The Product Change Log provides upcoming and recently released product changes in Handshake.
Updates are published bi-weekly on Fridays and are divided into the following sections:
- Coming soon: planned releases for the coming month.
- Recently launched: product changes that have just been released.
- Archive: product changes released more than one rolling month ago. Archived items are removed after two months.
Note: the release date for Coming soon changes aren't guaranteed and might be modified.
*This list of upcoming releases is not a comprehensive list of all upcoming launches or an official commitment, and all releases are subject to change.
Last update: September 22, 2023
Topics:
- Coming soon
- Recently launched
- Archive (updates from the last two months)
Coming soon
Coming soon: career services
Automated waitlists: [Projected launch: September]
You will be able to automatically register waitlisted students for an event or fair once a spot opens up. You will still be able to manually move students off the waitlist if you prefer.
Job-based approvals: [Projected launch: October]
[Beta] Job-based approvals collapse employer and job approvals into one, streamlined step—new employers request to connect by sending you a job posting. This means your team can manage approvals more quickly, and with more contextual information.
Job-based approvals will launch to beta partners in October and all institutions in December.
Contact last active date: [Projected launch: October]
To complement our archiving contacts update, soon you will be able to sort and filter contacts based on the last time the logged into Handshake.
Reducing evergreen jobs: [Projected launch: November]
To reduce evergreen jobs (those with expiration dates far into the future) we're implementing a rule that job expiration dates cannot be more than one year from the job start date. When this change launches, we will also update existing jobs to ensure their expiration dates adhere to the one year maximum moving forward. No jobs will auto-expire because of this change.
Globalized start/expiration dates: [Projected launch: November]
To simplify the job posting experience for employers and ensure Handshake continues to run smoothly, employers now set of start and expiration dates on jobs, rather than a start and expiration date on a school by school basis. The expiration date can be able to be altered at a school-specific level if an on-campus interview is attached to a job. In conjunction with the updates to reduce evergreen jobs (above), we will globalize start and expiration dates for existing jobs as well. No jobs will auto-expire because of this change.
Coming soon: students
Resources in mobile home feed: [Projected launch: September]
[Beta] Resources created by EDU partners will be included in the mobile home feed. This update only applies to students at schools participating in the mobile home feed beta. Learn more here.
Mobile home feed posts on jobs: [Projected launch: October]
[Beta] Employer content posted to the mobile home feed will be featured on job postings. This update only applies to students at schools participating in the mobile home feed beta. Learn more here.
Appointment signups in mobile home feed: [Projected launch: October]
[Beta] Students will be able to sign up for appointments with their career center via the mobile home feed. This update only applies to students at schools participating in the mobile home feed beta. Learn more here.
Coming soon: employers
Quick start campaigns: [Projected launch: October]
Premium Employers can initiate the new job campaign creation flow (Smart Campaigns) immediately after creating a new job. Users will see a pop-up modal prompting them to promote their role and directing them to the new campaign creation form.
Job-based approvals: [Projected launch: October (beta) - December]
Employers will be able to request a connection with a school by posting a job. Employers and EDU partners will save time by consolidating two steps into one to get approvals at relevant schools. Once a job is approved, employers will be able to message and search for candidates at the school, and request events. Job-based approvals will launch to beta EDU partners in October and all institutions in December.
Reducing evergreen jobs: [Projected launch: November]
To reduce evergreen jobs (those with expiration dates far into the future) we will be implementing a rule that job expiration dates cannot be more than one year from the job start date. To streamline dates, we will also update existing evergreen jobs to ensure their expiration dates adhere to the one year maximum moving forward. No jobs will auto-expire because of this change.
Globalized start/expiration dates: [Projected launch: November]
To simplify the job posting experience for employers and ensure Handshake continues to run smoothly, employers now set apply start and apply close dates on jobs, rather than a start and expiration date on a school by school basis. The expiration date can be altered at a school-specific level if an on-campus interview is attached to a job. In conjunction with the updates to reduce evergreen jobs (above), we will globalize start and apply close dates for existing jobs as well. No jobs will auto-expire because of this change.
