Search Students Feature

The Search Students page in Handshake provides a student directory at your approved institutions of the students who have opted-in to sharing their profile with employers. 

In order to use the Search Students feature, you need to be approved at institutions and have your Institution Network set up. Please refer to Institution Network Management on how to manage your Institution Network on Handshake. 

Please note: Premium features are for Handshake Premium accounts only. For more information, please check out this resource.

Topics: 

• How to access Search Students
• Search Students page filters
• Actions on the Search Students page

How to access Search Students

Click on Search Students from the left navigation bar. This will take you directly to the Search Students page.

If your company is a Premium partner, and your account has been designated as a Premium Seat in Handshake, click Candidates instead, then click the Search All tab. For more information on Your Candidates, refer to Candidate Hub (for Premium Employers).

All students with public profiles at your approved institutions will be listed with a brief summary of their profile, including their Name, Institution, Course, two most recent employers, and two most recent organisations.

Search Students page filters

We recommend utilising the filters on the left of the page to help narrow down your search into a reasonable number of students to recruit from.

Tip: If you've selected a set of filters that you'd like to use again in the future, you can also save your search! For guidance, refer to How to Create a Saved Search.

The default page filters for all employers are: 

• Keyword search
• Institution
• Level of Study
• Course Category
• Courses
• Graduation Date
• Labels
• Not Labels
• Primary College

Premium partners have access to additional search filters, as long as the user account has a Premium Seat. These Premium filters include: 

• Location Interests: Where a student has stated they are interested in working. 
  • Click on the filter name to enable a drop down search bar
    • • Type in the desired location, and select the result from the populated drop-down menu
      • You may filter here by town/city
    • Once your location is selected, you'll be able to select a location radius spanning from 5-100 miles within the location you entered.
      • • Tip: click the small "X" next to the radius filter if you'd like to remove that from the search.
• Course Category: These Courses consolidate individual courses across every institution on Handshake
• Institution Type: This includes minority-serving institutions, and Women's Colleges
• Diversity and Inclusion Focused Organisation: Meet more students who participate in on-campus clubs and nationally recognised organisations. 
• Courses: This searches directly on the student's "course" profile field. To find as many relevant students as possible, we recommend: 
  • Using the shortest possible keyword (e.g., "software" instead of "software engineer")
  • Adding multiple keywords when relevant (e.g., "software", "computer", "engineer")
• Past Companies: These would be any past companies a student has stated that the have worked for 
• Past Job Titles: These would be any past job titles the student stated that they had. 
• Organisations/Extracurriculars: This searches Organisations and Extracurriculars the student has added to their profile. 
  
• Skills: Skills the student has listed on their profile.

Actions on the Search Students page

From the Search Students page, you can add or remove labels in bulk, message students*, or click their name to view their full profile. 

Add or Remove Labels

To bulk add or remove labels to students, put a check next to each student name, then use the bulk action Add Label or Remove Label, located at the top of the display table. 

• For additional information on labels-related workflows, refer to: 
  • Best Practice: Use Labels to Manage Applicants
  • Managing RSVPs with Evaluations, Notes, & Labels
  • Preparing for the Day-of a Virtual Fair

Message Students

In the upper-right corner of each student row is an option to message the student* - click the message bubble icon to initiate a message to the student. 

*In order to message students, employers must meet certain requirements. For more information, please refer to How to Send a Student a Message and Why can't I message students?