Employer Interactions with Students

This article details how employers can interact with students in Handshake once students activate their Handshake account. Employers may initiate interactions with students, depending on the profile privacy option the student has selected (see more here). 

Employer Trust & Safety Requirements

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, please 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 use our flagging system or report a message so that our Trust & Safety team may investigate and take appropriate action.

Employer Outreach Activities

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 institution or for Open Network (read more on the Open Network here).
• If posting is requested at a Handshake partner institution, that institution is responsible for reviewing and processing job posting requests.
• Message students 
  • In rare cases, we will enable messaging with <80 trust score, usually as a part of the Premium sales process
  • Note: Some institutions block student messaging. 
• Employer must be approved at institution or for Open Network
• Employer must have a Trust Score of 80 or higher, or the 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 institution or for Open Network
• Employer must have a Trust Score of 80 or higher, or the 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 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 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.
• 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)

Premium Employer Partners 

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.

What Employers Can See 

If a student has selected the Employers or Community profile privacy option, Employers that are approved at their institution will have the ability to view their profile. Students are in full control of whether an employer can see their profile. If they select Private, no other students or employers can see their profile - only career services staff. If a student has selected the Employers Or Community profile, employers can see the following information: 

• Education information: Institution name, level of study, graduation date, course, college
• Work experience details
• Skills 
• Organisations / Extracurriculars
• Projects
• Pronouns*
• When a student opts into specifying their pronouns, they will be able to choose to share their pronouns with employers, other students, or both.
• For more information, please see our blog post Student Gender Identity and Pronouns on Handshake.