Handshake

🎯 Should you use Handshake?

Buy if: You recruit entry-level to 3 years out and need direct university pipeline access without burning booth fees.

Skip if: You source for roles requiring 5+ years experience or work solo without budget for enterprise contracts.

⚡ In practice

• ●Setup: 2-3 weeks for account provisioning and university partnership alignment
• ●Campus sourcing: Direct student access beats LinkedIn for new grads
• ●Volume hiring: Bulk screening works when hiring 20+ interns simultaneously

⚠️ Where it breaks

• ●Platform locks you to early career profiles, making mid-level pivots impossible without switching tools entirely.
• ●No transparent pricing forces every buyer into custom sales cycles that drag 4-6 weeks.

💸 Is it worth the money?

Contracts reportedly start around $10,000 annually for smaller employers, scaling to six figures for enterprise access across all 1,500+ universities. Worth it only if early talent hiring represents 40%+ of your annual req load.

🆚 If not this

• ●LinkedIn Recruiter -> when you need all-level sourcing in one seat
• ●RippleMatch -> smaller early talent platform with usage-based pricing instead of annual locks
• ●hireEZ -> better for mixed-level sourcing with actual price transparency

🎯 Final verdict

Buy for volume campus hiring where direct university access justifies the enterprise contract cost, skip for any other hiring profile.