Recently launched
Recently launched: career services
New Analytics fields: employer hosted meetings: [Launched: August 21, 2023]
Career services teams can now report on employer hosted meetings via Analytics.
New employer validation: [Launched: August 22, 2023]
[10% launch] We launched new user and business level verification steps to further enhance our validation process for new employers. Through a partnership with Persona, users creating a new employer profile will be able to provide a government ID and their company’s EIN for faster verification.
Job auto-approval exceptions: [Launched: August 30, 2023]
With the new job form launched to 100% of employers, career services teams are able to use an expanded set of job location options (including hybrid and residential address) as job auto-approval exception criterial. These new job location fields will also be reflected on job postings.
Updated job form: [Launched: August 30, 2023]
We’re revamping the job form to encourage higher quality job postings, collect compelling information for students, and streamline the process for job posters.
Expired posting comments and activity information: [Launched: August 30, 2023]
Comments and activity feed information on job postings will be removed 30 days after the job expires. This information will still be available via Analytics.
Employer booth check-in: [Launched: August 30, 2023]
Employer booth check-in helps you quantify the impact of in-person career fairs. With it, your team is able to print QR codes for each employer booth that students scan to check in. Your team is able to access check-in data, while employers and the students they met will be encouraged to keep the conversation going after the fair.
Job descriptions: [Launched: September 05, 2023]
When viewing a job as a career services user, you can now click "view now" to see the entire job description, rather than just a preview.
Resource categories: [Launched: September 07, 2023]
[Beta] Career services teams can assign Resources to custom categories. Students can filter Resources by category.
Archiving contacts: [Launched: September 14, 2023]
Career services teams can archive contacts that are no longer active. Learn more here.
Changing job type or federal work study toggle: [Launched: September 13, 2023]
We're reintroducing the option to edit the job type field (e.g. internship, on campus student employment) after a job has been posted. You will also be able to check or uncheck the federal work study toggle.
Re-requesting approval sunset: [Launched: September 20, 2023]
We removed the option to allow an employer resubmit a school approval after being declined. We see very few education partners enable resubmission and very few employers request re-approval. This change will help us improve the school connection and approval experience going forward.
NOTE: previous announcements stated that employer and job approval re-requests are being sunset. We are ONLY sunsetting employer re-requests.
Applicant packages: [Launched: September 20, 2023]
When posting a job on behalf of an employer (or when editing a job), EDU partners now have the option to add employer contacts as ‘additional members’ of the “hiring team” and configure them to receive applicant packages.
Editing Resources: [Launched: September 21, 2023]
A popup notification lets you know that your Resource has been unpublished if you edit it. When you're finished editing, you can keep the Resource as a draft or republish it.
Recently launched: students
Mobile home feed: [Launched: August 21, 2023]
[Beta] The mobile home feed will pull relevant career content and opportunities into a digestible, scrollable experience that helps students navigate Handshake and discover all the resources and programming your team offers. Starting in August, interested career services teams can join the beta launch of the mobile home feed to give their students early access. Learn more here.
Event and fair reminders: [Launched: August 22, 2023]
To help reduce no-show rates, we have standardized the timing of reminder notifications for registered students. These reminders now go out 24 hours and 4 hours prior to the event or fair. We also added push notifications for the four-hour reminder to help communicate with students on the go.
Onboarding: [Launched: August 24, 2023]
[50% launch] We are updating the order of onboarding questions to ask students for the most important information first—preferences regarding employment type, industry, job role, and location. Students will be able to answer "not sure" to dismiss these questions. All other existing onboarding questions will be asked after these first four.
Giving students ability to temporarily mute employers: [Launched: August 28, 2023]
[50% launch] In an effort to give students more control, we'll allow students to mute employers who send messaging campaigns for 90 days. They will also be able to mute campaigns about jobs in a particular location for 90 days as well. This will help reduce clutter and the perception of spam in student inboxes.
