Handshake offers artificial intelligence (AI) tools designed to support your career planning, enhance your profile, and help you build skills. These tools can also help you discover jobs and content that better match your interests.
This article explains where AI appears in the student experience, how it works at a high level, and the steps we take to protect your privacy.
How you can use AI tools in Handshake
1. AI assistant on jobs – get tailored profile and resume tips for a specific job
On some jobs, you may have an option to receive tips and coaching for how to make your profile align with the requirements for a specific job. The AI assistant is a conversational tool that helps you understand how well you align with that specific job and what you can improve in your profile.
What you can do with it
Ask questions about how your experience compares to the job’s requirements.
Get suggestions to better highlight relevant skills and accomplishments drawn from your background.
Receive recommendations for updates on your Handshake profile (for example, adding skills or refining descriptions) so your skills align with the role.
What it uses
To generate suggestions, AI assistant may use:
The job description and requirements
Your Handshake profile and resume (if uploaded)
Any additional input you choose to provide during the conversation
Third-party AI providers are under contracts that prohibit using Handshake data to train their own models, and profile/resume information is redacted to remove direct identifiers before processing.
How you stay in control
AI assistant is optional—you choose whether to launch and use it from the job details page.
You decide which suggested changes to accept, modify, or ignore before updating your profile or applying.
AI assistant does not apply to jobs on your behalf or make hiring decisions for employers.
To Learn more about how to use AI Assistant on jobs, refer to AI Assistant on Jobs.
2. Conversational job search and queries
Handshake offers AI-assisted job search that lets you use natural-language search phrases instead of relying only on filters. For example, you could type: “A buying job for a retailer in California.”
This feature allows you to describe what you’re looking for in plain language. The system then translates your request into job searches behind the scenes
In these cases:
- Suggestions do not change which jobs are available for you to view or apply to. They only affect how your searches are ordered.
- You can edit the search at any time or return to classic keyword and filter-based searches.
3. AI Showcase (beta)
This space lets you explore how students and alumni are using AI in real projects. It’s designed to inspire you to build and share your own work
What you can do with it
Browse AI projects created by other job seekers to see how they’re applying AI across different roles and industries.
Explore individual projects to learn what problem was solved, which tools were used, and how the creator describes the project’s impact.
Submit your own AI project to be featured, allowing other students and participating employers to see what you’ve built.
At this time, AI Showcase is not yet be available to all students or schools.
To learn more about AI Showcase, check out AI Showcase in Handshake.
4. Handshake Sidekick – AI resume helper (beta)
Handshake Sidekick is an AI-powered resume tool that helps you strengthen how you present your experience before you apply. If available in your account, you can upload a resume, chat with an assistant that analyzes it, get suggestions for clearer wording and structure, and download an updated version to use when applying to jobs on Handshake.
To learn more about how to access and use Sidekick, refer to Handshake Sidekick: AI-powered resume helper.
How Handshake uses AI to power your experience
Separate from the optional tools above, Handshake uses AI models behind the scenes to personalize your experience on the platform, primarily by ranking and ordering existing content.
These systems do not decide who gets hired and do not block you from viewing or applying to jobs.
1. Personalized job recommendations and search
Handshake uses AI to rank jobs by how likely you are to engage with them (view, save, apply) based on your profile and past activity. This helps surface roles that better match your interests near the top of your job search results.
How you stay in control
You can change filters, sort options, and use keywords at any time to see different results.
Updating your profile, interests, and location preferences influences which jobs are ranked higher for you.
The model’s output affects how jobs are ordered, not whether you are allowed to view or apply to a job.
2. AI-tuned feed and content relevance
Your Handshake feed shows posts, jobs, and other content ordered by how relevant and engaging they’re likely to be for you. AI models rank this content using signals like your profile, past engagement, and information about each post.
How you stay in control
You can follow or unfollow employers and topics, and choose which posts to like or save—these actions influence what you see more of over time.
You can still scroll your Feed freely; AI only affects the order, not whether content is available to you.