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PrentusPrentus

Career services software · Updated October 2026

Handshake alternatives

A buyer’s breakdown for universities and colleges. Handshake is built for employer recruiting, so if your bottleneck is engagement, coaching, or outcome visibility, here is where each alternative actually fits.

The short answer

What is the best Handshake alternative?

It depends on what Handshake is not doing for you. If employer recruiting is the center of your office, Symplicity and 12twenty are the closest swaps.

Pick Prentus when the gap is students and proof. Students get an AI advisor, voice-based mock interviews and a job board from day one to hired, and your team gets outcomes collected automatically plus by survey. Keep Handshake if its employer reach, 1M+ companies as of October 2026, is what your students rely on, and run Prentus beside it. Searching for Handshake AI, the paid AI training work? That is a different product.

What career teams tell us

Why schools start looking for Handshake alternatives

These come from our calls with career services teams who run Handshake today, paraphrased closely and kept anonymous. Most are past the job-board problem and onto a harder one, proving students actually get hired.

  • The job feed “feels like Indeed”

    Global and paid-boosted postings crowd out the local employer partners students actually want. At one community college, nearly every student hopes to work close to home.

    With Prentus

    Invite your employer partners to post on Prentus. The job engine then adds roles from across the web that match each student, so the feed stays relevant.

  • Thousands of employers nobody approved

    Years of auto-approval let in employers no one vetted. Teams worry about low-quality and scam-risk postings, and students have received unwanted direct messages from recruiters.

    With Prentus

    Invite the employers you trust to post jobs, so your board starts with partners your team chose.

  • A data cleanup that never ends

    Light governance left tens of thousands of inactive student accounts and an employer list that eats staff time. One team was halfway through the cleanup when they called us.

    With Prentus

    Move the employer network you want to keep into Prentus and manage it there, with a done-with-you rollout alongside your team.

  • Students show up for a posting, then disappear

    Many students log in only when they need a job. That leaves gaps before the application and no view of whether they got hired.

    With Prentus

    Students use one platform from day one to hired, with a 24/7 AI advisor, voice-based mock interviews and jobs matched to them.

  • Too many logins, and students check out

    Handshake is one more stop among “a hundred platforms.” Incoming students in particular glaze over and drop off when every career task lives in a different tool.

    With Prentus

    Advising, interview prep, jobs, community and outcomes live in one place students already use.

  • Outcomes rebuilt by hand every year

    Some teams never switched on first-destination tracking. Others stitch it together each year from a survey tool, a Handshake export and an intern doing manual research.

    With Prentus

    Migrate your first-destination survey into Prentus and run it there by email and SMS, next to automatic employment verification from dozens of sources.

The shortlist

The best Handshake competitors and alternatives in 2026

Different tools win for different reasons. Here is the honest breakdown.

Prentus logo
#1

Prentus

Best for student engagement and outcomes

Best for career services leaders who need AI advising, mock interviews, resume tools, and AI-assisted outcomes collection on one platform students use from day one to hired.

Prentus is the career outcomes platform for higher ed, connecting every student from day one through the day they are hired on a single platform. DeVry runs it across 30,000 students and 50,000 alumni. One flat institutional fee, a done-with-you rollout, and the compliance-ready outcomes data your institution needs to protect enrollment and funding.

Tradeoffs: If your highest priority is employer recruiting operations or campus-wide job-fair logistics, you may still keep Handshake or another employer-facing system alongside Prentus.

Standout strengths
  • 24/7 AI career advisor plus scheduled time with human coaches
  • Voice-based AI mock interviews
  • AI-assisted outcomes collection across dozens of sources, plus your first-destination survey migrated into Prentus and sent by email and SMS, for NACE and OBBBA workflows
  • Invite employers to post jobs, move your employer network over, and grow it with talent links, no employer signup required
  • Matching jobs from across the web, beyond your partner employers, in the same student feed
  • 3x engagement vs. traditional career portals
Open detailed comparison
Symplicity logo
#2

Symplicity

Best for legacy career-center operations

Best for universities that need established employer recruiting, on-campus recruiting, and career-fair administration workflows.

