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Platforms like Handshake and RippleMatch are among those leading the charge into the future of hiring college students, recent graduates, and entry level talent. Below we will highlight the pros, cons, and contrasts between the two, as well as how Pangea.app is working hard to create the easiest way of hiring remote talent.

How Handshake Shakes Out

Boasting a network of over 14 million college students and recent graduates from 1,400 campuses, Handshake helps young talent find everything from paid internships to full-time jobs. 

Bridging the gap between universities and employers, prospective employees are able to seek remote opportunities across the country or in-person roles within their own communities or campuses. 

Pros

Proactive Outreach Tools

From email campaigns to virtual events, Handshake makes it easy to reach out to and engage with your ideal candidates. According to their blog, 95% of students will engage with employers that send personalized, proactive outreach messages.

Brand Personalization

Through Handshake’s paid premium package, companies can build an aesthetically pleasing, custom branded page that stands out above the competition. Hiring is a two way street, and these features are sure to help attract the talent you’re looking for. 

Cost-Effective

Hiring students and recent graduates is a cost-effective way of getting the help you need. Not only is it cheaper than hiring a 10-year veteran, you’re getting the chance to work with the next generation of industry professionals on the cutting edges of their fields.

Cons

Talent Pool More Shallow than it Seems

While it’s true that Handshake has over 14 million students and recent grads on their platform, that is not exactly what you’re getting access to. Your business needs to be approved by every university you wish to recruit from, significantly shrinking the network you’ll actually be able to hire from.

Company Trust Scores

Handshake uses a company trust score system to help universities determine whether or not they should approve your company’s job posts. This is mostly based on your activity on Handshake, so it can be tough for new members to get approved.

Big Business Focused

Boasting they’re used by companies like Tesla, CVS, and Verizon, Handshake seems more focused on corporations than start-ups and small businesses. Considering the fact that a company’s approval is based on a trust score, stacking up against these big players adds a new layer of difficulty. 

Summary

If you’re looking for emerging talent to hire as interns or entry-level employees, Handshake is a viable option. The quality of talent definitely varies, but you might just find that diamond in the rough that ends up making a serious impact on your business. 

RippleMatch: Making Waves with Recruitment Automation

Also focusing on college and entry-level talent, RippleMatch uses automation software to match Gen-Z marketers, salespeople, engineers, and more. Simply input a few key details about your ideal employee, and they’ll generate a pipeline of their top picks for you. 

Working with students, recent grads, and young professionals, RippleMatch does not rely on working with Universities to source their talent and serve as a promising Handshake alternative. While they only have 2-million users to Handshake’s 14-million, RippleMatch gives you a much more fine tuned and dialed in approach to hiring the help you need.

Pros

No Job Boards

RippleMatch’s automation features remove the need for a traditional post-and-apply job board. Just like how you only see candidates who fit your needs, all potential candidates only see a curated list of opportunities that are a good fit for them. This feature forgoes the need for you to sift through piles of applications, many of which should have never applied in the first place. It may seem limiting at first, but it’s all about fully focusing on hiring the right people. 

Built-In CRM

RippleMatch has a Candidate Relationship Management system baked right into the platform to help you build relationships and monitor your engagements. This makes it easy to maintain communication with your candidates and keeping track of your on-platform activity.

Recruiting Analytics

Naturally, a platform who emphasizes automation technologies knows their data. RippleMatch keeps track of your recruiting tendencies and provides you with easy-to-understand data visualizations designed to improve your recruiting process as you continue to hire and grow your team.

Cons

No Clear-Cut Cost

RippleMatch’s pricing all depends on what you’re looking to get out of it. All new clients are quoted a price unique to their needs, with yearly subscription costs running from $25K to $250K. As far as recruiting entry-level talent goes, that’s a pretty penny.

Candidates Are Not Thoroughly Vetted

While there are promising candidates RippleMatch, there isn’t much of a vetting process. While RippleMatch determines which candidates would suite you best, it appears this is mostly based on interests rather than experience.

Limited Selection

While automation may be the future, it isn’t always viewed as the best mode of finding talent. Time is money and RippleMatch’s hiring process is quite efficient, but hiring the wrong people for your team will end up costing you even more. 

Summary

RippleMatch is a great Handshake alternative designed for quickly recruiting entry-level, Gen Z talent. Some may view their automation style as a massive pro, and those who prefer to be hands on in the hiring process may not want to shell out $25K+. It’s all about your preference as a business owner.

Pangea.app: Get More Done with Remote Native Freelancers

If you’re looking for immediate assistance in the areas of social media management, content creation, graphic design, web development, or anything else that can be done remotely, Pangea.app is your best bet. Think of it as having a few thousand rockstars on retainer, ready to work for you at a moment's notice. 

What is a Remote Native?

A remote native is an individual, freelancer or otherwise, who is a product of the remote working world. Having formed as a professional during this new age of employment, Remote Natives are communicative, organized, and will make you feel comfortable hiring remotely as an employer. If you’re on the fence about hiring remotely, interact with a few Pangeans (as we call them). They’ll show you what’s up.

Pangea Perks

Turning to Pangea to add freelance talent to your team comes with its share of benefits. Here are some of the key features we’ve put in place to optimize your hiring experience. 

Pangea Pro

We recently launched Pangea Pro, a cohort representing the top 1% of all freelancers on the platform. With a Pro, you get a proficient emerging freelancer, vetted and hand selected by the Pangea team. Boasting portfolios full of proven work experience, every Pangean with the Pro badge on their profiles has displayed consistent levels of professionalism and excellence throughout their young careers

When searching for talent on Pangea, simply flip the Pro switch for an exclusive view of the top talent on the platform. There’s a pro for every project, from managing your TikTok to revamping your website.

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Three Ways to Hire

On Pangea you can:

• Post a Job: Cast a net across Pangea’s talent pool by posting your job or project to the feed. Once your post is approved, you’ll begin receiving proposals from freelancers who best match your needs. We’ll even highlight Pangea’s Picks to help narrow down your search.
• Invite to Job: As you're pursuing the platform for Pangeans, you can invite your favorites to apply by clicking the Invite to Job button on their profiles. Those who apply will be tagged as “invited by you”.
• Connect with Freelancers: This new feature allows you to connect with and hire freelance talent without even posting a job. By clicking Connect with Freelancer on a Pangean’s profile, you’ll be able to send a detailed message about your project and request to hop on a discovery call to chat more. 

Using all three of these methods at once is sure to maximize your freelancer hiring experience, but it’s all about your personal preference. Regardless, we have tons of talented Pros just waiting in the wings, ready to work.

Pangea’s Pick

We’ve seen it a million times. You're awesome, your company is awesome, and you just woke up to a million applications. Thankfully, you posted on Pangea.app. As candidates apply to your posts, we go in and hand pick our top selections to help narrow down your search.

When reviewing your proposals, keep an eye out for applications marked with the Pangea’s Pick indicator. We literally hand select these picks for you to ensure you’re matched with the right candidates for you.

That’s a Wrap

If you made it this far, congratulations! If you’re looking for alternatives Handshake, RippleMatch, or any other hiring platform, Pangea is the place for you. It’s totally free to sign up, post jobs, and connect with potential candidates, so hop on over and join Pangea.app today.