Students and alumni have the same access on Handshake with a Student account. However, some features may only be available to those who are attending the current school year.
The features available to your account will depend on:
- your account's connection with a school instance
- You may need to be approved by the school to access all of their offerings.
- your school's partnership status with Handshake
- A school is considered a Handshake partner if the Career Services Center has chosen to manage your school's instance and use Handshake for additional features, such as managing Appointments, internships (via Experiences), First Destination Surveys, and more.
- Schools that haven't yet partnered with us may still have a school instance as part of the Handshake Open Network. Read more about our goals for Expanding Our Efforts to Help All Students Find Opportunity.
Note: to use Handshake as a current student or alum, you'll need a Student account. Refer to Getting Started with Handshake for more information!
Click on the expandable headers to learn more!
Not connected to a school in Handshake?
If your account isn't connected to a school instance yet, you can manage your profile and access public career fairs on Handshake. This is typical if you created a new account and your school request is pending.
For more information on how to get connected with a school, check out If You Can Only Access Profile and Fairs.
If you attend a Handshake-partner school
Once you're connected to a Handshake-partner school, your school's Career Center is linked on the homepage and on the left navigation bar.
Use these links to connect with your Career Services staff, schedule appointments, complete a First Destination Survey, take a survey, or check out additional resources your career center has created for you!
If you attend a school that hasn't yet partnered with Handshake
If you're connected to a school that hasn't yet partnered with Handshake, you can:
- manage your profile
- access fairs and events hosted by Handshake-partner schools that are public
- apply to jobs posted by a subset of trusted employers
The key way to identify if your school is a Handshake partner or not is if there is no Career Center link. The Career Center link is displayed on the homepage and the left navigation menu. If there's no Career Center available to you, and your request to connect isn't pending, this means your school is not a Handshake partner yet.
If you're enjoying your experience on Handshake, feel free to encourage your career center to formally partner with us and we can unlock additional benefits for you and your school!