Symplicity is the closest legacy alternative if you mainly want operational infrastructure for a traditional career center. It is built around staff workflows, employer coordination, and administration.

Tradeoffs: It is not an AI-first student engagement platform. Outcome collection is still far more manual than modern AI-native systems, and implementation overhead is heavier.

Standout strengths
  • Strong career-fair and employer recruiting workflows
  • Widely known in higher-ed career services
  • Good fit for teams optimizing staff operations over student coaching reach
Open detailed comparison
12twenty logo
#3

12twenty

Best for reporting and traditional outcomes

Best for teams that want a mature reporting layer and are willing to manage a more traditional system to get it.

12twenty is often evaluated by institutions that care about reporting depth, employer workflows, and a recognizable career-center platform. It is a serious operational alternative in higher ed.

Tradeoffs: It still does not solve the student-engagement bottleneck the way an AI-native platform does. Teams looking for always-on guidance and proactive nudges usually need more than 12twenty alone.

Standout strengths
  • Known for reporting and admin workflows
  • Common in higher-ed evaluation sets
  • Better fit for traditional career-center process management than AI coaching
Open detailed comparison
Suitable logo
#4

Suitable

Best for co-curricular engagement

Best for schools that want to motivate student participation through milestones, activity tracking, and co-curricular programs.

Suitable is a better Handshake alternative when the goal is campus engagement structure, not just job applications. It can help teams track participation and encourage student involvement.

Tradeoffs: It is not a full AI career-coaching stack. If you need interview practice, resume optimization, and automated employment outcomes, you will outgrow it quickly.

Standout strengths
  • Strong for co-curricular participation tracking
  • Useful for incentive and milestone programs
  • Better engagement layer than a plain job board
Open detailed comparison
uConnect logo
#5

uConnect

Best for content distribution

Best for teams that need a cleaner content and communications experience for career resources, events, and employer information.

uConnect is often considered when Handshake is not driving enough student awareness of resources. It is helpful for surfacing content and making the career center easier to navigate.

Tradeoffs: It is not a job-search execution layer and it is not an AI advising platform. It improves access to resources more than it changes student behavior directly.

Standout strengths
  • Strong content hub for career centers
  • Improves discoverability of resources and events
  • Helpful complement when awareness is the problem
Open detailed comparison

Why teams switch

What Prentus does that Handshake does not

These are the three modules that move the needle once your job board is in place.

AI Career Advisor

Every student gets a 24/7 AI advisor

Handshake puts students in front of jobs. Prentus puts an AI advisor in front of every student, builds weekly career plans, sends proactive nudges, and drafts follow-up emails for your team.

  • 24/7 personalized guidance
  • Proactive nudges keep students engaged
  • Drafts follow-up emails for advisors
AI Career Advisor

AI Mock Interviews

Voice-based interview practice from real job descriptions

Handshake has no voice-based AI mock interview practice. Prentus gives students voice-based mock interviews with role-specific questions pulled from actual job descriptions, plus instant feedback on communication.

  • Voice-based realistic practice
  • Questions pulled from real job descriptions
  • Instant feedback on communication
AI Mock Interviews

Outcome Tracking

AI-assisted outcomes collection across dozens of sources

Stop chasing alumni one profile at a time. Migrate your first-destination survey into Prentus and run it there by email and SMS, while AI-assisted collection verifies employment across dozens of sources, so you have audit-ready data for NACE, OBBBA, and accreditation.

  • AI-assisted collection across dozens of sources
  • Compliant for NACE and OBBBA reporting
  • Your first-destination survey, migrated and run in Prentus
Outcome Tracking

Illustrative product view with sample data.

Prentus vs Handshake at a glance

Updated October 2026. Where each platform actually wins.

