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Case Studies

Doane University on Why Handshake?

Doane University breaks down how their team built a compelling case for why Handshake was the best choice for their career center.

The Career, Leadership, and Service team at Doane University is a four-person team serving 1,500 students in career readiness, leadership development, service learning, and volunteer programs. Recently, the team began a push to modernize technology in their office. Sarah Begay, Associate Director of the College to Career Center, shares how her team built a case to their leadership for why Handshake was a must-have for their students.

More opportunities for students

Handshake’s expansive employer network was one of the biggest attractions for the Doane team.

More employers recruit students on Handshake than any other platform, largely because Handshake makes it easy to recruit from multiple schools. The ability to connect with qualified students from multiple schools, all from a single account, enables employers to expand their outreach to schools they may otherwise have overlooked.

The Doane team saw the benefits of being on the same network as the largest schools in their state right away. Large schools attract more employers to Handshake. Once on the platform, employers can easily recruit at smaller colleges like Doane without much added effort.

“We like how Handshake flips the job board on its head. With our old platform, we were constantly trying to bring employers on board. Now Handshake brings more employers to us. We no longer have to go out and contact every single employer one by one.”

Sarah Begay, Associate Director of the College to Career Center

Sarah noted that on Doane’s old job board, only three or four employers were posting 30% of the jobs. On Handshake, schools benefit from a much larger, more diversified pool of employers and jobs. The average institution sees a 200-300% increase in the number of job postings after switching to Handshake.

More time for students

Before Handshake, Doane’s career center relied on manual processes built on spreadsheets and Google forms. Sarah knew it was a problem that her staff was spending more time on administrative tasks than in front of students.

“We can’t do important things for students when we’re stuck behind spreadsheets. We’re a small office, so we can’t keep doing all these things by hand. With Handshake, we’re taking the processes that are already in place and putting it into a system that is way more efficient for us.”

Sarah Begay, Associate Director of the College to Career Center

Automating workflows through Handshake will be a huge time saver for Doane’s small team. Sarah said that Handshake will free up time for her team to work on more strategic projects, like building up a service learning curriculum and an employer relations program.

Why Handshake is a greater return on investment

When it comes to getting leadership buy-in, demonstrating return on investment (ROI) is critical.

Sarah recommends highlighting Handshake’s multifunctionality. For instance, presenting Handshake as not only a job board, but an all-in-one tool for managing appointments, events, data, and more. The Doane team emphasized how investing in a multi-use tool like Handshake saves money by bringing in previously outsourced workflows, like first destination surveys, back into the career center.

Sarah said that ultimately, your answer to “Why Handshake?” comes down to how you envision serving your students:

“Think about how you want to create better experiences and outcomes for your students. For us, it was automating the administrative parts so we can work more with students. Every group we got in front of that we needed to pitch this to, once they heard this, we didn’t run into much resistance.”

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