Job Applicant Management Guide

An institution has approved your job posting, and has started receiving applications. Great! Now what? This article provides an overview of resources to help manage your job applicants in Handshake.

Features available only to Premium partners are indicated by an asterisk (*). For more information, please check out this resource.

Access applicants 

Click Jobs from the left navigation, select the job you want to manage applicants for, then click the Applicants tab. 

All applicants will be displayed on the page, along with columns for their institution name, application status, the number of candidate preferences they meet, and the date of their application. 

•  *Premium employers with ATS integrations will have an additional column titled Origin.

Applicant filters

Use the filters on the left sidebar to narrow and customise your search results. You can filter applicants by:

• Keyword Search
• Engagement
  • This filter returns applicants who applied to this job after being invited to apply in a message sent by you or your employer. 
• Status (Application Status)
• Origin*
  • This filter refers to where the talent's application to your job originated. 
    • Applicants who clicked the link to apply through your ATS from within Handshake.
    • Applicants applied directly to your ATS (outside Handshake) and have engaged with your employer in Handshake in the last 12 months. 
• Labels
• Not Labels
• Institutions
• Skills
• Courses
• Individual Courses
• Date (application created date)

*The filter Origin includes the following touchpoints in Handshake for candidates who applied directly to your ATS: 

• Student viewed your employer
• Student followed your employer 
• Student messaged your employer
• Student opened a message sent by your employer 
• Student opened a campaign sent by your employer
• Student clicked a campaign sent by your employer 
• Student viewed a job posted by your employer
• Student applied to a job posted by your employer
• Student registered for an event or career fair session with your employer 

Job candidate preferences filters

Use the filters above the candidate table to identify candidates who match the job's candidate preferences: 

• Graduation Date / Levels of Study
• Courses

Applicant bulk actions

Check the box to the left of each student, or click "Select all" to select all candidates. 

Once an applicant(s) is selected, the header will be replaced with bulk actions you can take: 

• Message Students
  • Learn more about Messaging Applicants.
• Download applicant packages (PDF, Zip, and CSV options)
  • Discover how to Download Applications / Create a CV Book.
• Add or remove labels
  • Check out Best Practice: Use Labels to Manage Applicants.
• Mark applications hired or declined
  • Read more about Managing Applicant Status.

Manage applicant status

Once applicants are received, you can update their application status and choose to send them custom automated messages according to their status. Learn more about Managing Applicant Status. 

• Learn what each status represents in Definitions: Application Statuses.
• Curious about What happens when I decline applicants?