Overview
Gem helps you track and manage replies to email Sequences by automatically setting a candidate’s reply status, such as interested or not interested. This saves time and helps you focus on the right prospects.
This article explains how Gem determines reply statuses, where those statuses appear, and how to create custom not interested reasons.
You can also use these reply statuses to track your interested response rate in the Sequence report.
Requirements
- You must be an Admin user in Gem to create or edit custom not interested reasons.
If you use a Reduced-permission email integration, Gem cannot automatically detect replies.
Understand reply statuses
When Gem detects an email reply to one of your sequences, we will do our best to accurately predict whether a candidate is interested or not interested.
By leveraging a machine learning model trained on very large datasets, Gem is able to achieve a ~90% accuracy rate on determining whether candidates’ email replies are interested or not interested.
Depending on what our model determines that the reply is closest to, we will set that reply status for you, but you always have the opportunity to override to a different status (including Follow up later).
For replies that Gem automatically determines as interested or not interested, this will be reflected in various places:
- The Gem extension under the Sequences section.
- The candidate’s profile, under the Sequences section.
- The sequence’s summary table.
- An email notification that’s triggered when a candidate responds. This email is sent to anyone (besides the sender of the Sequence) who follows the candidate.
Manually set a Sequence reply status
If Gem doesn’t automatically set the reply status you want, you can manually update it in any of the following places:
- Email: In your Sent folder, Gem Bot messages are threaded into your outreach messages. Select the links at the bottom of the message to update the reply status.
- Gem: Go to the Sequences page, then open the Sequence the candidate is in. In the sequence report table, find the candidate under the Replied column, then update the reply status.
- Gem Chrome extension: In the extension sidebar, go to the candidate profile, then scroll to the Sequences section to update the reply status.
Interested
In addition to the above, if a candidate receives a sequence containing a Gem self-scheduling link (either your own or another team member’s, like a hiring manager), and schedules times via the link, Gem will automatically mark them as having replied and set their stats as interested.
Not interested
Gem provides four default not interested reasons:
- Compensation
- Location
- Role
- Timing
The system will attempt to determine which reason is the most appropriate for each not interested reply, and will automatically apply that reason. If you need to though, you can manually adjust it to a different reason.
Create a new not interested reason
Admins can also create new not interested reasons, if you want to track different statuses than the default options. The system will automatically apply these reasons in the same way as with the default reasons.
If your organization had created any not interested reasons prior to January 2026, the default reasons above will have been automatically archived. In this instance we recommend leaving these reasons archived and continuing to use your custom reasons, to avoid any confusion when reporting.
- Select your account at the bottom of the main sidebar, then select the Admin settings option in the dropdown.
- Select the Outreach header.
- Scroll down to the Not interested reasons section.
- Select the + New not interested reason button.
- Choose a name for the new reason.
- Select the Create button to add the new reason to the list.
Edit a not interested reason
If you need to edit a custom reason, select the three dots next to it.
- Select Edit to amend the reason’s name.
- Select Archive to archive the reason. Archived reasons will not be able to be selected unless an admin un-archives them.
Current limitations
- Gem does not currently determine follow up later replies, so you will need to continue manually setting these types of reply statuses.
- Gem is able to detect interested or not interested replies to your email sequences, but InMail replies and SMS messages still require you to manually set all reply status types (interested/not interested/follow up later).
- In Gem’s reporting modules, the ability to filter on “automatically” or “manually” set reply statuses is currently unavailable.
Have any issues or questions on this topic? Please feel free to contact your dedicated Gem Customer Success Manager directly or our Support team at support@gem.com.