What is Handshake?
Handshake is a career management platform designed primarily for college students and recent graduates to connect with employers. Universities use it as their central hub for jobs, internships, career fairs, and on-campus recruiting, replacing old systems like Symplicity or paper sign-up sheets.
Students create profiles highlighting their education, skills, and interests, then receive tailored job recommendations instead of scrolling through endless generic listings. Employers, in turn, can specifically target candidates from certain schools, majors, or skill sets, making recruiting more efficient and inclusive.
Handshake also supports virtual events, messaging between students and recruiters, and application tracking, so everything from discovery to interview can live in one place. At its best, it levels the playing field—giving students from a wide range of institutions access to opportunities that were once concentrated at a few elite campuses.
Handshake at UC Merced
Handshake is an online platform and career hub where UC Merced students and alumni can find and apply for on and off campus jobs and internships, make an appointment with their Career Specialist, meet with employers, register to attend career workshops and events and access “How To” Guides designed to help you effectively write your resume, successfully interview, create you LinkedIn Profile and More!
How Can I Access Handshake?
Navigate to the UC Merced Handshake platform and log in using your UC Merced credentials. The next step is to complete your Handshake profile with as much information as you would like to include. Your account is created using some basic information. You are able to choose whether to include additional information about yourself in your Handshake profile, but we encourage you to include at least one experience, one co-curricular activity or organization and one skill.
