How do employers get approved at my school?

The employer approval process for your school primarily depends on whether or not your school is a Handshake-partnered institution. 

If your school has partnered with Handshake

Schools that have partnered with Handshake are responsible for determining their process and parameters for processing employer approvals, and the specific processes in place vary from school to school. 

This resource breaks down the "how to" of employer approvals, and contains a couple of Best Practices links as well from our team for guidance: Processing Employer Approval Requests.

Employer approvals may be based on individual review by your Career Services office or via an optional auto-approval setting.

Note: While we provide partner schools with an option to enable auto-approval based on Trust Score (our unique measure of employer activity in Handshake) we do not recommend basing employer approvals on this measure alone. 

For more information on your school's employer review process, please reach out to the Career Services office.

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, then our internal team has approved those employers based on a combination of Trust Score and past activity in Handshake. 

Additional Resources

Once employers are approved to connect with your school, they can interact with you in a variety of ways, as detailed in Employer Interactions with Students. These interactions are dependent on your selected privacy setting as well as your interactions with the employer, i.e. applying for a posted job. For more information on privacy settings, please refer to Profile Privacy Options in Handshake.

Note: an employer being approved to recruit at your school via Handshake does not guarantee employer legitimacy - we strongly recommend to remain aware and alert throughout the career exploration process. For some recommendations to stay safe, check out Best Practices for Job Searches.