Approving an employer to post jobs at your institution can seem like a simple process. Theoretically, all employers requesting approval should come to your institution bearing career-building opportunities for your students, but always be sure to ask “Can I trust this employer with my students’ information?”
The term “fraudulent employer” can take on many different meanings. Sometimes, it means that the company was made-up and has no legitimacy. Other times, the company is real and the Handshake user is pretending to be affiliated with a legitimate organisation. If these employers are able to get access to your institutions, they can post jobs, message students, and potentially scam the very people you are trying to help and protect.
The good news is…there are preventative measures your team can take to ensure that little to no fraudulent activity occurs at your institution!
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Make sure the user’s email matches the company domain. This is how many fraudulent users sneakily make their way into Handshake’s platform. Check the user requesting access’ email address against the company web address. Do they match? Your goal is to ensure that the user is who they say they are.
Please refer to Processing Employer Approval Requests for actions you can take with the approval process to decline an employer.
There are also ways to prevent student engagement with fraudulent employers. We have some helpful tips for students at Safety: Best Practices for Job Searches.
If any of the employer’s information causes you to question their legitimacy after you have gone through these steps, consider the following options:
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Flag the employer if you are extremely suspicious of their legitimacy
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Approve the employer to see their job postings, and if the jobs look illegitimate, flag the employer immediately.
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Dig in a little deeper (ex: check the user’s LinkedIn profile) and figure out if that user has ties to the employer they claim to be working for
To find out how to approve a pending Employer user, please refer to How to Approve an Employer User.
We take fraudulent employers very seriously. The vast majority of our employers (including 100% of the Fortune 500) offer incredible opportunities to your talented students. Security issues on Handshake are truly a rarity. Our priority is to protect students and ensure that the number of fraudulent employers on Handshake comes as close to zero as possible. We have iterated our product to make it harder than ever before for a fraudulent employer to make their way into Handshake. We now prevent known fraudulent domains from registering, we help make it more apparent to you when an employer requesting access uses a personal email domain versus the company domain, and so much more. Much of Handshake’s fraudulent employer prevention happens before a company is able to register on Handshake in the first place. Every day, we are trying to make this process as quick and effective for your institution as possible.
With over 500,000 different employers on the system, this effort still requires Career Services staff members and students alike to help make getting access to Handshake impossible for frauds - we need your help! Reporting suspicious activity, using the Trust Score, and checking to make sure users are being honest can help reduce the overall number of fraudulent employers in Handshake for all institutions. We very much appreciate how proactive our users have been in flagging suspects in the past and because of your cooperation, we have been able to refine and strengthen our safety measures. Thank you!
If a student has given their personal information to a fraudulent employer, please review steps to take here: What To Do If A Student Has Given Out Personal Information To A Fraudulent Employer