Search Students Feature

Click Search Students from the left navigation bar in Handshake. 

If your company is a Premium partner, click Candidates instead, then click the Search Students tab.

Note: the navigation bar will display Search Students rather than Candidates for Recruiter (Standard) users connected to a premium employer account. 

*For more information on Your Candidates, refer to Your Candidates. 

All students with public profiles at your approved schools will be listed with a brief summary of their profile, including their Name, School, Major, GPA, two most recent employers, and two most recent organizations.

Note: GPA is an optional sharing setting for students — if students have chosen not to share their GPA, the field will read "undefined". 

We recommend utilizing the filters on the left of the page to help narrow down your search to a reasonable number of candidates. 

Tip: if you've selected a set of filters that you'd like to use again in the future, you can save your search! For guidance, refer to How to Create a Saved Search.

The default page filters for all employers are: 

• Keyword search
  • A keyword search will span across the profile. This will include majors, organizations and extracurriculars, listed skills, work experiences (job title + company).
• School
• School Year
• Handshake Open
  • Students that attend 4-year accredited institutions in the United States who have not directly purchased and partnered with Handshake. 
• Major Category
• Majors
• Graduation Date
• GPA 
• Labels
• Not Labels
• Primary College
• Department GPA

Premium partners have access to additional search filters, as long as the user has the role of Advocate, Recruiter (Advanced), Recruiter (Sourcer), Admin, and Owner.

*Premium filters include: 

• Location Interests: the locations in which students are interested in working 
  • Click on downward arrow to the right of the filter name to enable a drop-down search bar
    • Type the desired location(s) and select the result(s) from the populated list
    • You may filter by city or state, e.g., if you'd like to only view students interested in working in Texas, type Texas.
• After selecting your location (city, state), you can select a radius ranging from 5-100 miles.
  • Note: the radius will not appear if only a state is selected, such as Texas, United States. 

• Major Category: these majors consolidate individual majors across every school on Handshake.
• Institution Type: includes minority-serving institutions (nationally recognized colleges and universities that educate students of color), and Women's Colleges (undergraduate, bachelor's degree-granting institutions whose student populations are composed exclusively or almost exclusively of women).
• Diversity and Inclusion Focused Organization: meet more students who participate in on-campus clubs and nationally recognized organizations like the National Society of Black Engineers, Society of Women in Business, and others. 
• Majors: searches directly on the student's "major" profile field. To find as many relevant students as possible, we recommend: 
  • Using the shortest possible keyword (e.g., "software" instead of "software engineer")
  • Adding multiple keywords when relevant (e.g., "software", "computer", "engineer")
• Past Companies: past employers a student has stated that they have worked for.
• Past Job Titles: past job titles a student has stated that they had. 
• Organizations/Extracurriculars: searches organizations and extracurriculars the student has added to their profile. 
  
• Skills: skills the student has listed on their profile.

On the Search Student page, you can take the following actions: 

View Student Profiles

Click directly on the student's name to view their profile. Learn more about Viewing Student Profiles.

Add or Remove Labels

Check the box next to each applicable student, click More from the column header row above the students table, then click Add Label or Remove Label. 

• For additional information on labels-related workflows, refer to: 
  • Best Practice: Use Labels to Manage Applicants
  • Managing RSVPs with Evaluations, Notes, & Labels

Message Students

Click the button Message to the far right of the student(s) name to initiate a message.*

To message students, employers must meet certain requirements. For more information, refer to How to Send a Student a Message.