The sum-up:
Handshake is an all-in-one early talent recruiting platform that promises to connect recruiters with students and alumni across 90% of the top educational institutions in the US. They offer two levels of product: Core and Premium, with solutions like customizable campaigns, criteria filters, event management tools, and Diversity and Inclusion data and reporting.
The low-down:
According to our members, Handshake is overall a great sourcing tool to reach students digitally. Many recruiting managers and heads of talent particularly loved the platform’s capability to
post to multiple campuses with just a few clicks and the ability to directly contact students on the platform. One user found the messaging capabilities to be especially successful in recruiting sophomore students to externship summer leadership programs, and others appreciated the interactivity in terms of reach at events. Small companies loved the ability to recruit without going on campus.
The Core version has less search features and places limits on messaging capabilities which can reduce the number of opportunities visible to candidates and the ability to specify criteria like location, skills and student groups. There also seemed to be consensus that the user experience for students was superior to that of employers who felt more tutorials might be helpful. However, customer service got very high marks, and the platform is constantly adding new features and new schools to their offering. Handshake has a lot of exclusivity with Institutions –which in itself is both a pro and con, because to access applicants from certain schools you basically have to use Handshake. On the other hand, the quality of students and the ability to select with specific criteria and skill set requirements is extremely useful
And a nice perk was the ability to easily stay in touch with event news from universities. Most of the “cons” came from users of the Core version of the platform, while Premium users had an almost unanimous 5 star rating for Handshake.
Key Features
Employer pages and the ability to create branded campaigns that reach multiple schools with one click.
· Targeted Search filters, segments and surveys
· Customized campaigns
· The ability to directly message candidates through the platform
· The ability to schedule video interviews for a seamless hiring process.
· Diversity and Inclusion solutions from data to in house consultants are designed to give you access to a more representative pool of applicants.
Pros (What Members loved)
- Easy access to many students/schools
- The ability to post to multiple universities with a few clicks
- High number of qualified students
- Campaign/Messaging Capabilities enabling recruiters to reach students directly
- The democratization of the student experience providing access to a large base of opportunities.
Cons (What Members not-so-loved)
- Could use a better “free” search feature to offer more opportunities to more students if a company isn’t able to spend money on the tool
- The process to get each job approved at different schools is a bit slow.
- Training tools need more tutorials – at the moment a lot of work to onboard new recruiters
- The student experience side seems much more robust than the career center or employer experience.
OneReq Rating
4 out of 5 stars
OneReq product guidance is based on various factors, including member reviews, interviews with users of the products, information from the vendors and comparative reviews. We rate products based on a scale of one to five stars, with one star as the poorest rating and five stars as the best.
