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Career Forge vs Handshake

Handshake is a national network: employers post once to many schools, and students hold accounts of their own. Career Forge is configured for one institution, with your own employers, your approval rules and your data.

Updated 4 November 2026 · Sources re-read 4 November 2026

The short answer

For a career center that runs its own fairs and employer relationships and wants its approval rules and data under its own control, Career Forge is the better fit. For a center whose students depend on a national job network for postings and employer discovery, Handshake is.

	Career Forge	Handshake
Several career centers on one campus	Each career center runs its own portal: its own employers, approvals, coaching topics, events and invoices, with branding, picklists, staff and single sign-on set once at the institution level.	One school instance. Handshake Support can add career centers inside it; employers, jobs, students and contacts are shared across the instance, while appointment types, interview schedules, event preferences and branding pages can be set per center. Stripe payments cannot be set up per career center; TouchNet and CASHNet can. source
Career fairs and invoicing	Packages, add-ons, pricing by organization type, booth numbers, and an invoice per registration, paid by card, Stripe, check or TouchNet. how it works	Schools invoice fair registrations; employers pay by card through the host school's Stripe account, or by a manual method the school sets, and staff can record manual payments and refunds. source
Check-in and badges	An iPad kiosk app with a Brother label printer: ID scan, NFC tap or search, offline-capable. how it works	A browser kiosk on a desktop or laptop. Name-tag printing needs Windows or macOS, a Dymo printer on USB and Dymo software on that computer, with an XML label template pasted into each event; the kiosk runs on an iPad, but cannot print from one. An unstable connection switches it to offline mode. source
Appointments	Topics per career center, coaches with criteria and calendar sync, staff booking on a student's behalf. how it works	An appointments tool for in-person and virtual sessions. source
Experiential learning	Approval flows the career center designs: steps, actors, external reviewers, automated emails. how it works	Experiences submitted by students, approved by the school and often the employer's supervisor by email, with mid and final evaluations. source
Interviews	Interview blocks with or without a job posting: invitation-only, open and record-keeping blocks, with rooms and resources. how it works	Interview schedules take applications only once an approved job is attached; room-only schedules are the exception. source
Jobs	Approve or deny with reasons; auto-approve or auto-deny by employer; AI auto-fill from an existing ad. how it works	Free posting across the network; employer validation and auto-approval for schools. source
Who it is built for	One career center, or several on a campus, configured per institution.	A three-sided network of students, schools and employers; about 1,600 institutions and about 1 million employers. source
Employers	One employer account across every career center on Career Forge: an employer registers once and posts to one center or several. A newer and smaller network than Handshake's.	One shared network: an employer posts once to many schools, and posting is free. source
Employer relations	In the same system as what employers do: each employer and contact carries notes, logged emails and other communications, custom properties the career center defines, and its own registrations, postings and interviews. No separate product.	Notes can be added to employers, contacts, jobs, events, appointments and interviews, visible to career services staff only; contacts are kept as an address book of employers and partners. Logging emails is not described. source
First destination	NACE First Destination Survey template built in, with cohorts and email schedules; templates and one-click exports for other standards (MBA CSEA, ABA, NALP) are built on request. how it works	Pre-built NACE or MBA CSEA surveys whose standard questions cannot be changed, with additional questions and skip logic; a one-click NACE download; staff can enter a knowledge answer for a student. Included in the school's contract. source
Reporting	A report builder with filters and pivots, saved reports, email from a report, raw export. how it works	Pre-built and customizable reports, scheduled reports. source
Student data	The institution's. Students sign in with the university's identity provider.	“Students retain ownership of the data they upload to Handshake.” source
Sign-on and student records	Single sign-on with the institution's identity provider; students imported from a roster.	CAS, SAML or LDAP for sign-on; student records uploaded as a CSV through the Importer, with an optional automated sync through an Amazon S3 bucket. source
What the school pays	Priced per institution.	Not published for schools (its help center says university contracts are annual). Employer plans are published: Basic free, Pro $450 a month, Enterprise custom. source
Student apps	Web, including on phones.	iOS and Android apps for students. source

When Handshake is the better choice

Handshake's value is the network. If your students' job supply comes mostly from employers your office has no relationship with, that is hard to replace.

Students are found by employers nationally, not only the ones you bring to campus
Postings from about a million employers, posted once to many schools
Student mobile apps on iOS and Android

When Career Forge is the better choice

Career Forge is for a career center that runs its own employer relationships and wants the system shaped to its process.

Your employers, your approval rules, your data, on one campus or several centers
Paid fairs with packages, add-ons and invoicing inside the system, and a kiosk that prints badges
Experiential learning flows designed by the center, not a fixed form
Coaching topics, criteria and calendars per coach
A vendor that configures the platform per institution, including its vocabulary

Questions people ask

Yes, for a career center that wants its own employers, approval rules and data rather than a shared network. Career Forge covers career fairs with invoicing, check-in and badge printing, coaching, experiential learning, interviews, jobs, first destination and reporting, configured per institution.

Yes. Students are imported from a roster and sign in through the university's identity provider; the employer list is loaded; events are set up fresh. Handshake's own Importer shows the records a school holds there (students, employer contacts, appointments, events, notes), and those export as CSV files.

No. Postings on a Career Forge job board come from the employers your career center works with and approves, so the board is smaller and closer to your students. A center that relies on national postings it has no relationship with should weigh that before switching.

Neither vendor publishes school pricing. Career Forge is priced per institution; Handshake's help center says its university contracts are annual. Ask both for a quote on your enrollment.