Compare · vs Handshake
Comparison
UTern vs Handshake
Handshake is where your career centre lives. UTern is Active Recruiting for internships: Birdee, UTern's AI, works the search for you.
The practical difference is not the size of the listing catalogue. It is that Handshake gives you a place to search and apply, and expects you to do both, while Birdee does the searching, helps you prove what you can do, and brings the company to you. For a role on UTern you never apply.
The other practical difference is access. Handshake works because your school partners with it. If your school does not, or you have graduated, or you want roles your career centre has no relationship with, that door is narrower than it looks.
What is Handshake?
Handshake is a career management platform that universities license for their students. You sign in with your school email, and your career centre runs part of it.
Everything on this page about Handshake comes from their own site and the sources listed at the bottom, last read on September 10, 2026.
The differences that matter
| Question | UTern | Handshake |
|---|---|---|
| Can you use it at all? | Any student with an email address. No school partnership required. | Your school has to partner with Handshake. Students sign in with a school email and claim an account their career centre invites them to. |
| What does it cost you? | Students never pay. | Free to students. Universities and employers pay. |
| Where do the listings come from? | UTern reads employers' own career pages and applicant tracking systems (Greenhouse, Lever, Ashby, Workday) continuously. | Employers post to Handshake, and employers target specific schools. Your school's relationships shape what you see. |
| Who does the searching? | Birdee does, continuously, against your evidence. The roles a company is filling through UTern carry the bird, and when you fit one, the company comes to you. | You do. Handshake recommends roles from your profile and you search the rest. |
| Who writes the application? | You do, always. UTern never auto-submits. For a role on UTern you never apply: you prove what you can do in a conversation with Birdee, and the company comes to you. Any other listing opens on the employer's own site. | You do. Quick Apply reuses your Handshake profile and documents on postings that accept it. |
| Careers fairs, employer events, on-campus recruiting | No. UTern does not run events and does not replace your career centre. | Yes, and this is genuinely the strongest thing it does. |
When you should use Handshake instead
This section exists because a comparison written only by the people who lose nothing from it is worth nothing. Handshake is better than UTern at these, today:
- Your school partners with Handshake and your career centre is active. Use it. It is free and it is already yours.
- You want on-campus recruiting, employer events, or careers fairs. UTern does not do any of that.
- You are targeting employers who recruit at your school specifically. Those relationships are real and they live there.
When UTern is the better answer
- Your school does not partner with Handshake, or you have graduated.
- You want roles beyond the employers who recruit at your campus.
- You are done applying. You want the company to come to you.
UTern is Active Recruiting for internships. Birdee, UTern's AI, finds real internships that fit, helps you prove what you can do in a conversation about your work, and when a company's role on UTern fits you, the company comes to you. How that works.
Questions students ask
- Is UTern a Handshake alternative?
- For finding roles and getting found, yes, and it does not require your school to partner with anything. For campus events and on-campus recruiting, no. Many students use both: Handshake for what their career centre brings in, UTern for everything outside it.
- Do I need a school email to use UTern?
- No. Any email works, and you do not need your university to have a relationship with UTern.
- Does UTern apply to jobs for me?
- No. You always submit your own applications, and UTern never auto-submits. For a role on UTern you never apply: the company comes to you, and you say yes before it sees you.
- Do students pay for UTern?
- No. Students never pay.
How this was checked
Every claim about Handshake on this page was read from these on September 10, 2026. If something here is wrong or out of date, tell us and it gets corrected.