Approving and labeling off-campus contact (representative) access requests

Process for approving new employers

Follow the steps below and make sure to send the following message via Handshake and send the same message directly to the Contact's email address using WExchange. Send it over email, in addition to Handshake, because about half of our employers still do not receive notifications from Handshake. They may miss a message through Handshake.

Message:  Thank you for your interest in posting your employment opportunities on Handshake for Western Michigan University students and alumni.  Career and Student Employment Services reviews each employer prior to being granted approval to use the Handshake portal.  Your request has been approved.  Please see http://www.wmich.edu/career/employers/jobpostings  to review posting guidelines.

Process for gaining more information before approving/declining new employer

When seeking further information from a prospective new employer share the following message along with the specific message of inquiry (such as share working URL or why doesn’t your staff email reflect company domain).  Send message through Handshake and to contact's email.  Send it over email, in addition to Handshake, because about half of our employers still do not receive notifications from Handshake. They may miss a message through Handshake.

Message:   

We look forward to working with you. Insert Specific question(s) here. To have your employer profile approved at Western Michigan University and to post opportunities for WMU students and alumni, please respond to this message within five business days. 

Choose one of the following:

Before your request can be considered, please share working URL. 

Or

Before you request can be considered, please use the email related to your URL.   

Steps to approving employers in Handshake

1. Be sure you are in your Career Services/admin Handshake account. 

2. On the right side of the page, click on the link (red box) under the "Employer Approvals" section (black box).

3. Click on the name of the employer whose registration you want to look at. 

4. Look at all of the information.

• Make sure the email address for the contacts match with the URL provided.
• Visit the URL to make sure the website is legitimate.
• When you are on their website, be sure to figure out what industry or industries the employer is serving or involved with.
• Compare the company description given on the Handshake profile with what you find on the website.
• If they provided a location, match that location to the location located on their website.
• If anything feels off, talk to an appropriate employer relations staff member. 

5. Once you have determined the industry of the employer and that the employer can be accepted in Handshake, apply the appropriate labels to all of the unique contacts and users/staff members associated with the employer's profile.

Be sure to consider all of the events that occur between Career and Student Employment Services and the Zhang Career Center. Apply any labels that would provide information about any events that would help those organizations better recruit from the whole university.

For third-party recruiting agencies, apply the "third party recruiter" label to the employer account as well as all of the contacts and users/staff members. 

Follow the steps below to access the contact and user profiles: 

• If there are people listed under the "Staff Members" heading halfway down the middle of the page click on the "Staff Members" heading (first red box in screenshot below).

• In the middle of the page, click on the name of the person to whose account you will be applying labels.

• Halfway down the screen near the left side of the page, start typing the label names into the bar under the "Labels" section. Apply any labels you decide are relevant to the employer. 

• After applying the relevant labels, send the contact an email through Webmail + with this message. 
• Repeat the bulleted steps above with each unique contact under both the "Staff Members" and "Contacts" sections. 

6. After you have labeled the contacts, return to the main page of the employer access request. Change the request status to "Approved" (red box) near the top of the "Employer Approval" section. Scroll down and either click "Save Approved" or "Save Approved & View Next" (black boxes). Clicking "Save Approved & View Next" will save the current request and automatically take you to the next request in the queue. 

Label format for Handshake

*Apply the third party recruiter label to the employer account as well as the contact and user accounts.