Prentus vs Handshake comparison, updated October 2026
Student experience, day one to hiredOne platform from day one to the day they are hired, with an AI advisor, human coach meetings, career exploration, LinkedIn prep and a built-in communityCentered on employer connections and job search
AI career advising24/7 AI advisor students can talk to, plus scheduled meetings with your human coachesNo dedicated AI advising layer
Job boardOwn job board where you invite employers to post. A job engine adds matching roles from across the web, even from employers you are not partnered with, and a Chrome extension tracks any jobCore strength, with jobs posted by employers in the Handshake network
Outcomes tracking and collectionMigrate your first-destination survey into Prentus and run it there by email and SMS. An automatic monthly LinkedIn scan and dozens of third-party sources verify employment, AI-reviewed for staff to confirmFirst-destination survey plus "sourced outcomes", which pairs Handshake profile and resume data with public professional profiles
Interview prepVoice-based AI mock interviews and LinkedIn prepNo voice-based AI mock interviews
Employer networkMove your employer network to Prentus and manage it there. Grow it with talent links, no employer signup requiredCore strength, with a large employer network and recruiter workflows
If you keep HandshakeHandshake integration brings Handshake roles into Prentus, so students keep that job flowKeeps running as your employer recruiting system
Implementation and pricingDone-with-you rollout alongside your team, one flat institutional feeNot compared here. Confirm your terms with Handshake

Curious what this looks like against your own headcount and student volume? Run your own numbers before you commit to a switch.

DeVry runs Prentus at scale

“The most interconnected, well-integrated tools that do the hard work but keep our advising team at the center.”

Richard Korczyk, Chief Experience Officer, DeVry University, 30,000 students, 50,000 alumni, one platform.

See it on your numbers

See Prentus on your numbers. A 30-minute working session, not a sales pitch.

What to look for in a real alternative

Student engagement beyond job postings

If students only log in when they need to search jobs, usage will stay shallow. The better alternatives create repeated interaction through AI guidance, tailored tasks, mock interviews, and proactive nudges.

Outcome tracking you can actually trust

A real alternative should help you collect employment outcomes with less manual chasing. This matters for NACE reporting, accreditation pressure, and the broader OBBBA and gainful-employment conversation.

Operational fit for your team

Some platforms are best for employer operations. Others are best for student-facing coaching. Be honest about which bottleneck is costing you more right now. Ask what the platform gives your coaches too, since a centralized grading queue and a full activity log open during an advising appointment change how prepared your staff walk in.

What switching actually costs you

The real switching risk is losing your employer network, so ask whether you can move it and keep growing it. Prentus lets you bring that network over, invite employers to post jobs directly, and add to it with talent links, without asking employers to sign up. Your first-destination survey can move over too, and Prentus can integrate with Handshake to keep that job flow if you decide to keep both.

Coverage from day one, not just recruiting season

Look for one platform a student uses from day one through the day they are hired, covering career exploration, LinkedIn prep, a built-in community, an AI advisor they can talk to any time, and scheduled meetings with your human coaches.

Time-to-value

Legacy systems often ask for a heavier setup and slower change management process. AI-native platforms should earn their keep quickly.

Prentus

Who should choose Prentus

  • Teams buried in low-capacity advising demand.
  • Student engagement matters more than employer marketplace breadth.
  • You need AI mock interviews, resume help, and outcome tracking in one flow.
  • Proving career outcomes is a board, accreditation, or compliance priority.

Start with AI career advising, add mock interviews, then layer in AI-assisted outcomes collection.

Handshake

Who should keep Handshake

  • Employer recruiting logistics are the center of your workflow.
  • Your biggest differentiator is access to a broad employer network.
  • You are satisfied with the portal model and need job distribution.
  • You plan to pair it with another student-engagement or AI layer.

That last path is common. Many schools use Handshake for recruiting and add Prentus for student activation, coaching, and outcomes.

Bottom line

If you want the best Handshake alternative for student-facing career outcomes, pick the platform that changes behavior after the job is posted. That is where Prentus is strongest.