New Notifications Tray: [Launched: August 31, 2023]
We've refreshed the in-app notifications page for students to ensure information is timely and relevant. The improved experience offers a timeline view and allows students to easily see read vs. unread notifications.
Event search quick filters: [Launched: September 01, 2023]
[20% launch] We're adding new quick filters to the top of the event search page that help students quickly filter down to career fairs hosted by their institution, events with employers hosted by their institution, career guidance events hosted by their institution, and events hosted by employers.
Follow employer event emails: [Launched: September 07, 2023]
Students will receive an email for events associated with an employer they’ve expressed interest in via their interactions with that employer on Handshake, regardless of whether they’ve followed the employer. This email is sent 14 days before the relevant event takes place.
AI career copilot: [Launched: September 19, 2023]
[Pilot] Handshake’s AI career copilot helps students get answers to common career questions and encourages students to connect with their career services team to dive deeper. Plus, career services teams gain insights into what students are asking. This feature is live at a handful of pilot institutions—we'll expand the pilot later this fall.
Recently launched: employers
Updated job form: [Launched: August 21, 2023]
[100% launch] We’re revamping the job form to encourage higher quality job postings, collect compelling information for students, and streamline the process for job posters.
As a part of the new job form, we are removing some features that are not commonly used:
1. Employers will no longer be able to feature new virtual info chats on jobs. Employers can continue to create availability calendar schedules and share them with students through messaging
2. Core employers will be able to have one user (the job poster) receive applicant packages and be available for student messages
3. The “earliest grad date” qualification field will be removed. The “latest grad date” field remains—this change ensures employers can still filter for candidates that are graduating in time for their position without needlessly excluding students who graduated earlier.
Simplified school posting: [Launched: August 21, 2023]
With a new streamlined school posting workflow, you will be able to post your job to all connected schools with one click and post to a subset of schools by selecting a school list instead of each school separately.
Reducing evergreen jobs: [Launched: August 21, 2023]
To reduce evergreen jobs (those with expiration dates far into the future) we're implementing a rule that job expiration dates cannot be more than one year from the job start date. When this change launches, we will also update existing jobs to ensure their expiration dates adhere to the one year maximum moving forward. No jobs will auto-expire because of this change.
New Employer Validation: [Launched: August 22, 2023]
[10% launch] We will be launching a new user and business-level verification steps to further enhance our validation process for new employers. Through a partnership with Persona, users creating a new employer profile may provide a government ID and their company’s EIN for faster verification.
Advocate Analytics: [Launched: August 22, 2023]
Employers with the Advocates module have access to two new reporting capabilities that provide holistic view of an employers advocate program, campaign engagement, and the reach for each of their advocates.
Bulk actions in the inbox (archive/star): [Launched: August 28, 2023]
Employer users are able to select multiple messages in the inbox and then either mark them as starred or send them to the archive folder.
School filters in the inbox: [Launched: August 28, 2023]
Employers will now have the ability to filter their inbox to messages from specific educational institutions.
Smart Campaigns: New campaign creation flow: [Launched: August 29, 2023]
We're introducing automation to enable users to build high-quality campaigns more efficiently. With this launch users can start a campaign by attaching the job they want to promote, and Handshake will automatically generate a relevant audience for the campaign based on the job description and requirements. This updated feature will replace the current campaign creation experience.
Removing expired posting comment and activity data: [Launched: August 30, 2023]
We are deleting comments and activity information from job posts 30 days after it expires to ensure our platform performance isn’t impacted by more job post volume.
Re-requesting approval sunset: [Launched: September 20, 2023]
We removed the option to allow an employer resubmit a school approval after being declined. We see very few education partners enable resubmission and very few employers request re-approval. This change will help us improve the school connection and approval experience going forward.
