Strategic Relationship Manager

Everyone is welcome at Handshake. We know diverse teams build better products and we are committed to creating an inclusive culture built on a foundation of respect for all individuals. We strongly encourage candidates from non-traditional backgrounds, historically marginalized or underrepresented groups to apply.

Your impact

As a Relationship Manager you are responsible for ensuring your education partners are healthy, happy, successful, and retained.

You will create repeatable and reusable tactics for driving engagement across our university partners' teams, which could include everything from webinars, email nurture, product hooks, etc. You will channel the voice of the customer both quantitatively and qualitatively to rally the necessary people and highlight success.

You will report to the Manager of Education Success, working closely with customer support, sales, and marketing to deliver a world-class customer experience and drive our business through renewals and expansions

Your role

Product Knowledge

• Answering questions regarding the Handshake product daily

• Identifying, diagnosing, and helping customers resolve data health issues

• Expanding and deepening product adoption and usage amongst your career center partners

• Gathering, documenting, and sharing best practices on how university partners can better leverage the platform to drive student engagement

• Deeply learning and understanding the career services space (operations, structure, and metrics)

• Consulting with university partners on their workflows to help them adapt their processes to the Handshake product and achieve student success

• Responding to detailed inquiries that require leveraging technical product knowledge combined with your strategic understanding of Handshake and our goals

Relationship Management

• Owning the core and executive relationships and ultimate success for a defined segment of university partners

• Effectively navigating a complex and nuanced set of relationships to build and maintain trust at scale

• Implementing the program of recurring and on-demand touchpoints with partners

• Transforming, deepening and leveraging relationships at varied levels with partners which may include developing collaborative programs, specialized meetups and tailored presentations upon request

• Maintaining acute awareness of staff make-up at partner schools and ability to assist with the transition of new team members

• 60-70% travel required: Conduct on-site visits with all partners and engage in strategic small group gatherings

Partner Success, Health, and Retention

• Ensuring successful implementation for all new partners and partner offices in your book of business.

• Ensuring high and swift renewal rates. This may include the management of detailed contracts and security requests that are nuanced to each partner

• Tracking detailed subjective health assessments to pair with data-driven account health score.

• Collaborating with Handshake’s Product and Engineering Teams to ensure that customer needs are met in an efficient and timely manner.

• Understanding trends with your accounts via data reporting and dashboards and taking appropriate actions to keep account health high

• Using Industry landscape, current HigherEd trends, historical relationship health and product to articulate/advice /suggest clear actions

Operations and Marketing

• • Helping scale, develop, document and peer-train on internal processes to support users & peers

  • Assisting with content creation for marketing collateral to university partners

  • Developing the relevant topic, format and audience attendance for targeted programming (meetups) for key Education partners

  • Leading tailored presentations for select stakeholders on all 3 sides of the business (students, career services and employers).

Your experience

Overview: This role involves working with a strategic set of schools: building deep relationships and providing thought partnership and consultation in their utilization of Handshake. Additional desired qualifications include: Prior experience with the Handshake Product, commitment to travel 3-4 times per month to conduct onsites with partners and comfort with discomfort and an ability to devise creative solutions.

• Deep understanding of the higher education landscape and in depth product knowledge

• Proven experience with SaaS and/or ability to quickly learn tech stack

• Experience building relationships with customers and navigating complex or difficult conversations

• Experience handling multiple simultaneous priorities

• Excellent communication skills and strong executive presence

• Ability to prioritize workload while maintaining high attention to detail

• Ability to internalize changing messaging and rapidly incorporate into customer convos

• Highly curious with “discovery” mindset

• High degree of technical aptitude

• Ability to think critically and empathetically about the customer’s needs

• Add value to a team environment by demonstrating enthusiasm and a collaborative spirit

• Adaptable to evolving business needs and willingness to contribute to process improvement

• Analytical, methodical approach to identifying challenges and measuring impact

Bonus areas of expertise

• 4+ years of Career Services leadership experience

• 2+ years of in-depth experience with the Handshake platform

Compensation range

• $108,000 - $119,000

For cash compensation, we set standard ranges for all U.S.-based roles based on function, level, and geographic location, benchmarked against similar stage growth companies. In order to be compliant with local legislation, as well as to provide greater transparency to candidates, we share salary ranges on all job postings regardless of desired hiring location. Final offer amounts are determined by multiple factors, including geographic location as well as candidate experience and expertise, and may vary from the amounts listed above.

