Navigating the Job Market: A Side-by-Side Comparison of Handshake and Its Competitors

Handshake was created to ensure that all college students have equal access to meaningful careers. Within a few years, Handshake has become the system of record trusted by 90% of four-year universities and 300+ community colleges to connect career searching students with work. However, small and large recruiting platforms (competitors) are now entering and competing in the space. Hence, as a UX researcher, my challenge was to help them understand the early talent recruiting competitive landscape for their Employer and Student Business Units. My goal was to understand the brand positioning, product experience and value drivers, pricing and packaging, marketing tactics and channels, creative strategies, and content that competitors employ to position themselves in the marketplace and win business. My work consisted of launching investigative surveys to get large-scale sentiments from students on use/utility of platforms, sketching out journey maps to contrast user experiences, performing a comparative analysis with each platform to identify differences/similarities in functionalities/services, keeping my eyes and ears open during immersion exercises as a job seeker myself, and, finally, crunching through lots of data to bring forth strategic insights for Handshake.