Opening Up Access
“This is what I find most magnetic about successful givers: they get to the top without cutting others down, finding ways of expanding the pie that benefit themselves and the people around them. Whereas success is zero-sum in a group of takers, in groups of givers, it may be true that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.”
― Adam Grant, Give and Take: A Revolutionary Approach to Success
This week, Handshake officially opened up access to all undergrad students with a .edu email address. There’s lots of coverage about our new development, but I thought I’d provide a personal perspective, especially as someone who has worked my entire career in higher education and is deeply invested in career services.
I wholeheartedly believe opening up access is the right next move for our students, for our profession, and for our team. This is why… Educational inequity still exists and I can’t help but wonder, have we truly done enough as a company if we don’t at least offer the option for any student to be able to use Handshake if they wish. Life and opportunity are not a zero-sum game. I know not everyone agrees, but that is a core value I hold dearly and is at the very heart of Handshake and many of our schools (I suppose Adam Grant would call me a “giver”). We can all collectively support one another and lift each other up. It’s actually one of the things I admire most about higher education and this profession. Our willingness to share openly and help one another.
Now on a practical level, our partner schools will continue to have the same benefits as before. There are no down sides to you or your students. Handshake schools will retain access to all of our career service management workflow tools and to reporting and insights so you can use data to best tell your story. Only partner institutions will be able to use functions like appointments, events, fairs, targeted emails, first destination survey, interviews, notes, reporting, and many other elements, etc. Our workflow tools and reporting / insights are the two main areas we’ll be focusing on more deeply in product next year (I was planning to share that in the next couple weeks, but here’s a heads up, more details to come!)
Students at partner schools will also benefit from us opening up. As career educators, we know how important access to information and social capital can be for the job search. By opening up access, your students will now benefit from the experiences of additional members in the Handshake community. While this may not be necessary for students following popular paths at your institution, think about the students who are interested in niche areas or career paths where you don’t have a strong alumni network. How could we be inclusive for those that might need it most? By making it easier for students from every school to join, we can expand the community that your students engage with so they are more likely to find the information or people they want. And on the most core level, your students will see an increase in quality employers and opportunities. This is because of two reasons: 1) employers are still interested in posting to individual schools and 2) employers that wish to post publicly for all students were already using other sites like LinkedIn or Indeed to post those positions anyway. There is literally no change in competition for your students. By simply allowing all students to join Handshake, employers are also more likely to post because it streamlines their process in reaching students, resulting in more opportunities on the platform, and thus advantages your student.
I know this change can feel uncomfortable because it’s unfamiliar and some worry about what it means for the value of career services. But let me be the first to put an end to the rumor… Handshake has no intention of cutting out universities or career services (and never will). Quite the contrary, the world of work is becoming more complex and while we can provide massive insights on trends we see in the recruiting space, significantly help you scale your reach, and level the playing field for students to access information or begin to build their social capital, we know it is because of our university partners that students are competent, prepared, qualified, and engaged. We spend a lot of time telling our students that solutions to society’s biggest issues are not siloed within one discipline or sector, but rather a fusion of creativity across multiple areas. We tell them they must have the agility and flexibility to keep reinventing themselves for the future. These lessons aren’t any different for us. We have an opportunity to work across higher ed and tech, to embrace each others’ areas of expertise, and to keep evolving ourselves and the roles we play.
We all co-exist in the same ecosystem and we’re trying to solve for the same problem, we can be that much more effective if we truly partner and learn from each other.
