Employer Interactions with Students

We work hard to make sure employers contact students in a safe and secure manner. Handshake now vets new employers for legitimacy and monitors for fraud on an ongoing basis. This new validation process is backed by an industry leading fraud-prevention platform technology, and helps us maintain a credible network of employers without the trust score.

If there’s an employer in violation of our Terms of Service, our Trust & Safety team will review the employer’s account and suspend access if needed.

In order for employers to directly interact with students at your institution, the institution must approve the employer. 

• If your institution has partnered with Handshake, the Career Services team is responsible for reviewing each employer request. For more information on this process, refer to How do employers get approved at my institution?
• If your institution has not yet partnered with Handshake, and you’re part of the Handshake Open Network, any employer that's vetted via the fraud-prevention platform and has past activity on Handshake can interact with the Open Network. 

If you encounter any suspicious activity from an employer, refer to Safety: Flagging an Employer on Handshake so that our Trust & Safety team may review and take appropriate action.

Every type of activity an employer might take on Handshake has a prerequisite that helps strengthen the Trust & Safety on our network. These prerequisites are listed below:

• Post jobs
  • Employer must be approved at the institution or for Open Network.
  • If a job posting is requested at a Handshake partner institution, that institution is responsible for reviewing and processing the job posting requests.. 
    • For more information on how employers connect with students from the open network, refer to How to Connect with Handshake Open Network.
• Message students 
  
  • Employer must be approved at the institution or for Handshake's Open Network.
  • Employer must have an approved or expired job posting at your institution, or on the platform for Handshake's Open Network.
    
    • Note: Some institutions block student messaging. 
  • Student must have interacted with the employer (via applying for a job, signing up for virtual fair sessions, or RSVP'ing for an event).
• Download CVs 
  • Employer must be approved at institution or for Open Network.
  • Student must have interacted with the employer (via applying for a job, signing up for virtual fair sessions, or RSVP'ing for an event).
    
    • Note: there are a very small number of employers that have been individually vetted by our Trust & Safety and provided access to download public CVs without the above.
• Host events
  • Employer must be approved at institution or for Open Network.
  • To host an event in partnership with an institution, employers must be approved at the institution, and the institution must approve the event to be hosted for it to be discoverable.
• Host virtual fair sessions
  • Employer must have an approved fair registration with the institution, and students have signed up for the fair session(s).
  • Employers that have been declined at a institution won't be able to register for a fair or host sessions.
• Career Fairs 
  • • Employers with an approved fair registration with the institution, will have the option to attend the fair. 
      • Note: employers can't view the registered student attendees list for a career fair.
• Interviews
  • Employer must be approved at the institution, and the institution must have approved the interview schedule requested.
  • Interviews can't be posted to the Handshake Open Network.

Employers may also use a combination of these methods in interaction — for example, an employer may message students in Handshake inviting them to an event or apply for a job, or download a student’s public CV after the student registers for an employer event or signs up for a session at a virtual fair. 

How Employers Search for Students

To find students to message and/or download CVs from, an employer can use the following filters at institutions the employer is approved at: 

• Institution
• Level of Study
• Graduation date
• Labels (added by employers)
• Primary College
• Students that have a public CV (limitations exist on which employers can download)

Some employers on Handshake are considered Premium partners — these employers have paid for Handshake usage and have been through additional vetting by our team. They have access to additional filters and tools to help them connect with students in a more meaningful way. 

For more information on Handshake Premium product and features, please refer to Handshake’s Premium Employer Offering.

Our Premium partners have the additional filters below to search for students at approved institutions: 

• Location Interests
• Course Category
• Institution Type
• Diversity and Inclusion Focused Organisations
• Courses
• Past Companies
• Past Job Titles
• Organisations/Extracurriculars
• Skills 

Premium partners can also create Segments (groups of anonymised, aggregated students and/or alumni at approved institutions) based on filters that include: 

• Institution, Profile keywords, Course keywords/group/category
• New grads/recent grads/interns 
• Student interests (Job Role, Industry, Job Type) 
• Achievements and Accolades
• Location Preference, Current Location 
• Skills/Coursework/ work experience (job title or company) 
• Underrepresented Groups (based on Organisations, Gender, or institution types)
  • Note: Employers aren't able to only select an Underrepresented Groups Organisations filter — this filter must be selected in conjunction with another filter. 

When Premium partners use these Segment filters, they won't be able to view a list of student names that meet these criteria; however, these students will be able to be messaged, and student association with a particular segment filter may be inferred if the student responds to that employer’s message.

For more information, refer to How Employers Use Messaging with Students.