Name: Handshake in action: Tools to power your fall strategy
Uploaded: 2025-06-17T17:55:17.360Z
Duration: 23 min 56 s
Description: Handshake in action: Tools to power your fall strategy

Transcript for "Handshake in action: Tools to power your fall strategy": Hi, everyone, and welcome. We're so glad you're here to join us for our June webinar, Get Ahead of Fall Recruiting with Handshake. While we're waiting and letting everyone get settled in, we'd love to get to know you. So hop on over to the chat window and let us know where you're calling in from and what company you work for. Alright. And if you're just joining us, welcome. We'll get started in just a moment here. In the meantime, hop on over to the chat and let us know where you're calling from and what company you work for. Alright. Go ahead and get started. So thanks everyone for joining us today. My name is Alexis Kushner. I'm a director of product marketing here at Handshake, and I'm joined by my colleague, Buddy Hennica and Mackenzie Becker. And today, we're gonna show you how summer can be a secret weapon in your early talent recruiting strategy. We're gonna walk through some product updates and proven tactics and then wrap up with the fireside chat featuring Andy Ganyan from KPFF. They're a great customer of ours using Handshake to build brand equity and grow a talent pipeline that really converts. Before we jump into today's agenda, we've got a quick interactive game to kick things off, and I'm gonna hand it over to Buddy to take it away. Awesome. Thank you, Alexis. Hi, everybody. My name is Buddy Haneke. As mentioned, I am a senior enterprise customer success manager here at Handshake, and we are gonna start with a game of hot or not. There will be a fun prize at the end. This is also for bragging rights as well, but so keep an eye out at the end in your email if you are a winner of one of our prizes. So to kick things off, like I said, hot or not, that hot is going to be true, not is going to be false. So is it game of true or false is essentially what we're jumping into here. So let's kick things off with the first question. And the first question is, students completely turn tune out job searching during summer break? Once again, in the poll, you're gonna answer actually in the poll section over on the right hand side. And so I see some notes coming in the chat section. So make sure you're answering in the poll section. And once again, hot, true, not, false. So do students completely tune out job searching during summer break? Give it a few seconds here. Once again, make sure you're entering that poll section. We don't wanna give away the answer. Alright. Three, two, one. There we go. And that is a not. So that is false. So students do not tune out that job search over over summer. In fact, we saw over 13,000,000 applications last summer on Handshake alone. So make sure that you are still interacting with those students over that summer time frame, which is right now. Alright. Let's go to the next question of hot or not once again. Students are researching employer brands on Handshake. Talking about over the summer here again as well. Hot, true, not false. Make sure we're using that poll section. Give it five more seconds. Alright. And for this one, this one is piping hot, actually. Not just hot. It's piping hot. Alright. So between May and August of last year, there were actually 8,000,000 brand page views that candidates were having on Handshake. So students start doing research at all times of the year, not just that career fair season, not just that season where they're looking for internships. They are researching your company at all times of the year, even in that summer time frame. Alright. We got one more question for you here that we're gonna wrap up with. This one's for all the marbles. Alright. Last summer, more than 2,000,000 students opened a message from an employer in Handshake. It's a lot of messages. Is that one hot or not? True or false? 2,000,000. That is a lot of messages. This one is in fact hot or true as well. So not only did students receive 2,000,000 messages from can or from employers, they also sent back out and interacted by sending 400,000 messages out. This is just a great reminder, even if you don't have jobs this time or even though it's not career fair event season, to make sure that you're still interacting with that candidate population. Sending out brand messages, letting them know who you are. So when you do reach out for that job, that internship, that that career fair time, it's not that first message. They're not the first engagement with the brand that that that that you're getting is so making sure that you're engaging with them really year round and specifically in the summer is a great time. As we know, they're they're reviewing brand pages. So thanks for playing. Thanks for playing my awesome game of hot or not. You can actually learn more about this by scanning the QR code. We have a ton of data that we'll be sharing out with you, and also keep an eye in your email, as there may be a prize waiting for for the lucky person who, who won our game of Hot or Not. Alexa, I'm gonna pass it back over to you. We're ahead. Awesome. Thank you, buddy. That was fun. Okay. So today's agenda. Here's what we're gonna cover. A bit about Handshake and summer trends, how to build your brand this summer, and how to boost recruiter efficiency. And then we're gonna hop over and have a fireside chat with where you're where you're gonna hear how Angie's team boosted their brand and significantly increased applicants year over year and how they strategize for the fall. Okay. So let's dive in. You just saw in the hot or not game that even though summer sounds like it's a time to relax and recharge, in fact, it's a really active time for students on Handshake. And thus, it's a really great time for employers to lay that foundation ahead of fall. We know that fall is the peak of early talent recruiting. Our data shows an upward trend year over year in application rates that are about 30% higher on Handshake from 2023 to 02/2024, and we expect that trend to continue this fall. We also know that about 50% of college students attend career fairs in the fall. So clearly fall is busy. Are you ready? Now you all know Handshake already. Right? You know that Handshake isn't just a job board. We're with 1,500 schools, 18,000,000 students and alums, and over a million employers on a single platform. Handshake really unlocks this trifecta in early talent recruiting, and it's your secret weapon. You'll see over the course of this