Handshake for Employers Reviews & Product Details

I really like how easy it is to connect with a large pool of qualified students from different schools. The platform makes it simple to promote roles, manage applicants, and reach the right audience. I’ve hired most of my interns through Handshake, so it’s definitely been a great tool for early-career recruiting. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The main thing I’d like to see improved is the accuracy of the filters when building segments. Sometimes the graduation year, major, or location filters don’t match up perfectly, so my campaigns end up reaching students outside the intended group, but overall, it’s still a great resource. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Their market penetration into the pre-graduate and senior college talent at most universities is second-to-none. If you're trying to hire new grads, Handshake swooped in and allowed us to catch people 1-2 years earlier than they hit LinkedIn or Indeed. While the platform is visually straightforward, it also just works reliably without unnecessary complications or bloated features. Students seems to actually check messages and respond. Seeing 40% open rates and 3% response rates to cold messages as a recruiter in today's market is unheard of.

What makes it work is their support team. I don't know if we just got the good reps or if it's normal, but I will say that their engagement and work on our behalf was far above any of our other vendor partners. They seemed determined to earn our repeat subscription by providing as much support as necessary to achieve ROI. That was a welcome change from others in the market just charging for their name. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Price. They're not cheap by any stretch, but they are market competitive with their more established competitors. They're also very active in partnering with their customers to ensure they get the ROI on the price. They were speaking our company's language relative to our hiring goals specifically and asking intelligent ROI questions. The price is steep for an emerging platform, but they have penetration into a deep market to warrant it.

I'm especially curious how the user interface on their student social feed continues to develop better. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I did like that they connected you directly with universities. Also, liked ease of use. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Engaged in unethical business practices. Signed up for free employer account and recruited for a couple of jobs with what I believed to be a free membership. All job searches were closed by October 2024. No longer need or using for recruitment. When was using they were not the best at matching needs of employer. Hires did not come from handshake.

Flash forward to February 2025. Suddenly our company is being charged over $100 week despite no longer using their services. Their justification was that they sent an email on January 31st stating that these changes to subscription charges would occur starting the first week of February (next month). That is not even a 30 day notice and only one supposed email. And remember, we haven’t actively used them in over 3 months.

When I go to deactivate/cancel our business account it is impossible. There is no customer service number and their email system is insufficient. I have been trying to deactivate our account for almost a week.

Had to buy a merchant block on company credit card. They continue to try to charge $105 weekly and have not offered a full refund despite my complaints about their untrustworthy business practices. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

As a K-12 school district, we faced unique challenges in utilizing Handshake effectively. However, the Handshake team provided exceptional support and guidance, helping us optimize the platform to meet our specific needs. Their valuable feedback and assistance ensured a smooth implementation process. We particularly appreciate Handshake's ability to connect us with students both locally and beyond California, expanding our reach significantly. Moreover, they were instrumental in helping us develop robust student pipelines, offering creative strategies and practical advice. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

While Handshake has been a valuable tool, there's room for improvement to better address the unique needs of K-12 districts. We've communicated our suggestions to the customer support team, who are actively exploring ways to enhance the platform for both K-12 and other employer users. We are confident that Handshake is committed to meeting our evolving needs. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

As a recruiter, I've found Handshake to be an excellent tool for reaching top talent, especially graduate talent in a more competitive market. The platform is intuitive, and the access to a wide array of candidates is invaluable. Not to mention, the support you'll recieve from your account reps is unmatched. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The only thing I wish for is a premium membership option tailored to small and mid-sized companies. Such a feature would be perfect for those with less aggressive hiring targets who only need one representative to manage recruitment efforts. Overall, it's a great resource, and a more flexible membership plan would make it even better! Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The ability to create campaigns and reach students directly and engage in productive conversations while building our brand. This feature has also increase our engagement at in person and virtual career fairs.

Also and most importantly is our Handshake team, I can't say enough good things about them. Shout out to Taylor, McKenzie and Bryan, they are the best to work with. Not only do we meet monthly, but they are available whenever I have a question or need assistance. They pro-actively monitor our account and activity so that when we meet they give us real non-generic suggestions based on our needs. We have had this team almost since day one, which is huge, this allows us to build a great working relationship and not waste time explaining our needs and business to new staff monthly, as we have had to do on other sites. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The only minor thing I have found is that we have to add labels to student profiles individually vs. a group at a time.

Again this is a very minor thing in the scheme of our recruiting efforts. Overall we love Handshake and the results we have seen. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

We have access to students from schools that we never would have reached in the past, and in some cases, have been able to decrease our travel costs as we're able to do more recruiting online for certain positions. Some of our campus recruiters now use Handshake on a nearly daily basis, and it has been easy to implement and use for them. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Handshake is still working on fleshing out it's platform in several areas (interview schedules, event management, etc), and while it isn't perfect, I appreciate that I am listened to whenever I have suggestions for improvements to the platform. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The Handshake for Employers campaign feature is definitely my favorite. I appreciate the ability to organize the schools we recruit from and connect with them regarding opportunities, internships, and early career positions. Additionally, we can precisely search for students based on their majors and interests, which has significantly refined our candidate pool. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I haven't run across any challenges. It is an easy to use tool and produces results. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The ability to engage with students through multiple features is amazing! I appreciate that you can create campaigns for career fairs weeks to months advance. The new "feed" feature is a great way to establish your company brand and give individuals an inside look to the culture of the organization. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I wish the app was more user-friendly for recruiters. I want to be able to message students on the go and not have to open up a computer every time to respond. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The ability to hyper target students in Handshake is a marketer's dream. The open rates and engagement we receive on Handshake are the highest we have seen on any platform for connecting with our target audience. Handshake is the expected and preferred way our target hears about jobs so it's a perfect match for us to promote our opportunities. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Our ATS is not integrated with Handshake so every job we post has to be done manually and we cannot see a clean line through the recruitment funnel from attraction to hire. We can follow attraction to interest when a person leaves Handshake and clicks on to apply, then we can come to our ATS to track who came from Handshake as a source, but it's an imperfect science and more difficult to execute than I'd like. But even still, we know confidently we could not be as successful with our digital- first approach recruyiting students without Handshake so the imperfection here is worth the effort. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.