Name: Handshake Premium
Rating: 3.9 (5 reviews)

Overview

Product Information on Handshake Premium

Updated 13th October 2025

What is Handshake Premium?

Handshake Premium is a software designed for career services and recruitment management within higher education institutions. The software supports institutions in managing student profiles, job postings, event scheduling, and employer engagement workflows. It enables career centers and employers to streamline student outreach, automate customized communication, and track outcomes through analytics and reporting features. Handshake Premium assists in facilitating connections between students and employers by offering enhanced search capabilities, targeted campaigns, and candidate filtering tools. The software aims to address the challenge of optimizing talent acquisition strategies and improving career service operations by providing an integrated platform for collaboration between educational organizations and employers.

Overall experience with Handshake Premium

DIRECTOR OF EMPLOYER RELATIONS

Gov't/PS/ED 5,000 - 50,000 Employees, Education

FAVORABLE

“Exploring Abundance of Employer Contacts with Handshake”

5.0

Nov 11, 2024

I've had an overall positive experience using Handshake. I love that I can access an abundance of employer contacts and events all in one place.

MANAGER OF HRIS & AP

50M - 250M USD, Energy and Utilities

CRITICAL

“Challenges of Attracting Suitable Candidates For Job Openings”

3.0

Nov 28, 2024

I don't get the type of candidates I am trying to recruit. I have a hard time with getting the correct candidates to apply for the job postings

About Company

Company Description

Handshake focuses on building an extensive global community that seeks to bridge the gap between employers and individuals beginning their careers. The platform serves as a powerful resource hub, connecting over 12 million students and recent graduates from educational institutions, including colleges and boot camps, with more than 650,000 employers across diverse industries. Besides providing Fortune 500 companies with a pool of talented individuals, it also attends to sectors including public education, healthcare systems, and nonprofits. Striving to democratize opportunity, Handshake, with its headquarters based in San Francisco and its various operational hubs, works globally to redefine and transform early-career recruitment.

Company Details

Company type

Private

Year Founded

2014

Head office location

San Francisco, United States

Number of employees

501 - 1000

Website

http://joinhandshake.com

Do You Manage Peer Insights at Handshake?

Access Vendor Portal to update and manage your profile.

Key Insights

A Snapshot of What Matters - Based on Validated User Reviews

Reviewer Insights for: Handshake Premium

Performance of Handshake Premium Across Market Features

Handshake Premium Likes & Dislikes

I really enjoy the communications and contacts tabs. I can access all contacts worldwide and also access templates to mass communicate.

I do like the variety of job openings and the ability to post in one spot.

The customer service team is great. they take time to try and understand needs before recommending fixes. The overall design (colors, layout, sizes, fonts) are nice and easy to look at for longer periods of time. I like how easy it is to export content to excel (the content that can be exported).

Sometimes many of the contacts are outdated. I wish the system could continually data clean for more updated contacts.

Often times the applicants don't match my openings and it takes time going through them.

The inability to export across the system makes it necessary to do more analysis IN system and we don't currently have enough tools to do that analysis with the scope or services we have. I'd like to see more built-in to the standard dashboards. Messages are not tracked in the main system but it is a recommended workaround for targeted outreach. Campaigns can't be built around multiple positions for targeted outreach.

Top Handshake Premium Alternatives

Peer Discussions

Handshake Premium Reviews and Ratings

Recommended Gartner Insights

50M-1B USD

Energy and Utilities

Review Source

Challenges of Attracting Suitable Candidates For Job Openings

Gov't/PS/Ed

Education

Exploring Abundance of Employer Contacts with Handshake

MANAGER, PROJECT MANAGEMENT

A mostly positive review of Handshake

4.0

Oct 25, 2024

The system has a really clean UI, but the sections of the site require an understanding of handshake lingo, which can feel a little clunky at first. you can't export user data by design, and you also can't dive into reports without paying a significant amount more. the core premium reports and dashboards are nicely designed but don't elevate more information than you'd get on the job posting/application exports themselves. I find that as we continue using the system, the less relevant the dashboards feel.

HUMAN RESOURCES ASSOCIATE

Handshake premium review

Nov 14, 2023

It is a good service for recruiting, and it is very simple to post available jobs.

Talent Acquisition Partner

Services (non-Government)

I would not use it again if I could do it over.

2.0

Feb 24, 2023

For what it costs, you don't get a lot. That's a pity because this is one of the main softwares geared specifically towards recruiting college students.