session, that our platform really offers tools for employers to help them hire fast. And so to stay competitive in early talent recruiting, you need to be where this generation is. Early talent isn't searching on LinkedIn the way that seasoned professionals are. In fact, recent college and university alumni have 43% more profiles on Handshake than on LinkedIn. And the number is growing. So there's already 241% more profiles for the class of 2026 and beyond. Handshake is where Gen z is starting to build their career. Yeah. And, Alexis, one thing I wanna point out here is when we look at the Handshake network as well, this is a validated group of individuals as well that that you are recruiting from. Validated meaning that we know that we have a valid major, We have a valid graduation year. We have a valid school or university on their profile. So looking at this data, it's it's awesome to see that the Handshake network is also a validated group of students. So you know if you are gonna be searching for a computer science major that you are in fact finding a computer science major who graduated in 2026, through our through our partnership with universities. That's just one thing I wanna point out, so I'll pass it back to you there. Yeah. That's a really good point. Thanks for calling that out. And so on average, we see that early talent on Handshake spends about thirty hours researching employers and roles. And 75% of seniors are more likely to apply to an employer if they got if they have a good feeling about that brand. So job seekers are putting in the time and that means employers should too. And what better time to take advantage of this opportunity to engage with this captive audience than now during the summer? Okay. So let's spend a few minutes talking about brand building and what you could do this summer to get a jump start. Your brand is your handshake moment. It's the first place job seekers go to familiarize themselves with your company. We've redesigned this as a sort of employer profile page. It's a destination, right, where you can show up in an authentic way and and share all your company highlights. We've added new tools that put your culture and people front and center. Things like featured posts, employee spotlights, and a refreshed overview tab, so you can import con so that your important content really stands out. You can also use subpages to highlight specific roles or programs and affiliate pages to showcase related brands or business units. And that's especially helpful for which is a large multi brand organization. So we're looking at brand page, and we're gonna talk to them after this session. KPFF has seen 228 more followers and 285% more views since they invested in the advanced brand page on Handshake. Really just such powerful results. Yeah. And another thing I'll chime in with there really quick is, you know, I I always recommend to to the employers that I work with that you really wanna make sure that your brand page is mirroring your career page. It's a great opportunity to take a lot of your career content or your career page content and maneuver that over to the Handshake brand page. So students can do research all in one place, I e Handshake in this instance. So that's just one recommendation I have to use your brand page. Great. Great call out. Alright. And last year, we launched the Handshake feed. If you've missed it, check it out. But think of the feed as your brand's daily presence. It's a place to share what makes your company tick, whether that's employee stories, application tips, or a day in the life snapshot of an employee. It's not just fluff. Right? Engaging posts make candidates 22% more likely to apply. Visibility drives conversions. And so along with posting content on the feed, another simple and easy way employers can build relationships and stay top of mind with candidates is to engage with their posts. So students and early talent candidates are doing really incredible things right now, and they're sharing on the Handshake feed. So don't miss this opportunity to engage with them by liking and commenting on their posts. Every interaction helps to build your brand. So I'd say if there's one thing you can do right after the session, it's that. Log in to Handshake like you normally would. Go to your home page. Click o click on the open home feed and start engaging today. So I like to say that content is queen. Content is ubiquitous throughout the product, And here are three types of content that we really recommend. Job content, helpful content, and promoted content. Alright. Job content. Attach content to a job post. Right? That's this makes your job really stand out. And this means that candidates who view your job on the jobs tab can directly access that attached content to learn more about what it's really like in that role. And when that content shows up in the feed, it drives more direct engagement to that job rec. Helpful content. Students are hungry for interview tips, resume help, general advice. Turn your employees into thought leaders and mentors. Be sure to add helpful content into your content plan this summer. And then lastly, think about promoted content. So promoted content really allows you to target and connect to a specific audience and helps you ensure that you're reaching the high quality candidates that you want to fill your specific roles. Alright. So that's a lot about content. But events are another major brand moment for employers. Campus events and virtual events are both great opportunities to put your best foot forward. With customizable check-in, you can gather the necessary info for all your attendees. And with Handshake and the events add on, customers now have access to a thousand attendee webinar style events. This is a huge jump from the virtual events hosted on Handshake in the past, and this dramatically increases the aperture of your virtual event strategy. And, of course, with Handshake events, you can easily promote your events, evaluate attendees, and follow-up. Alright. Yes. Oh. Yeah. Yeah. Let me go and chime in here really quick. And I think, you know, one thing to really call with the virtual event strategy that I like to call out is, this is a great opportunity for you to get in front of not just one school at a time, not, you know, maybe two schools at a time. This allows you to get in front of really any and all schools at one time through a virtual event. Not only that, this allows you not to just hit multiple schools, but really just focusing on the specific candidate population that you wanna focus on. Once again, if