About us

Handshake is the #1 place to launch a career with no connections, experience, or luck required. The platform connects up-and-coming talent with 750,000+ employers - from Fortune 500 companies like Google, Nike, and Target to thousands of public school districts, healthcare systems, and nonprofits. In 2022 we announced our $200M Series F funding round. This Series F fundraise and valuation of $3.5B will fuel Handshake’s next phase of growth and propel our mission to help more people start, restart, and jumpstart their careers.

When it comes to our workforce strategy, we’ve thought deeply about how work-life should look at Handshake. With our hybrid-work model, employees benefit from collaboration and shared team experiences three days per week in our vibrant offices, and enjoy the flexibility of remote work two days per week. Handshake is headquartered in San Francisco, with offices in New York, London, and Berlin.

What we offer

At Handshake, we'll give you the tools to feel healthy, happy and secure.

Benefits below apply to employees in full-time positions.

• 💰 Equity and ownership in a fast-growing company.
• 🍼 16 Weeks of paid parental leave for birth giving parents & 10 weeks of paid parental leave for non-birth giving parents.
• 💝 Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision policies including LGTBQ+ Coverage. We also provide resources for Mental Health Assistance, Employee Assistance Programs and counseling support.
• 💻 Handshake offers $500/£360 home office stipend for you to spend during your first 3 months to create a productive and comfortable workspace at home.
• 📚 Generous learning & development opportunities and an annual $2,000/£1,500/€1,850 stipend for you to grow your skills and career.
• 💰 Financial coaching through Origin to help you through your financial journey.
• 🛜 Monthly internet stipend and a brand new MacBook to allow you to do your best work.
• 🚃 Monthly commuter stipend for you to expense your travel to the office (for office-based employees).
• 🥗 Free lunch provided twice a week across all offices.
• 🤝 Referral bonus to reward you when you bring great talent to Handshake.

(US-specific benefits, in addition to the first section)

• 🏦 401k Match: Handshake offers a dollar-for-dollar match on 1% of deferred salary, up to a maximum of $1,200 per year.
• 🏝 All full-time US-based Handshakers are eligible for our flexible time off policy to get out and see the world. In addition, we offer 8 standardized holidays, and 2 additional days of flexible holiday time off. Lastly, we have a Winter #ShakeBreak, a one-week period of Collective Time Off.
• 🍼 Family support: We partner with Milk Stork to provide comprehensive 100% employer-sponsored lactation support to traveling parents and guardians. Parental leave coaching and support provided by Parentaly.

(UK-specific benefits, in addition to the first section)

• 🏦 Pension Scheme: Handshake will provide you with a workplace pension, where you will make contributions based on 5% of your salary. Handshake will pay the equivalent of 3% towards your pension plan, subject to qualifying earnings limits.
• 🏝 Up to 25 days of vacation to encourage people to reset, recharge, and refresh, in addition to 8 bank holidays throughout the year.
• 🤝 Regular offsites each year to bring the team together + opportunity to travel to our HQ in San Francisco.
• 🛍️ Discounts across various high street retailers, cinemas and other social activities exclusively for Handshake UK employees.

(Germany-specific benefits, in addition to the first section)

• 🏝 25 days of annual leave + 5 days of a winter #ShakeBreak, a one-week period of Collective Time Off across the company.
• 🤝 Regular offsites each year to bring the team together + opportunity to travel to our HQ in San Francisco once a year.
• 🧘 Urban sports club membership offering access to a diverse network of fitness and wellness facilities.
• 🛍️ Discounts across various high street retailers, cinemas and other social activities exclusively for Handshake Germany employees.

Looking for more? Explore our mission, values and comprehensive US benefits at joinhandshake.com/careers.

Handshake is committed to providing reasonable accommodations in our recruitment processes for candidates with disabilities, sincerely held religious beliefs or other reasons protected by applicable laws. If you need assistance or reasonable accommodation, please reach out to us at work@tuhustle.com.