To help make sure your application documents are ready for job searches, your school may choose to enable Document Feedback through Handshake. This means your school's career center reviews the documents you upload to your account and provides helpful suggestions and feedback. With their support, you'll feel more confident when applying for jobs through Handshake!
There are five possible statuses for your documents in Handshake. These statuses are located to the right of your documents on the My Documents page:
- Pending
- Reviewed
- Approved
- Changes Suggested
- Changes Required
Click on the expandable headers to learn more about each of the statuses.
To upload a new document to your account, refer to How to Upload a New Document.
To edit or delete an existing document, check out How to Edit or Delete a Document.
Pending
This indicates that your career center hasn't reviewed your document.
You can still apply for jobs with a pending document, but depending on your school's preferences, your application may not be fully submitted until the document is reviewed or approved.
- If your school requires the document be reviewed or approved first, this means the employer won't have access to your application until the document is approved.
- If the document isn't reviewed or approved by the application close deadline, the application is withdrawn, and you will be notified. For additional information, we recommend you reach out to your career center.
Document feedback and review preferences are customizable per school. For more information on your school's specific preferences, we recommend connecting with your Career Center to confirm the details.
To locate your Career Center, refer to How to Locate your School’s Contact Information in Handshake.
Approved
This status indicates your career center requires documents to be approved before they can be attached to an application, and they have approved your document for normal usage!
Reviewed
This indicates your career center has reviewed your document and confirmed it "as is", without any suggested changes or feedback.
Note: if you've previously had a document reviewed, your career services center may choose to automatically approve all future documents uploaded to the system. If this is the case, your document will be "Reviewed" upon upload.
Changes Suggested
This status means your career center suggests suggestions, but usually they are not needed to use your document in Handshake.
Click on the document name, then scroll to the bottom of the page to review any comments added by your career center.
Note: some schools have a setting enabled that prevents unapproved documents from being submitted with an application - if your school uses this workflow, then an application with "Changes Suggested" would not be visible to the recruiter until the application close deadline. When the apply period closes, your application will be fully submitted.
Changes Required
This indicates that your career center requires changes to be made to the document for it to be used in Handshake.
Click on the document name, then scroll to the bottom of the page to review activity and comments left by the career center.
You can click Edit Document in the upper-right corner of the page to make changes to current settings or upload a new version for review.
Use the below image as a resource to determine the impact of each status on your job application process.
- Pending documents that haven't been reviewed by your career center may be submitted on the job applications end date, or withdrawn completely if not the document wasn't reviewed/approved.
- Documents with Changes Suggested may be used to apply for jobs as usual. *Suggestions are optional and not required.
- Documents that have been marked as Reviewed, have been approved "as is" by your career center, and there's no changes needed to the Document. The application is submitted at the time of review.
- Documents that must be marked as Approved, will stay in Pending status until approval. Once Approved, the application is submitted.