Employer Interactions with Students

This article details how employers can interact with students in Handshake once students activate their Handshake account. Employers may initiate interactions with students, depending on the profile privacy option the student has selected (see more here). 

Employer Trust & Safety Requirements

We work hard to make sure employers contact students in a safe and secure manner. Employers on Handshake are required to verify their account email address and have a valid website listed on their company profile in order to use Handshake. In the event that there’s an employer in violation of our Terms of Service, our Trust & Safety team will investigate the employer’s account and suspend access until the issue is resolved (if it may be resolved - such as a providing a working website or updating an email address). 

In order for employers to directly interact with students at your school, the employer must be approved with the school. 

• If your school has partnered with Handshake, the Career Services team is responsible for reviewing and vetting each employer request. 
• If your school has not yet partnered with Handshake, and you’re part of the Handshake Open Network, then our internal team has approved those employers based on Trust Score and past activity in Handshake. 

If you encounter any suspicious activity from an employer, you may use our flagging system or report a message so that our Trust & Safety team may investigate and take appropriate action.

Employer Outreach Activities

Every type of activity an employer might take on Handshake has a prerequisite that helps strengthen Trust & Safety on our network. These prerequisites are listed below:

• Post jobs
• Employer must be approved at school or for Open Network (read more on the Open Network here).
• If posting is requested at a Handshake partner institution, that institution is responsible for reviewing and processing job posting requests.
• Message students 
• Employer must be approved at school or for Open Network
• Employer must have a Trust Score of 80 or higher, or the student must have interacted with the employer (via applying for job, signing up for virtual fair sessions, RSVPing for an event)
• In rare cases, we will enable messaging with <80 trust score, usually as a part of the Premium sales process
• Note: Some schools block student messaging. 
• Download resumes
• Employer must be approved at school or for Open Network
• Employer must have a Trust Score of 80 or higher, or the student must have interacted with the employer (via applying for job, signing up for virtual fair sessions, RSVPing for an event)
• There are a very small number of employers that have been individually vetted by our Trust & Safety and provided access to download public resumes. 
• Host events
• Employer must be approved at school or for Open Network
• To host an event in partnership with a school, employers must be approved at the school, and the school must approve the event to be hosted in order for it to be discoverable.
• Host virtual fair sessions
• Employer must have an approved fair registration with the school, and students have signed up for the fair session(s)
• Employers that have been declined at a school/institution will not be able to register for a fair or host sessions.
• Interviews
• Employer must be approved at the school, and the school must have approved the interview schedule requested
• Interviews cannot be posted to the Handshake Open Network

Employers may also use a combination of these methods in interaction; for example, an employer may message students in Handshake inviting them to an event or apply for a job, or download a student’s public resume after the student registers for an employer event or signs up for a session at a virtual fair. 

How Employers Search for Students

To find students to message and/or download resumes from, an employer can use the following filters at schools/institutions the employer is approved with: 

• School
• School year
• Graduation date
• GPA
• Labels (added by employers)
• Primary College
• Department GPA
• Students that have a public resume (limitations exist on which employers can download)

Premium Employer Partners 

Some employers on Handshake are considered Premium partners—these employers have paid for Handshake usage and have been through additional vetting by our team. They have access to additional filters and tools to help them connect with students in a more meaningful way. 

For more information on Handshake Premium product and features, please refer to Handshake’s Premium Employer Offering.

Our Premium partners have the additional filters below to search for students at approved schools: 

• Location Interests
• Major Category
• Institution Type
• Diversity and Inclusion Focused Organizations
• Majors
• Past Companies
• Past Job Titles
• Organizations/Extracurriculars
• Skills 

Premium partners can also create Segments (groups of anonymized, aggregated students and/or alumni at approved schools) based on filters that include: 

• School, Profile keywords, Major keywords/group/category
• New grads/recent grads/interns 
• student interests (Job Role, Industry, Job Type) 
• GPA, Work Authorization, Organizations/Extracurriculars
• Achievements and Accolades
• Location Preference, Current Location 
• Skills/Coursework/ work experience (job title or company) 
• Underrepresented Groups (based on Organizations, Gender *coming soon*, or institution types)
• Note: Employers are not able to only select an Underrepresented groups organizations filter; this filter must be selected in conjunction with another filter. 

When Premium partners use these Segment filters they will not be able to see a list of student names that meet these criteria; however, these students will be able to be messaged, and student association with a particular segment filter may be inferred if the student responds to that employer’s message.

For more information, refer to How Employers Use Messaging with Students.

What Employers Can See 

If a student has selected the Employers or Community profile privacy option, Employers that are approved at their school will have the ability to view their profile. Students are in full control of whether an employer can see their profile. If they select Private, no other students or employers can see their profile - only career services staff. If a student has selected the Employers Or Community profile, employers can see the following information: 

• Education information: School name, school year, graduation date, major, minor, college, GPA*
• Student GPA is never public unless the student expressly opts-in to make it public. If a student does choose to make their GPA public, this information is visible to employers only. Other students or alumni will not be able to view other students' GPA's, even if the GPA's are visible by employers. 
• Work experience details
• Skills 
• Organizations / Extracurriculars
• Projects
• Pronouns*
• When a student opts into specifying their pronouns, they will be able to choose to share their pronouns with employers, other students, or both.
• For more information, please see our blog post Student Gender Identity and Pronouns on Handshake.