Handshake helps students, alumni land jobs and internships with ease


 

By Joel Delgado ’12, MS ’17

Sophomore accounting student Deborah Bortunk thought looking for her first internship was going to be a struggle.

With little experience and having just begun taking accounting classes, she was nervous about the prospects of finding one.

That’s where Handshake came in.

Handshake is a modern career development platform that FIU Career & Talent Development has partnered with to help students and alumni connect with employers and find jobs and internships.

After a visit with a representative from the FIU Career & Talent Development team at the beginning of the Fall 2017 semester, Bortunk uploaded her resume to Handshake and applied for several internships that appealed to her.

The very next day, Eberjey – a lifestyle fashion brand – reached out to her and eventually took Bortunk on as an accounting intern.

“Handshake is very convenient because it has different tools that are easy to use and can tell you what you qualify for based on your resume,” said Bortunk, who still regularly checks Handshake to explore job opportunities. “I’ve used a few job and internship searching sites and Handshake was definitely the best and easiest to use.”

Handshake has helped thousands of FIU students and alumni identify and apply for jobs and internships and connect with potential employers locally and nationally.

Since launching in July 2017, approximately 11,000 students and alumni have logged in to Handshake. In that same time frame, there have been 10,241 jobs approved by the Career & Talent Development team and posted to Handshake, giving FIU users a wide pool of jobs and internships to choose from.

“This platform makes it very easy for students to explore careers. We want to remove those barriers that keep them from doing that,” said Emmanuela Pierre Stanislaus, associate director for Career & Talent Development in the Engineering Center.

Handshake helps make finding jobs and internships easier and less stressful with a variety of appealing features.

Current students already have an account – all they have to do is go to fiu.joinhandshake.com and use their FIU email and password to log in.

Once users are logged in, students and alumni can upload relevant documents – including resumes, cover letters and transcripts – which are then accessible with a click of a button when they apply for a job or internship on the site.

Handshake allows FIU users to follow their favorite employers and receive notifications whenever they post a new job and save jobs and internships they may want to apply for later.

The platform also highlights suggested jobs and internships from the university based on a user’s profile.

“Students feel like the Handshake experience is something they can own and personalize according to their own goals and interests,” Career & Talent Development Account Manager Sonia Gonzalez said. “It’s easily accessible and makes applying for jobs and internships easier.”

Students and alumni can also use Handshake to request appointments with Career & Talent Development’s career coaches and RSVP for the department’s events and professional development opportunities such as career and internship fairs.

Employers are using Handshake as a recruitment tool to identify qualified candidates from FIU and manage on-campus recruitment activities. More than 7,900 employers have requested to recruit FIU students or graduates for jobs and internships since the July launch.

Having Handshake as FIU’s career management platform has also created more opportunities for high-profile employers, such as Hulu and JP Morgan Chase, to visit campus and interact with students.

“Employers are really using Handshake, and it’s a great source of data for us,” says David Cotter, a university technology recruiter for JP Morgan Chase. “There isn’t another opportunity in life where so many employers are looking at you within a certain timeframe. Take a second and fill out your profile and make it a priority.”