We can’t stress enough how valuable it is for students to fill out their Handshake profiles. Why? It comes down to two simple, yet extremely powerful benefits:
- More relevant job recommendations
- Increased likelihood of being messaged by a recruiter on Handshake
Even so, we know that students often don’t know where to start. Historically, we’ve shared that a complete, updated profile makes you 5x more likely to be messaged by a recruiter. This is still a great sound bite to share!
We know that not every student will log into Handshake ready to share work experiences or skills. As such, we’ve narrowed it down to the three most critical items to kickstart your Handshake profile. These can all be found in the “Your Interests” section of a student’s profile. Read: if you’re only going to spend 5 minutes on Handshake, add these three things to your profile!
- Job Type: Tell us whether you’re looking for an internship, part-time job, or full-time job
- Location: Select the cities where you’d like to work, and Handshake will show you jobs in that area
- Job Role: Choose jobs you would like to explore, like marketing associate or software engineer
Students who have filled out these fields in Handshake are 2.5x more likely to see and apply for relevant opportunities and 80% of students who fill out these fields get messaged by a recruiter.
By simply filling out these preferences (No barrier to entry! No experience required!), students will be served opportunities that are interesting to them and start getting outreach from employers with relevant opportunities.
While the above are the fields that are included in most recruiter searches, employers search on a range of other criteria as well, including:
- Work & Volunteer Experience
- Courses, especially for STEM or technical fields
- Organizations & Extracurriculars
- Skills, including “hard skills” like software programs and coding, and “soft skills” like communication
It’s important that students fill in other aspects that show off hard and soft skills too!
Actions to take
- Download and print these two fliers on profile completion to circulate around your campus
- Read, share, and post these two blog posts on your social media channels
- Forward this post to 3+ faculty members encouraging them to pass this information along to their students.
Let’s work together to debunk the common myth that Handshake is just a place to apply to jobs, and your Handshake profile is superfluous. A student’s profile can unlock a tremendous amount of additional value!
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Photo from Les Finances