Employer approval depends on your school’s partnership with Handshake. Partnered schools manage their own employer approval processes based on their institutional policies and settings, while non‑partnered schools follow Handshake’s Open Network safeguards and validation requirements.
Check out the expandable headers below for more information!
If your school has partnered with Handshake
Schools that have partnered with Handshake manage their own approval processes. Your career services office may handle individual employer approvals, use job-based approvals, and/or apply optional auto-approval settings. The specific approval procedures vary by school.
For more information on how your school approves employers, we recommend reaching out to your Career Services office.
Additionally, your school may choose to feature approved employers (along with jobs, events, and career fairs) in curated categories called Career Center Collections. To learn more about these, refer to Career Center Collections at your School.
If your school has not yet partnered with Handshake
If your school has not yet partnered with Handshake and you’re part of the Handshake Open Network, employers are first validated by Handshake before they can recruit. We use a combination of automated fraud‑prevention technology and manual review by our Trust & Safety team to confirm that employers meet our platform standards. Employers that pass this validation and meet activity requirements can connect with students in the Handshake Open Network.
Once employers are approved to connect with your school or the Handshake Open Network, they can engage with you in various ways on the platform. To learn more about this, refer to Employer Interactions with Students.
These interactions depend on your privacy settings and your engagement with the employer (e.g., applying for a posted job). For more information on privacy settings, refer to Profile Privacy Options in Handshake.
While approval to recruit at your school or on the Handshake Open Network allows an employer to connect with students, it does not guarantee the employer’s legitimacy. We strongly encourage you to remain cautious and vigilant throughout your career exploration process. For tips on staying safe, check out Safety: Best Practices for Job Searches.