Posted almost 4 years ago
in
Student Support
, Careers & Internships.
Written by Laura Craig, Associate Director of Career Development, Temple University Career Center
Handshake is the Career Center’s innovative recruitment and career management platform for Temple University students and alumni, and serves as Temple’s go-to resource for jobs, internships, events, and more! Handshake uses cutting-edge technology to help you more easily connect with employers and source jobs and internships, event information, and virtual recruiting opportunities.
When it comes to using Handshake effectively, there are 7 fundamental areas to explore, depending on your student’s needs.
- First, your student will log in with your AccessNet credentials, as they do for TUPortal and other University resources.
- Second, they should complete (if it’s their first time in the system) or update your Career Interest Profile. This survey determines what information Handshake features in its home feed and helps the Career Center target relevant messages and opportunities to your student.
- Next, it would be a great idea to schedule a career coaching appointment. This can benefit your student regardless of where they may be at in their journey. We can support them with self-exploration, career research, developing professional documents, and professionally adapting to the virtual environment of today.
- Consider attending a virtual event, which may be hosted by offices across Temple, or external organizations. Since the advent of coronavirus restrictions, employers have drastically increased the number of virtual events that they are advertising through Handshake, and these are an excellent opportunity to learn more about a variety of career topics.
- Then start exploring the wide range of opportunities within Handshake. While the number of opportunities has fluctuated up and down since the beginning of the pandemic, at this writing there are about 9,000 opportunities currently approved in Handshake. Several employers have successfully moved their internship opportunities online, and some did rescind opportunities. Going forward, we are seeing that employers are increasingly planning for shorter windows of time when it comes to hiring-by quarter, for example.
- Next, your student can consider participating in a virtual career fair. All career fairs at Temple moved to virtual experiences in Fall 2020, and Handshake is the primary venue for them. In a virtual fair on Handshake, your student can browse and register for individual sessions with employer representatives, or larger group sessions. Access to school/college career fairs will vary.
- Finally, your student should engage other students in the Handshake community to strengthen their network. There are over 900 institutions across the country that use Handshake. Within the platform, students can ask questions and get them answered by other students in the community, and they can also browse the profiles of other students and message them for networking purposes.
