Both current students and alumni can access Handshake with a Student account. However, some features that are specific to the institution may only be available to those who are attending the current level of study.
The features available to your account will depend on:
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Your account's connection with an institution instance
- You may need to be approved by the institution to access all of their offerings.
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Your institution's partnership status with Handshake
- An institution is considered a Handshake partner if the Career Services Centre has chosen to manage your institution's instance and use Handshake for additional features, such as managing Appointments, internships (via Experiences), First Destination Surveys, and more.
- Institutions that haven't yet partnered with us may still have an institution instance as part of the Handshake Open Network. Read more about our goals for Expanding Our Efforts to Help All Students Find Opportunity.
Click on the expandable headers to learn more!
Not connected to an institution in Handshake?
If your account isn't connected to an institution instance yet, you won't have access to all of their offerings until you are. Until then, you can manage your profile and access public career fairs on Handshake. This is typical if you have created a new account and your institution request is pending.
For more information on how to get connected with an institution, check out If You Can Only Access Profile and Fairs.
If you attend a Handshake-partner institution
Once you're connected to a Handshake-partner institution, you can access your institution's career centre via the left navigation menu.
Click Career Centre to access your career services staff, schedule appointments, complete a First Destination Survey, take a survey, or check out additional resources your career centre has created for you!
If you attend an institution that hasn't yet partnered with Handshake
If you're connected to an institution that hasn't yet partnered with Handshake, you can:
- Manage your profile
- Access fairs and events hosted by Handshake-partner institutions that are public
- Apply to jobs posted by a subset of trusted employers
One way to determine if your institution is a Handshake partner is by checking for the Career Centre option in the left navigation menu.
If there's no Career Centre available to you, and your request to connect isn't pending, this means your institution is not a Handshake partner yet.
If you're enjoying your experience with Handshake, feel free to encourage your career centre to formally partner with us and we can unlock additional benefits for you and your institution!