Recently Released

For Career Services...

Admin Permissions

We've rolled out new levels of granularity for the Manage Students, Manage Jobs, and Manage Events roles.  The goal of these updates is to give your team added flexibility and security when granting access to Handshake!

• For those who have the Manage Students role, you can now designate the following...
  • Sensitive Student Data Privileges: In order to see sensitive data and edit sensitive fields, this role will need to be selected. Disabling this role will remove all sensitive data from view. This restricts the ability to edit student’s personal information and view any filters/fields that include GPA, Work Authorization, personal information (such as email address, username, card id), Visa status, Veteran status, and Calendar.
  • View Student Labels: In order to manage and view student labels, this role will need to be selected. Without this role enabled, users will not have access to view/add student labels or see student label filters in searches.
  • Please note that anyone who had the Manage Students role previously now has both of the new permissions by default.  Because they were previously lumped in with the Manage Students role, we didn't want to reduce anyone's access during the rollout.

• Previously, users who did not have the Manage Jobs and Manage Events roles were still able to create new jobs and events (though they couldn't edit or approve existing ones).  Now, you must have the Manage Jobs or Manage Events role to create a new job or event.

  • This means that anyone who doesn't have Manage Jobs cannot create, edit or approve jobs.  The same is true for events.

• Read more about admin permission updates here!

Back to School Marketing Toolkit

The toolkit has launched - check it out here! The toolkit was created to give our university partners access to pre-built marketing assets that reflect Handshake's value proposition and new branding.  We've recently added social media assets, as well as visuals you can used on CCTVs!

• We also recently posted two marketing best practices articles in the Help Center.  They're being added to the toolkit too, but in the meantime, you can access them below...
  • How to Write a Great Email
  • How to Optimize Your Social Posts
• The University at Buffalo has graciously offered to represent their talk on Email Marketing from our User Meetup at Trinity College this summer - come learn best practices from your peers!
  • Register here!

Fall Activation + Engagement Campaigns

Building on the success of our Summer Activation Campaigns, we're running a series of Activation + Engagement email campaigns this fall aimed at getting more students to log into Handshake.  Over 590 schools are participating!

• Learn about our upcoming campaign we'll be sending - a job digest curated for students based on their school year and major - here!

Job Role Pages in Targeted Emails

You can now attach job role pages to your Targeted Emails!  Job role pages feature key details like relevant opportunities, salary ranges, and messageable peers related to a particular type of position - they're a great way to introduce students to different types of opportunities they could pursue.  You'll find them listed as a new option under the Handshake Content section of the email building tool.

Cover Page for Resume Packets and Applicant Packages

This update will add a cover page listing all of the students included in the packet/package.  This was a request we heard frequently from our university partners and will help employers more easily manage applicants!

Handshake Open FAQs

If you haven't already, we highly recommend reviewing our FAQ document about Handshake's decision to open up access to more students.  The document is being compiled on a rolling basis as we receive questions from our university partners.  Please do not hesitate to reach out to our team if you have more questions!

For Students...

More Personalized Employer Messages

We previously announced an update that allows premium employers to feature a job or event in their messages to students to give students a more clear call to action.  We just rolled out an additional update that allows students to indicate they're not interested in the event or job - there's a "No Thanks" button they can click within a message.  This will allow the employer to remove the student from future campaigns to avoid sending them opportunities that aren't of interest.

Student Registration Page Wording Update

Based on user research with students, we've made a few small language tweaks on the new student registration page to make it easier to navigate.  Check out the new language below.

Coming Soon

For Career Services...

Admin Permissions

In addition to the updates mentioned above, our team is planning more updates that let you differentiate between view vs edit access for specific Handshake features.  We'll also be rolling out an updated user interface that includes prebuilt permissions recommendations based on a users position in your office.  Stay tuned for more details!

Email Templates

We've recently released two new "Welcome back to school" email templates that you can send to your students - one template has language that targets students who have logged into Handshake, and the other targets students who haven't.  We'll be adding more email templates over the course of the fall - stay tuned for updates!  If your team is looking for marketing collateral you can use to promote Handshake, we highly recommend checking these templates out!

• Read more about creating a Targeted Email here!

Student & Employer Activity Snapshots

We recently released updates to bring even more relevant data to the student and employer activity snapshots!

• Student snapshots now feature job seeking status, room only check ins, Reviews, FDS responses, and Experiences
• Employer snapshots now feature FDS responses, Reviews, Experiences
  • The count of messages sent per employer is coming soon!  Thanks to everyone who requested this update!  This will give your team more visibility into which employers are reaching out to your students proactively.

For Employers...

Email Campaigns to Opted-In Contacts

We're building an update for premium employers that will allow students with a private Handshake account to provide contact information to employers and opt into follow up emails.  Typically, employers at an event would collect emails from interested students via pencil and paper, a spreadsheet, or another third party platform.  This update ensures that they can manage all event follow ups through Handshake.  The student is in complete control of whether they want to share their information with the employer, and whether they want to participate in follow-up campaigns.  This update only applies to students with a private Handshake account, since they cannot be messaged by employers through Handshake - it allows them to grant individual employers the ability to connect with them.

For Students...

Profile Completion Research & Experiments

We're doing research into how we can better express the value of a complete profile to students.  As students share more about their background and interests with Handshake, we are able to serve them better job recommendations and (for those who are public to employers) helps them become more visible to recruiters.  The goal is to be able to share even more specific metrics around the increase in value a student gets from filling out parts of their profile so that they're more likely to do it.  We'll report back on findings so that you can use them as soundbites to promote profile completion to students!

• We're planning one small experiment where we'll show students the number of jobs approved at their school that match their existing career interests.  The call to action here will be to keep those interests up-to-date and to head to the job search page!  Nothing is changing about how we identify these relevant jobs or rank them in search - this number just helps students better understand how sharing their career interests maps to relevant jobs.

• We're also planning a small experiment where we would email activated students who haven't updated their profile in a while, sharing new metrics about the value of profile completion as well as logos of relevant employers actively recruiting students like them.  The email will then drive students into Handshake to update their information.  As always, we'll be vigilant about the value this experiment provides to students - how many students take action from the email, and how many unsubscribe.  Friendly reminder that if a student unsubscribes from this kind of email, they do not unsubscribe from your school's Targeted Emails.

Public Q&A and Reviews Pages

Our team is is planning to make Q&A and Reviews content visible online (without needing a Handshake login to view it) by September 19th.  While information about the student who posted the original content will be masked outside of Handshake, we just sent a heads up email to any student who previously submitted Q&A and Reviews content, giving them the option to opt out of making it visible outside Handshake altogether.  This update aims to give more more people access to the insights that have previously only been shared within Handshake - we hope this will help organically drive more students to log in!

• Read details here!

Mobile Application Flow

Our team is working on a few small updates to streamline the application process through our mobile app.  The goal is to make it even simpler for students to apply on mobile!