The Career Services office at The University of Southern Mississippi decided to give a push to all students interested in building career experience.

According to official Handshake statistics, around 400 of the top universities in the country use this platform, which benefits 6 million students in the U.S., giving them access to all internships as well as full and part-time jobs that better fit their interests. Notably, the service is the bridge between any company and an employee.

Stanford and University of California Berkeley use this platform to ensure their students have the best opportunities accessible. Handshake allows students to be aware of job fairs happening in their area and schedule interviews. Target, for example, is one of the 500 companies that recruit their employees through this platform.

“[Handshake] is a more engaging system for students. It works like Facebook, in that it intuitively remembers what a student searches and their activity in the system, and will then populate twheir home page, highlighting jobs matching their previous activity,” USM Assistant Director of Career Services Kathy Killam said.“We were using another system, but felt this system would be more appealing to students.”

Handshake offers the option of being updated with any important event coming at any location, such as career fairs being held at the university or “2017 Meet the Firms” hosted on the USM campus Aug. 29. In addition, the hosts of the event can give a brief description of the job followed by dress code instructions.

Handshake has received positive references and reviews. Career Services hopes Handshake will aid students on campus by making career opportunities and experience attainable during their time at Southern Miss.