The 2017 job market is different than any before it. With the rise of technology and innovation as both a help and hindrance to the process, young adults beginning their own internship or job search have access to incredible tools that they may not even know about. You may have just checked Facebook or Snapchat, but do you have a LinkedIn? Or have you heard of Glassdoor?

Meet Handshake, the Career Development Center’s new online career platform. It’s a place where students, career centers, and recruiters come to meet and share jobs, internships, events and more. Started by Michigan Tech graduates, the platform is now utilized by University of Michigan, Western Michigan University, Cornerstone University, Calvin College, and now Hope College. It’s a modern interface to interact with and find what you’re looking for in an internship or job.

 

 

When you log onto Handshake, it prompts you to fill out your profile and asks you a few questions such as locations you’re interested in working in, desired fields of work, and more. One of my favorite features when filling out the profile is the option Handshake gives you to upload your resume. It looks at your resume and uses its technology to scan your relevant work, and upload each experience to your profile (after your approval, in case there’s something outdated). It saves you the copy-pasting time and builds the bulk of your profile in the blink of an eye.

 

 

Searching through job postings is just like searching through any of your favorite online vendors: there are filters to narrow down the location, job type, part-time or full-time, and so on. Once you find a posting that interests you, you can “favorite” it and not only will it be easy to find later, but Handshake will also send you email notifications before relevant deadlines so you won’t miss anything important. Employers from around the state, country and world work with Handshake to place their postings on the site, giving Hope students access to more opportunities including high-level positions posted by Fortune 500 companies.

I’ve always been a future-focused person. When I was 15, the summer after my freshman year of high school, I started googling colleges and universities in my free time. It only makes sense that now, as a rising college junior, I have already scoured future job prospects on various job search sites and check LinkedIn almost as regularly as Instagram (almost).

Since signing on, I have found Handshake to be a breath of fresh air. Now that Jobstop is gone, opportunities around campus, in Holland, and across the world are brought together in one place, proving useful for freshmen and recent graduates alike. It is an exceptionally comprehensive resource and will grow along with Hope College students even as the job market continues to evolve.

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