Ready to start using Handshake? Great! Here are five quick steps you can take to jump-start your Handshake experience:
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Login to Handshake. You should have a link from the email your Career Services Center sent you. If you don’t have that email, try finding your school’s Handshake page using this URL convention: SCHOOLNAME.joinhandshake.com. Once you’re on your school’s page, click the Sign up for an Account link in the lower left hand corner to get started.
- Upload a document. You’ll likely want to have a public resume available in Handshake for employers (and your school’s Career Development Services team) to see. To learn more about how to upload a document, read How do I add (upload) a new document?
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Fill out your profile.
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Some of your information will already be in your Handshake profile (this information would have been provided by your Career Services Center, usually with support from the school registrar). Check to be sure all pre-loaded information is correct. Pay especially close attention to your major and GPA (if included). If you find an error in any of your profile data, contact your school’s Career Services Center to correct it. (Note: Handshake is unable to change any of your profile data, so contacting your school is best.)
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You’ll need to decide whether to make your profile public or private.
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A public profile, and most information in the profile, can be seen by any employer on Handshake and by your Career Services Center. (Note: There are some Handshake profile components, like GPA, that have their own privacy settings. So you can make your profile public, but your GPA private, for example). Your profile can’t be seen by other students or by Career Services Centers at other schools.
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If you make your profile private, it can only be seen by you and your school’s Career Services Center.
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You can switch your privacy status at any time, from private to public or from public to private.
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The more information you add to your profile, the easier it will be for employer to find you and to make good decisions about whether or not you might be a good fit for their job postings.
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Take Handshake for a spin. Use the landing page, top search bar and filters to look for companies and jobs you’re interested in learning more about or applying to. Remember, you can always save your searches in Handshake so finding relevant employers and jobs will be easy.
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Follow some jobs and employers you’re interested in. When you follow an employer or a job, you can begin filtering based on companies you follow.
Once you’ve taken these five steps, you’ll be on your way to using Handshake to help you efficiently and effectively launch your career.
