Best Practices: How to Introduce Handshake to Faculty (Campus Partners)

Ensure your campus partners (faculty) are contacts in Handshake

If your faculty or campus partners are not yet added as Contacts in Handshake - we recommend importing them so you can easily track and engage them with targeted mass emails.

You can use this standard process for importing your Employer contacts in Handshake. However for faculty, you'll want your CSV file to include these fields in particular:

Label Campus Partner Contacts:

Once your faculty are in Handshake, you will then want to tag them with the label name "faculty-staff"

There are two ways you can label these contacts: 

1. Filter by the Contact's employer 

Then bulk add a label "faculty-staff"

Create the label and apply!

2. OR Import an additional label file. 

This article outlines how to import labels

You might want to use an example like this in your formatting:

From here you will be able to filter on this label to email those contacts! 

Send an email to faculty highlighting the benefits

Adapt the email copy below to inform campus partners of a few ways they can share the benefits of Handshake with their students. In addition, the copy from this invite emails article can help you craft a message that resonates with your stakeholders.

Example email:

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 Hello {campus partner name},

 [University Name] has partnered with Handshake - a modern career development platform - to replace the current [System name here] system. Students can use Handshake to discover employers and opportunities, submit applications, and attend career fairs and other events.  

Here's a few quick facts that you might want to highlight in your interactions with students: 

Share the benefits of Handshake: "You can expect to see a 2-3x increase in relevant job opportunities, tailored specifically to your interests"

Let students know that profile completion is an important step  "Employers want to know your full story - complete your profile (including your relevant organizations) for the best chance at your next job or internship. Students with a complete Handshake profile are 5 times as likely to be messaged by employers"

Bring it up in your day to day interactions:

-Invite us (Career Services) into your calls to share a presentation

-Require students to log in, or engage with the platform as an assignment for class

-Mention Handshake when you meet with students (office hours, advising, etc) hit these points:

{include any additional custom instructions here}

 ~ {signoff}

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Encourage campus partners to register their own "student" account 

Creating a "test" student account is the best way to experience firsthand what students see in Handshake. It also enables campus partners to readily explore jobs and events - and share those links with the students they regularly work with!

Keep this process in mind when you invite campus partners to create a student account:

1. Registration: Campus partners will register for a student account (very similar to the process alumni might use to request)

2. Approval: Someone with a Career Services account will have to approve their request. This CS staff member should edit any core profile details to indicate the "student" is a campus partner. Such as: 

• Add a label to indicate and filter on these staff accounts (ex: "university staff")
• Edit the name of the "student" accounts that are created so it is clear to employers this is a staff account (ex. "Albus (University Staff) Dumbledore") 

3. Profile Completion: Campus parters should complete their profile data prior to searching for jobs in order to provide the most accurate results.

• Keep in mind: Handshake will start to recommend jobs and data for any student account based on their profile details (major, etc), the explicit industry questions we ask during on-boarding, and the implicit data gathered by the types of jobs they are viewing and searching form. A campus partner should complete their profile details with a representative student population in mind in order to see more relevant postings.

Example email:

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 Hello {campus partner name},

 Don't forget - [University Name] has partnered with Handshake - a modern career development platform - to replace the current [System name here] system. 

Students can use Handshake to discover employers and opportunities, submit applications, and attend career fairs and other events. With the switch students can expect to see: 2-3x increase in relevant job opportunities, intuitive search functionality & suggestions tailored to their interests, career communities that empower all students to have an informed career exploration and job search process.

Sign up with a test student account to experience the value - and help spread the word to your students!

1. Register a student account on https://YOURSCHOOLDOMAIN.joinhandshake.com/register

2. Complete your profile - keep your representative student population in mind to see the most relevant postings

A team member from {career office name} will then approve your registration request- from there you can then explore thousands of opportunities that are tailored to your students' interests!  

{include any additional custom instructions here}

 ~ {signoff}

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