Handshake Organic Growth Opportunities

This play creates comprehensive, employer-facing guides for recruiting at specific universities, transforming navigational school traffic into high-intent B2B leads.

Example Keywords

• "recruit at [University Name]"
• "[University Name] career fair employer registration"
• "hire [University Name] students"
• "campus recruiting [University Name] [Role Group]"

Rationale

Handshake dominates the university ecosystem but currently captures mostly student navigational traffic; these pages target the employer side of the marketplace during the planning phase.

Topical Authority

Handshake is the career services platform for 92% of the top 500 U.S. universities, giving it unrivaled authority to speak on campus engagement.

Internal Data Sources

Use university-level talent supply data, aggregated engagement signals, and career fair calendars to provide unique, data-backed recruiting advice.

Estimated Number of Pages

200,000+ (Covering thousands of institutions across multiple role groups and seasons)

This play generates localized directories that connect specific hiring needs (majors/skills) with geographic talent density to capture transactional employer searches.

Example Keywords

• "hire [Major] interns in [City]"
• "[City] entry level [Role] candidates"
• "[Skill] interns near me"
• "college recruiting [City] [Industry]"

Rationale

Employers often search for talent by combining a specific skill or major with a location; these pages position Handshake as the primary source for that localized talent.

Topical Authority

With 100% of Fortune 100 companies using the platform, Handshake has the brand equity to own the "where to hire" conversation.

Internal Data Sources

Leverage aggregated supply density by location, major availability trends, and historical conversion benchmarks for specific regions.

Estimated Number of Pages

240,000+ (Covering hundreds of metros and states across hundreds of majors and skills)

This play builds a massive library of hiring assets, including job descriptions and interview scorecards, to capture employers at the moment they are ready to hire.

Example Keywords

• "entry level [Job Title] job description"
• "[Job Title] intern interview questions"
• "[Industry] [Job Title] scorecard"
• "skills to look for in junior [Job Title]"

Rationale

Recruiters searching for templates are in an active hiring cycle; providing these assets drives them directly into the Handshake job posting workflow.

Topical Authority

As the leading early-career job board, Handshake is the natural authority on what constitutes a high-performing entry-level job posting.

Internal Data Sources

Utilize anonymized patterns from top-performing job posts and existing internal role group taxonomies to generate expert-level templates.

Estimated Number of Pages

120,000+ (Covering thousands of job titles across various industries and seniority levels)

This play creates a data-driven directory of compensation benchmarks for internships and entry-level roles to assist employers in budget planning and offer competitiveness.

Example Keywords

• "average intern pay [Role] [City]"
• "entry level [Role] salary [State]"
• "[Role] intern hourly rate [Metro]"
• "new grad [Role] compensation benchmarks"

Rationale

Salary data is one of the most searched topics in recruitment; providing proprietary early-talent data attracts employers seeking to optimize their offers.

Topical Authority

Handshake's massive database of job postings and offer signals provides a unique, first-party data set that generic salary sites cannot match.

Internal Data Sources

Use aggregated pay data from millions of Handshake job postings and offer acceptance signals to provide accurate, real-time benchmarks.

Estimated Number of Pages

200,000+ (Covering hundreds of roles across hundreds of geographic locations and seasons)

This play targets university career center administrators with technical implementation and procurement guides for the Handshake platform and its integrations.

Example Keywords

• "career services software [Institution Name]"
• "SAML setup for career center software"
• "university job board integration [ATS Name]"
• "career services analytics dashboard"

Rationale

Capturing procurement-intent searches allows Handshake to influence the decision-making process for university career centers and technical stakeholders.

Topical Authority

Handshake is already the industry standard; documenting the technical ecosystem reinforces its position as the most integrated and secure choice.

Internal Data Sources

Repurpose support center articles, SSO setup guides, and FERPA compliance documentation into structured, indexable marketing content.

Estimated Number of Pages

50,000+ (Covering thousands of institutions and hundreds of technical integration scenarios)

Improvements Summary

Refresh and reformat five internship/job-search pages to better match page-1 SERP layouts, with clearer above-the-fold answers, templates/examples, and structured lists. Add a supporting internships hub plus stronger cross-linking across student resume/interview/follow-up content to push rankings from positions 11–20 into the top 10.

Improvements Details

Rework /internship-cover-letter-tips/ around “how to write a cover letter for an internship” with a step checklist, copy/paste template, filled example, “no experience” section, and FAQ + schema. Update /summer-internships-for-college-students/ as a “2026” edition with major/industry sections, remote/hybrid/in-person breakdowns, an internship timeline, and ItemList-style blocks targeting “summer internships for college students” and “summer internships 2026.” Expand the paid, hospital, and virtual career fair pages with direct-first answers, tables/scripts/templates (e.g., “do you get paid as an intern,” “intern at a hospital,” “intern job fair”), then connect everything via an “Internships for College Students” hub, related-resource modules, and keyword-rich internal anchors.

Improvements Rationale

The highest-volume queries in the cluster have very low observed traffic share, suggesting these pages sit on page 2 and are not capturing clicks. Reformatting to match winning SERP patterns (definitions, step lists, templates, FAQs) increases featured snippet and PAA eligibility, which often drives the fastest movement into the top 10. A clear hub + internal linking concentrates topical authority and routes qualified students into Handshake internship discovery CTAs after high-intent sections.