• A key in your shell as $LEADOCEAN_API_KEY.
• curl and jq.
• Five candidates you plan to email: an address for each, and a LinkedIn URL if you have one.

export LEADOCEAN_API_KEY="paste-your-key-here"

Every request goes to https://api.leadocean.io with the header x-api-key. Never paste a key into a script you share.

Step 1: Learn the 13 status values

email_status is the deliverability of a person's best address. Read the list before you filter on it, because the values are exact strings.

curl -s "https://api.leadocean.io/v1/enums/email_status" \
  -H "x-api-key: $LEADOCEAN_API_KEY" | jq '.values'

Group them into three decisions:

• Send: verified and catch_all_valid. On a business address verified means LeadOcean's own verifier sent to it and it accepted. catch_all_valid is a mailbox LeadOcean confirmed on a catch-all domain.
• Hold: catch_all, untested, unknown, risky, role, derived. The address might work. Nothing here proves it.
• Drop: invalid, disposable, spam_trap, abuse, none.

Also read email_type. A work address is at the person's current employer. A work_other address is at a different company, usually a former one, so it is the likeliest to bounce on a candidate.

Step 2: Size a candidate pool for free

Count how many people match a role and a status before you pull any rows. A search with count=true and limit=1 spends no records.

curl -s -X POST "https://api.leadocean.io/v1/people/search?count=true" \
  -H "x-api-key: $LEADOCEAN_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "title": ["Data Engineer"],
    "country": ["US"],
    "emailType": ["work"],
    "emailStatus": ["verified"],
    "limit": 1
  }' | jq '.meta | {total, totalIsExact, countOnly}'

Note that count=true goes in the query string, not the JSON body. The body rejects unknown fields.

The same count from an MCP client such as Claude is one free tool call:

Use leadocean_count_leads with title ["Data Engineer"], country ["US"],
emailType ["work"], emailStatus ["verified"], facets false.
Tell me the total and say which filters you applied.

A count of verified from search is an upper bound. Search carries no per-address verification record, so a person can show verified in search and untested when enriched. Step 3 is how you find out.

Pool size on 2026-10-21 for that call: 7,011 people (exact), spanning 2,806 employers. It spent 0 records. That is a count of verified work emails in search, not a mailable count and not a guarantee of deliverability.

Step 3: Check a candidate you already hold

Enrich by email to see what LeadOcean holds for that person. It costs one record. A person LeadOcean holds nothing for is a 404 and costs nothing.

curl -s -X POST "https://api.leadocean.io/v1/people/enrich" \
  -H "x-api-key: $LEADOCEAN_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"email": "jane.doe@acme.com", "reveal_email": true}' \
  | jq '.data.contact_data | {email_status, email_type, emails: .contact_emails}'

Send exactly one of linkedin_url, email, phone or person_id. If you have a LinkedIn URL, prefer it: it finds the person even when the address you hold is stale.

Compare contact_emails[].email with the address in your ATS. If they differ, your address is probably old. Use the one LeadOcean returns, and read its status.

Step 4: Fetch a verified work email by LinkedIn URL

When Step 3 shows untested or a former employer, ask for the current work email directly. This door returns one address or null.

curl -s -G "https://api.leadocean.io/v2/people/email/work" \
  -H "x-api-key: $LEADOCEAN_API_KEY" \
  --data-urlencode "linkedin_url=https://www.linkedin.com/in/jane-doe-example" \
  | jq '.data'

It only returns addresses at the current employer's domain whose status is verified, catch_all_valid or catch_all. null means none qualify, not that the person has no email.

A call costs one record even when it finds nothing. Run it only on the candidates Step 3 did not clear.

Step 5: Write the send rule

Turn the status into a decision in code, so nobody on the team guesses. This reads one enrich response and prints send, hold or drop.

decide() {
  jq -r '.data.contact_data
    | if .email_status == "verified" and .email_type == "work" then "send"
      elif (.email_status | IN("invalid","disposable","spam_trap","abuse","none")) then "drop"
      else "hold" end'
}

curl -s -X POST "https://api.leadocean.io/v1/people/enrich" \
  -H "x-api-key: $LEADOCEAN_API_KEY" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"linkedin_url": "https://www.linkedin.com/in/jane-doe-example", "reveal_email": true}' \
  | decide

Hold means you send nothing yet. Run Step 4, or reach the person on LinkedIn instead. LeadOcean does not refund or credit back bounced emails, so read the status before you send.

On Solo ($97 a month) and above, export a whole pool with the same filters and the status already applied. Bulk CSV export is not on Free.

curl -s -X POST "https://api.leadocean.io/v1/exports" \
  -H "x-api-key: $LEADOCEAN_API_KEY" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"filters": {"title": ["Data Engineer"], "country": ["US"],
        "emailType": ["work"], "emailStatus": ["verified"]}, "limit": 100}'

An export reserves up to limit records and bills each row written, so start with 100.

What you get

The status values, from the free leadocean_list_enum_values tool, run on 2026-10-21:

name: email_status    total: 13
verified        Deliverable
catch_all_valid Catch-all, mailbox confirmed
catch_all       Catch-all domain
risky           Risky
unknown         Unknown
untested        Not yet checked
invalid         Undeliverable
role            Role address
disposable      Disposable address
spam_trap       Spam trap
abuse           Abuse / complainer
derived         Derived, not verified
none            No email

The enrich response from Step 3, as a response shape from the API reference with placeholder values. This is not a real person.

{
  "success": true,
  "data": {
    "contact_data": {
      "has_email": true,
      "email_status": "verified",
      "email_type": "work",
      "contact_emails": [
        {
          "email": "jane.doe@acme.com",
          "type": "work",
          "status": "verified",
          "verified_batch_date": "2026-09-20"
        }
      ]
    }
  },
  "meta": { "source": "leadocean", "credits": 1 }
}

verified_batch_date is the date of the verification run. A date means LeadOcean tested the address itself. null means the check was not ours, which is not the same as unverified.

Troubleshooting

FAQ