What are reviews and how do I see them?

Reviews are an opportunity for students to share feedback on internship experiences with other students and their employer.

We encourage students to provide honest, constructive feedback in their own voice. Students may edit, update, or delete their reviews at any time.

We require all reviews to follow our Content Guidelines before they are posted on your Handshake Company Page.

Why Reviews?

We want to help employers:

Engage all students by giving them an authentic look into the company from their peers.
Tell your brand story by activating former interns as brand ambassadors.
Get authentic feedback by giving you access to thoughtful, nuanced, reviews written by students from all backgrounds and moderated by us.

We want to help students:

Explore careers and make decisions with more information
Get advice specific to the companies and roles they’re interested in
Gain insight into company culture, mentorship, and learning, which is often harder to gauge

Our Content Guidelines, produced below, ensure all reviews are appropriate for publishing.

Authoritative: The reviewer must have worked for the employer being reviewed
Unique: Only one review per internship or job experience
Original: All reviews should be original
Comprehensible: All reviews should be literate and comprehensible
Not Personal: No negative reviews that identify individuals or contact info
Not Profane: No profanities, threats of violence or discriminatory language
Not Confidential: Cannot reveal confidential company information
Not Spam: No advertisements or irrelevant content

Our moderation process ensures all content conforms to guidelines. 96% of reviews passed our moderation process - the majority of our reviews are high quality, thoughtful and constructive.

Anyone on the network - students, employers or Career Centers - can flag a review for additional moderation.

Can you provide an overview of how the moderation process works?

After students submit their review, their submission undergoes a multi-step moderation process before publication:

Automatic text analysis: highlights any questionable language for review
Moderator manually scans reviews, decides whether to publish content

Reviews 100% of reviews flagged by text analysis
Spot-checks 20% of all reviews against other content guidelines

Post-publication, there are also easy ways for employers, career centers, and other students to flag reviews that do not meet our content guidelines. On every review, there is a little “flag” icon, you will be able to click, and an easy way to tell us why you flagged that review. After a review is flagged:

The review is taken down, pending secondary moderation. The student who wrote it will be notified that the review was flagged, and why.
Flagged content is reviewed again, with notes from the user who flagged it.
Flagged reviews will be judged against content guidelines. Flagging must be more detailed than “I just don’t like this review”.
We are aiming for an SLA of 3 business days between any flagging and a moderation decision.

What about industries with higher standards of confidentiality? How do you catch sensitive but not “inappropriate” content?

This provision is covered in our Content Guidelines, under the “Not Confidential” clause. With feedback from several employers in these more “sensitive” industries, particularly financial services, our employment and privacy counsel developed extensive guidelines for our moderators to ensure we are not publishing confidential company information, or that we can respond quickly if such content is published before being flagged.

Are all students asked "What questions were you asked during the interview?"

Yes, this is a standard part of our reviews survey form. In extensive feedback sessions with students, we found that in many cases, students are already sharing this information amongst themselves. However, this information is often concentrated to small groups of students, or a select group of schools. Core to our mission is democratizing access to information, and we want to ensure all students can have equal access to the insights they need to be successful in their job search.

To understand the standards by which we moderate content, refer to Content & Moderation Guidelines.

How can I leverage Student Reviews to engage with students and promote my brand?

You can preview and reply to reviews. 87% of students prioritize brand and meaningful work. This is a great opportunity to proactively address feedback, promote your brand and show students you are engaged and listening.

Will I be notified every time I receive a new review?

By default, all recruiters for a given employer will receive in-app (not email) notifications every time a new review is published. Each recruiter will have the option to opt-in to email notifications on an individual basis if they so choose. Please check your settings by end of November 2018 if you would like to receive email notifications.

How are reviews collected and posted?

Handshake asks students to review their recent internship experiences. We ask them:

Background Info

Employer, Role, Location, Duration of Internship

Your Experience

What did you like?
What do you wish had been different?
What advice would you give a future intern?

Interview

What was the process like?
What was one question you were asked?

The Handshake Team then reviews these against our Content Guidelines before they are posted.

Can I flag a review for removal?

Yes. If a student leaves a review that you believe violates Handshake’s Content Guidelines, you may flag the post for moderation. Our content moderators will check that review and, based on the Content Guidelines, determine whether to keep the review up or remove the review from public view. Usually, we will notify the student of the complaint and provide an opportunity for them to correct the issue.

Is there a way to turn off reviews for my company?

Our reviews platform is only valuable to students if they are authentic and credible. Our Content and Moderation Guidelines are designed to ensure there is a fair and transparent way to preserve the trust and value of these reviews for students, while protecting sensitive employer information.

While all reviews are moderated against these guidelines before publishing, we do have the ability for employers to flag reviews which they feel violate these guidelines. Flagged reviews are automatically taken down pending secondary review by our Trust and Safety Committee.

Please note that we believe students have the right to express themselves in their own voice, and we take a broad view on what constitutes appropriate content. While we recognize that some organizations are more protective of their internal practices and interactions, we will not automatically remove reviews because they are flagged as containing confidential information unless the content falls outside our acceptable content guidelines.

Can I preview reviews and choose which ones are presented to students?

We do not currently have the ability for employers to preview or choose specific reviews to show.

We do have employers who actively encourage interns and employees to share reviews, and act as brand ambassadors. We also have employers who make clear to their interns what is publicly sharable information and what is not. We would encourage you to ask your interns to leave authentic reviews about their experiences at your company in line with your confidentiality policies.

Can students leave reviews on a particular division of my company?

No, students can only leave a review on your main employer company. If a company has two employer profiles, e.g., Google and Google Robotics, and the student selected the latter, it would appear on Google Robotics' employer profile.

Additional resources

Check out our Best Practices: Responding to Reviews.

Handshake Help Center

Additional resources