Handshake Recruitment Platform Doubles University Partnerships, Reaches 6 Million Students
Handshake, an online career network, Monday revealed that the company has more than doubled its college and university partnerships from about 170 institutions last year to more than 350 current partners.
The recruitment platform, which was built by former students at Michigan Technological University, is now in use by more than 6 million students, according to information from the company. Students can log in to the platform to find a personalized list of career and internship opportunities from Handshake’s database of more than 180,000 employers, ranging from tech companies like Tesla to organizations like the United Nations Foundation. “Students can find and pursue positions based on industry, location, job function and more. At every step, students control their information and what to share — from courses to grades to real-life experiences — and who sees it,” a company spokesperson said.
Career centers at a broad range of campuses, from state universities to Ivy League schools, have recently joined to use Handshake, including the University of Mississippi, Brown University, George Washington University, Tufts University and Florida State University.
“The response to our transition to Handshake has been nothing short of phenomenal,” said Russ Coughenour, associate vice president of career services at the University of South Florida (USF). “In one short year, we have seen both the quality and quantity of job and internship opportunities increase dramatically. We were able to attract a candy manufacturing company [Hershey], [the Department of Commerce-based] organization [National Oceanic and Atmospheric], even Google! They are now regular customers. We would have never been able to pull those companies to USF without Handshake’s influence. From a student perspective, since launching in July 2016, we have seen over 16,000 public profiles created by our students, which has allowed us to create messaging specific to their career interest areas whether they are jobs or graduate school pathways.”
To learn more about Handshake, watch the video below featuring UC Berkeley faculty and staff, or visit the company site.
About the Author
Sri Ravipati is Web producer for THE Journal and Campus Technology. She can be reached at sravipati@1105media.com.