you just wanna focus your your info session on computer science majors and you wanna have a software developer come in and talk about, you know, a day in the life of being a software developer at your company, it's a great opportunity to get in front of all of those candidates at one time and not having to go school by school to have to do that. Yeah. That's really true. I mean, events are, you know, events are tiring and they're heavy lift, so scaling your events is a really strategic thing to do and a great time to plan your events this summer. Alright. So rounding out our brand chapter here. To help you capture the key takeaways, we've created two two two cheat sheets, tongue tied, two cheat sheets. And so at the end of each section, we're gonna pull one up. So here's your cheat sheet on how to build your brand this summer. There's four steps we want you to remember. First, build out your brand page. Spend some time. Think about how you wanna show up. Next, engage with content on the feed. So not only post your own content, but find those candidates you like and comment on their posts, like their posts. The third step is to create a content plan and start posting your own content. So take that time this summer to really think about a full fledged content plan. What is that cadence and drumbeat that you're going to post about your company, about the jobs, about the opportunities, that helpful content, and start to plan. And then build build and plan your fall event strategy for both campus and virtual events. So these are four takeaways on brand building. Alright. So let's move on. Our next section is on all about powering recruiter efficiency. Our goal here is to help employers hire fast, and we know that recruiter efficiency is really key to that. So recruiters spend a lot of time posting jobs, and time is of essence. Handshake is committed to make work easier and faster and more efficient for recruiters. And one way we're doing that is by automating the job import process. Now employers can either use XML feed or ATS integrations to post their jobs seamlessly. And that means real time syncing and faster updates, less manual work. So your team can stay focused on strategy and on logistics of job posting. And once you've attract once you attract your candidates, you know, screening through the volume of candidates is really critical. Now we have our new screening question feature, and this helps you create custom questions to help you filter applicants instantly based on your role specific needs. So not only does this save recruiter time, but it helps to surface the right fit faster. Yeah. This is an a a great product feature that we've recently added, and I'm very excited about these screening questions. Specifically, because when you download out the data, the applicant data out of Handshake, those screening questions are gonna be be a part of that that download as well. So you're gonna be able to compare and contrast from your ATS into Handshake that, those screening questions to make sure that that students that are applying or candidates that are applying, are the exact right candidates that you wanna see. So big, big fan of these these screening questions that we just recently rolled out. Cool. Awesome. Thanks for that. Alright. Another way to save time and hire faster is to promote your jobs. And there's three places to really promote your jobs on Handshake. Search, inbox, and the feed. You'll be able to reach this high in high intent candidates exactly where they are with job promotions. Alright. AI. We all know that AI is here to stay. I personally use AI in my day to day life all the time. For example, I just use AI to pack use Chat GPT to pack my or provide me with the packing list for my last, trip last week. So I recommend it, but we're talking about recruiter efficiency. And we know that recruiters, 66% of HR professionals already use AI daily. Our incredible product management team is really pushing the envelope when it comes to AI. We're investing in ways to help recruiting teams source and connect with qualified talent quickly and at scale. We're enhancing our core campaign functionality all the time. So there are four AI enhancements I wanna call out. First, target smarter. With AI powered dynamic targeting, you can reach candidates both qualified and more likely to apply. Second, write outreach faster. So AI drafted personalized messages, based on each candidate's profile saves time and makes your outreach for for every job feel tailored and not templated. Third, evaluate fit at a glance. Candidate summaries surface key qualifications and intent signals directly on their profile. So no more endless resume scanning. And lastly, prioritize the best match. Surface candidates with the strongest alignment to your roles based on their background, helping them move quickly helping you to move quickly, on high potential candidates. Alright. And one thing I really wanna call out that, as you can see, we're investing a lot in our product to help employers hire at scale. Last, later on this year, towards the end of this year, some features that are currently available in our basic plan will move to our talent engagement suite, like collaboration tools and user access settings. And that includes advanced roles and permissions, new add new activity tracking, and shared controls for events and postings. Everything your team needs to move quickly and collaborate and work together. So all these updates, as these updates are rolling out, we wanna make sure that you're set up for success ahead of the fall back to school recruiting season. Alright. And so with that, we're gonna round out with our last cheat sheet on recruiter efficiency. So here are the four takeaways I'd like you to remember on this section on how you can get a jump start this summer. The first thing is to make sure that you're taking advantage of automated job posting. So whether you're you're using XML feed or ATS integration, get those jobs posting at scale. Two, use screening questions to help you hire faster. Three, promote your jobs to your targeted audiences. And four, familiarize yourself and automate, mundane tasks with our AI capabilities. Alright. Thank you all for joining me and Buddy here today. Buddy, thank you so much. We hope you learned a lot and had some fun while while we're at it. And with that, let's bring this all to life with KPFF. So we're gonna in just a second, we'll you'll pop up and we'll redirect you to the next session. Click accept as that appears. And thanks again for joining. Have a great day. Thank you.