Employer Interactions with Students

We work hard to make sure employers contact students in a safe and secure manner. Employers on Handshake are required to verify their account email address and have a valid website listed on their company profile in order to use Handshake. In the event that there’s an employer in violation of our Terms of Service, our Trust & Safety team will investigate the employer’s account and suspend access until the issue is resolved (if it may be resolved - such as a providing a working website or updating an email address). 

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

• 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, then our internal team has approved those employers based on Trust Score and past activity in Handshake. 

If you encounter any suspicious activity from an employer, you may refer to Safety: Flagging an Employer on Handshake or How Peer Messaging Flags and Content Moderation Work so that our Trust & Safety team may investigate and take appropriate action. 

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

• Post jobs
  • Employer must be approved at the institution or for the Open Network.
    • For more information on how employers connect with students from the open network, refer to How to Connect with Handshake Open Network.
  • If posting is requested at a Handshake partner institution, that institution is responsible for reviewing and processing job posting requests.
• 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 job, signing up for virtual fair sessions, RSVPing for an event)
• Download CVs
  • There are a very small number of employers that have been individually vetted by our Trust & Safety and provided access to download public CVs. 
  • Employer must be approved at the institution or for the Open Network
  • Student must have interacted with the employer (via applying for job, signing up for virtual fair sessions, RSVPing for an event)
• Host events
  • Employer must be approved at the institution or for the 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 in order 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 an institution will not 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 cannot 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 with: 

• 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) 
• Organisations/Extracurriculars
• Achievements and Accolades
• Location Preference, Current Location 
• Skills/Coursework/ work experience (job title or company) 
• Underrepresented Groups (based on Organisations, Gender, Socio-economic backgrounds, or institution types)
• Note: Employers are not 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 will not be able to see 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.