Keep Handshake for recruiting if you need to. Add the AI engagement and outcomes layer on top. The point is fixing the bottleneck, not replacing a logo.

Talk through your Handshake setupCareer services use case

Related alternatives

Explore adjacent career-services comparisons

If you are still sorting the category, these nearby alternatives pages cover the most common comparison branches career teams evaluate next. Smaller institutions should start with our buyer guide to the best Handshake alternatives for small colleges, which ranks the category on coverage and outcomes reporting rather than employer network size.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best Handshake alternative?

It depends on what Handshake is not doing for you. If employer recruiting is the center of your office, Symplicity and 12twenty are the closest swaps. Pick Prentus when the gap is students and proof. Students get an AI advisor, voice-based mock interviews and a job board from day one to hired, and your team gets outcomes collected automatically plus by survey. Keep Handshake if its employer reach, 1M+ companies as of October 2026, is what your students rely on, and run Prentus beside it. Searching for Handshake AI, the paid AI training work? That is a different product.

Can we keep Handshake and still use Prentus?

Yes, and many schools do. Handshake stays strong for employer recruiting and job distribution. Prentus can bring Handshake roles into its job board through the Handshake integration, then adds the student experience, interview prep and outcomes tracking that Handshake is not built for. Other schools move off Handshake entirely once their employer network lives in Prentus.

Do we lose our employer network if we leave Handshake?

No. You can move your employer network to Prentus and manage it there, and invite employers to post jobs directly on Prentus. Talent links then let you grow that network without asking employers to sign up. If you would rather keep Handshake running, the integration keeps that job flow available to your students.

Will students see enough jobs on Prentus without Handshake?

Yes. Your partner employers post on Prentus when you invite them. Beyond those partners, the Prentus job engine pulls matching roles from across the web, even from employers you are not partnered with, so students see every opportunity that fits them in one feed. A Chrome extension tracks any job they find elsewhere.

Can we move our first-destination survey into Prentus?

Yes. Schools migrate their first-destination survey into Prentus and run it there, sent by email and SMS so follow-up happens without staff hours. Responses sit next to automatic employment verification from dozens of third-party sources, which AI reviews for your team to confirm. That supports NACE first-destination reporting from one system.

What does Prentus give students that Handshake does not?

Handshake is built around employers and job search. Prentus covers the rest of the student journey on one platform, including a 24/7 AI advisor, scheduled meetings with human coaches, career exploration, LinkedIn prep, voice-based AI mock interviews, a built-in community, and a Chrome extension that tracks jobs from anywhere on the internet.

How do universities track graduate outcomes if Handshake is not enough?

Handshake offers a first-destination survey and "sourced outcomes", which pairs Handshake profile and resume data with public professional profiles. Prentus goes further on collection. It runs an automatic monthly LinkedIn scan and draws on dozens of third-party sources to verify employment. AI reviews those sources and surfaces likely outcomes for your staff to confirm. Customizable surveys by email and SMS collect follow-up data automatically, so your team spends no hours chasing responses.

Which Handshake alternative is best for NACE and OBBBA reporting?

Prentus is the strongest option in this set for outcomes reporting, because automatic collection and surveys work together in one system. That supports NACE first-destination reporting and OBBBA workflows. Handshake is not built for automated employment verification, and most other alternatives on this page lean on manual or survey-led collection.

What does it cost and how long does it take to switch to Prentus?

Prentus is priced as one flat institutional fee plus a one-time implementation, never per seat. The rollout is done with you, alongside your team, and your employer network moves over with you. Book a demo to map your current Handshake setup and what a switch would look like for your budget.

See how Prentus complements your career services stack

Whether you use Handshake, 12twenty, or manual processes, Prentus adds AI-powered career advising and AI-assisted outcomes collection. See it in action.

Start with a free 30-minute outcomes diagnosis. You leave with your gap map whether or not Prentus fits.

Book your outcomes diagnosis