The popular career services platform is now available to any student with a .edu email address — and that’s changing how career services are provided at many colleges and universities.
Since its launch in 2014, career-services platform Handshake has dominated the higher ed market. Despite revelations that fraudsters have been able to create faux internships on Handshake, and students raising privacy concerns, the online service has spread to more than 800 institutions, where college career centers mainly use it to connect students to potential employers — including every Fortune 500 company.
Handshake has been moving for years toward a business model more akin to networking websites such as LinkedIn or Facebook. The platform’s most recent shift, announced Tuesday, seems to continue this trend, though Handshake’s co-founder, Garrett Lord, said it is not a media company.
Now any student with an email address ending in .edu can sign up on Handshake for free without being required to be enrolled at one of the colleges or universities with which the company has partnered.