Archive
Updates from the start of the year
Past launches: career services
Duplicate Experience Templates: [Launched June 20, 2023]
[Full launch] Easily duplicate an experience template to maintain your settings when creating a new template.
Experience template qualifications: [Launched June 20, 2023]
[Full launch] Set qualifications (like school year or major) on experience templates so that only those specific students can see them.
Experience template form fields: [Launched June 20, 2023]
[Full launch] Dictate which experience student form fields are visible or hidden, and which are required or optional.
Experience form language updates: [Launched June 20, 2023]
[Full launch] Updated the student form to reflect language changes requested by partners. Employers are now referred to as organizations. Jobs are referred to as experiences.
Experience template search bar: [Launched June 20, 2023]
Quickly find the Experience template you're looking for with keyword search.
Major mapping quick download: [Launched: June 29, 2023]
[Full Launch] Easily download a report showing how your institution's majors are mapped to Handshake major groups.
Labels quick download: [Launched: June 29, 2023]
[Full Launch] You will be able to easily download a report showing all labels your institution has created, who created them, what they're used for, and more.
Major mapping quick download: [Launched: June 29, 2023]
[Full Launch] Easily download a report showing how your institution's majors are mapped to Handshake major groups.
Labels quick download: [Launched: June 29, 2023]
[Full Launch] You will be able to easily download a report showing all labels your institution has created, who created them, what they're used for, and more.
Resources: [Launched: July 19, 2023]
[Full Launch] Your team's career content gets a glow up without any extra effort. Create eye-catching resources that showcase your team's knowledge and make an impact on your students' career journey. These updates are launching to beta partners on a rolling basis.
New employer validation: [Launched: July 25, 2023]
We will be launching a new user and business-level verification steps to further enhance our validation process for new employers. Through a partnership with Persona, users creating a new employer profile may provide a government ID and their company’s EIN for faster verification.
New jobs page: [Launched: July 27, 2023]
The new jobs page allows access to important job details via a new sidesheet, rather than having to load another page. Plus, the new job list view includes your auto-approval exception criteria, making it easy to see why the job landed in your queue.
Images in Resources: [Launched: July 28, 2023]
You can now resize an image, add captions for inline images, and add links to images in Resources.
Updated campaign measurement: [Launched: July 31, 2023]
We have updated the back-end logic behind how we measure campaign engagement to include the full impact of your outreach. This update should result in minor improvements (~1-5%) in your campaign engagement rate. This change will apply retroactively and improve performance across all campaigns on Handshake.
Job list page—expiration date: [Launched: August 4, 2023]
You can now access a job's expiration date on the job list page.
Job list page—open in new tab: [Launched: August 8, 2023]
You can now open a job details page in a new tab from the job list page with one click. If you command+click on the button, the page will open in a new tab in the background.
New Analytics fields: [Launched: August 10, 2023]
We've added several new fields to Analytics—review the full list here (including more fields coming later this year).
Multiple colleges per student: [Launched: August 16, 2023]
We will allow students to be associated with multiple colleges. Career services will be able to import multiple colleges per student too.
Past launches: students
Download documents on mobile: [Launched: August 4, 2023]
Students using our iOS app can now download documents attached to job postings via the app.
Past launches: employers
Handshake Events app: [Launched June 27, 2023]
Makes attending and collecting feedback a breeze for your in-person event attendees with capabilities at your fingertips with the Handshake Events (previously known as Event Manager) mobile app. The app includes real-time check-in information so you can engage with students as they arrive and the ability to leverage your whole in-person team to connect with the maximum number of students.
Handshake Events advanced scheduling: [Launched June 27, 2023]
With our new scheduling functionality, a full day of interviews are on one page, reducing the need for additional scheduling tools and the back-and-forth between interviewers and candidates. Users are able to add multiple interviewers and create custom time blocks, as well as invite students directly to a slot.
Bulk actions in the inbox (read/unread): [Launched: August 9, 2023]
Employer users can select multiple messages in the inbox to mark them as read or unread.