Document Status in Handshake

When reviewing your uploaded documents, if there is a Status column to the far right on the page, this indicates your institution's career centre has elected to review uploaded documents. This review occurs whether or not those documents are marked as visible on your profile.

There are five possible statuses: Pending, Reviewed, Approved, Changes Suggested, and Changes Required.

Document feedback and review preferences are customisable per institution, so we recommend contacting the career centre directly to learn more about the selected preferences. 

To review your uploaded documents and status of each, click on your account icon in the upper-right corner of Handshake, then click on Documents from the dropdown menu.

Document statuses

Pending: This indicates that your document has not yet been reviewed by your career centre.

If your institution requires documents to be reviewed or approved, and your document has been pending for over a week, you can click on the name of the document, then on the following page, click on the button Reach Out, located in the yellow banner at the top of the page.

Note: on the right of the page, in the Attached Applications section, this indicates your institution requires the document to be reviewed prior to applications being submitted with the document.

• Note: You can still apply to jobs with a pending document, but depending on your career centre's preferences, your application may not be fully submitted until the document is reviewed or approved.
  • If your institution requires the document be reviewed or approved first, this means the employer won't see your application until the document is approved.
  • If the document isn't reviewed or approved by the application close deadline, the application is withdrawn, and you will be notified. For additional information, you should contact your career centre.

Approved: This status indicates your career centre requires documents to be approved before they can be attached to an application, and they have approved your document for normal usage.

Reviewed: This indicates your career centre has reviewed your document and confirmed it "as is", without changes. 

Changes Suggested: This status shows that there are recommendations suggested by your career centre, but typically they are not required in order to use your document in Handshake. 

Click on the document name, then scroll to the bottom of the page to review any comments added by your career centre. 

• Note: Some institutions have a setting enabled that prevents unapproved documents from being submitted with an application - if your institution uses this workflow, then an application with "Changes Suggested" would not be visible to the recruiter until the application close deadline. When the apply period closes, your application will be fully submitted.

Changes Required: This indicates that your career centre requires changes to be made to the document in order for it to be used in Handshake.

Click on the document name, then scroll to the bottom of the page to review activity and comments left by the career centre.

You can click Edit Document in the upper-right corner of the page to make changes to current settings or upload a new version for review.

• Note: Some institutions have a setting enabled that blocks unapproved documents from being submitted with an application. You can click on the document and look under the Attached Applications section on the right - if it says "This CV can not be attached to any job applications until it has been approved by your university. You could reach out for an update.", then this means the document must be marked as Approved in order to fully submit applications using it.