Gem > Case Studies > Handshake's Strategic Transformation with IoT

Handshake's Strategic Transformation with IoT

Technology Category

Robots - Collaborative Robots

Applicable Industries

Education
Oil & Gas

Use Cases

Time Sensitive Networking

About The Customer

Handshake is a San Francisco-based job network for college students. The company's mission is to democratize access to meaningful career opportunities for students of all backgrounds, regardless of their demographics, networks, or the schools they attended. Handshake empowers career centers at over 1,400 higher education institutions, including four-year and community colleges, boot camps, and minority-serving institutions. More than 650,000 employers use Handshake to diversify their recruiting pipelines, boost their employer brands, and build relationships with entry-level professionals. Between 2018 and 2020, 49% of college graduates received job offers for roles they found on Handshake’s platform. The company has over 600 employees and plans to hire 350+ people this year.

The Challenge

Handshake, a job network for college students, faced a significant challenge in managing its talent acquisition process. The company's talent acquisition team, comprised of seasoned professionals, understood the importance of efficiency and data in the hiring process. However, they lacked the bandwidth and data-driven insights to transition from an administrative role to a strategic one in their relationships with hiring managers. The team needed a solution that would allow them to source strategically and at scale for the numerous roles they had open. They also needed a tool that would automate follow-ups, allow for link sharing, and ensure that talent would see their outreach. Furthermore, the team was spending more time creating reports than talking to candidates, which was not ideal given the organization's hiring goals.

The Solution

Handshake's solution came in the form of Gem, an automation and outreach tool. Gem allowed Handshake's recruiters to save hours on outreach and optimize messaging. With Gem's Talent Pipeline, recruiters could bring full-funnel insights to their syncs with hiring managers, allowing for more dynamic conversations around the holistic pipeline and how to improve the hiring process. The tool also provided data insights, allowing teams to spot trends like the best source-of-hire and answer questions about the effectiveness of their talent branding efforts. Gem's Talent Pipeline also provided a high-level overview of their pipelines, fundamentally shifting the recruiters' relationships with hiring managers and improving workflows and the candidate experience. The tool also allowed for efficient candidate management, with each candidate tile containing all the information a recruiter or manager would need to know about that candidate.

Operational Impact

The implementation of Gem transformed Handshake's talent acquisition process. The tool allowed the team to automate sourcing efforts and pull valuable insights on outreach activity. This not only increased efficiency but also provided the insights that the leadership team was seeking. The tool also fundamentally shifted the recruiters' relationships with hiring managers, allowing for more dynamic and strategic conversations. The Talent Pipeline feature provided a high-level overview of their pipelines, improving workflows and the candidate experience. The tool also allowed for efficient candidate management, with each candidate tile containing all the information a recruiter or manager would need to know about that candidate. This resulted in a more streamlined and effective hiring process.

Quantitative Benefit

Handshake's recruiters were able to 'exponentially increase' their impact by saving hours on outreach and optimizing messaging with Gem.
Handshake was able to scale from a team of 70 to over 600 in four years, with recruiting alone scaling from two people to 37.
Handshake plans to hire 350+ people this year, a goal made achievable by the efficiencies and insights provided by Gem.