The Innovators - A Conversation with Christine Cruzvergara

This is the first in a series of episodes where I interview interesting innovators that I ran into at the recent ASU + GSV Summit. In this episode I talk with Christine Cruzvergara, Chief Education strategy Officer at Handshake.  Christine shares her experiences in higher education and highlights the work happening at Handshake to connect more students and recent grads to their next employment opportunity. 

Transcript

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Eloy 0:10

Hi everyone. I'm Eloy Ortiz Oakley, and welcome back to the Ran the podcast where we pull back the curtain and break down the people, the policies, and the politics of our higher education system. In this episode, I'm looking back at my experiences at the recent A S U G S V conference in San Diego. And hearing from interesting people who are doing amazing work in the field. This is the first in a series of episodes where I'll be taking some time and talking to some interesting innovators in the post-secondary education space who I just happened to run into at A S U G S V today. I'll be talking with Christine Cruz Vergara Chief Education Strategy Officer at Handshake, which is a technology platform to help students in recent grads. Find their next opportunity. And before I welcome Christine, I do need to say that I am currently a member of the Handshake Impact Advisory Board. So with that out of the way, welcome to the podcast, Christine.

Christine 1:11

Thanks, Eloy. Excited to be here with you.

Eloy 1:13

All right, well let's, let's start off with, pretty straightforward question. Tell us a little bit about, you, uh, tell us a little bit about Christine, you lead education strategy for Handshake. How did you get to this, um, to this role at Handshake? And tell us a little bit about your own education and professional journey.

Christine 1:31

Sure. So my background is actually in higher education. I spent the first part of my career working in higher ed, primarily four year institutions up and down the east coast. I always say an easy way to remember is that I worked at all of the. Georges in the DC area, gw, Georgetown and George Mason. Then we're to be the associate Provost at Wellesley College outside of Boston. So I do have experience at both large and small institutions, public and private institutions. Non elite institutions. The most, I think, common thread throughout my career, especially as I look back, is that I really led change management at a lot of the different places that I worked. I was recruited by institutions who needed to rethink and wanted to rethink what career education could look like for their students and how it could be more deeply embedded into the fabric and mission for that school and. That was a lot of the work that I did previously, and it's what actually brought me to Handshake and to think about the work that could be done at scale across thousands of institutions and across millions of students. So now I have the privilege of being able to work at Handshake and work with over 1400 universities and colleges as our partners, and to really help ensure that they and their students are able to be successful in finding the next internship or the next full-time job.

Eloy 2:54

So when you were a student yourself, did you have anything like handshake or what, what parts of your own personal experience going from education to a job sort of sticks with you in, in this new role?

Christine 3:06

the part that actually sticks with me the most is being a daughter of

Eloy 3:09

Mm-hmm.

Christine 3:10

So both of my parents immigrated here. They worked. Multiple jobs often, And both of them at one point or another went to community college. My dad did end up getting his associate's degree and eventually went on to get his, his bachelor's and even his master's. But that was over the course of my entire life, The thing that my parents. Sort of push the most was that education truly can change your future. And education is the tool for social mobility. And so if you wanna be successful, you have to go to school. So I always believed in the importance of higher education, but I definitely did not have anything like handshake when I was school didn't exist, right? Platforms like that didn't quite exist yet. And I think what really struck me is that I was only exposed to a very small, narrow set of careers, and it was really either what my parents did, what my friend's parents did, or what I saw on tv. And to be perfectly honest, that's still pretty true for most students, even though they have more access to information. When you're 18, 19 years old going to school, that is still primarily what you know. And so a tool like Handshake and our partners in career services are now able to help students at a younger age be exposed to a number of other career paths or opportunities that they might wanna consider and just try and see if they like him.

Eloy 4:33

I think that's a, a great way to put it because that certainly was my experience. the opportunities that you see are only those that are closest around you and if, and if you're not seeing other opportunities and you're not thinking about those opportunities. And so it's really about the network that you have and your ability to, to access information about what else might be available to you.

Christine 4:55

That's right.

Eloy 4:56

Let's talk about Handshake then. Handshake helps connect recent grads to, to jobs. you mentioned a little bit of that. It's a, it's a platform and I think as a parent I wish all my kids would jump on. But, um, uh, tell us a little bit more about Handshake. How has it evolved and what excites you about the work that Handshake is engaging in today?

Christine 5:16

Let me start by actually giving you the founding story of Handshake, because that's really at the core of how and why we do the work that we do. So Handshake was founded by three students, uh, Garrett, Scott, and Ben. They all went to Michigan Tech, and for those of you that are unfamiliar with Michigan Tech, it is in the upper peninsula of Michigan and gets about 300 inches of snow a year. So as you can imagine, that very much limited the types of employers that were actually going on campus and recruiting. And what the co-founders found was that they wanted to work at companies that weren't coming to their school and that their career center didn't have relationships with. They had no way of getting connected to the types of companies that were in Silicon Valley. Or these big brand names that were outside of the Midwest, and so they started asking around and they started calling. That's actually how I met Garrett, our co-founder and C E o I was at George Mason at the time. He was a student. He called for an informational interview. I said yes, and we ended up having a conversation about his experience and he wanted to know, is it this hard for other students at the schools that I had been at to get access to the types of employers that they wanted? And I said, you know, it's not because of geography or snow, but Yes. You know, I was working at Mason at the time and I said, we're not the flagship institution of Virginia. We also have a lot of prestigious institutions in DC that I have to compete with. It is harder for me to get employers to consider my students. Even though the Mason graduates are phenomenal, they have so much talent, but it is harder to attract that, those employers. So he said, well, let me try and see if I can come up with something that could help with this problem, and I'll come back to you. Honestly, I didn't think I would hear from him, but nine months later I did, and him and the co-founders had come up with Handshake and what I think is so cool about Handshake and how it's evolved is that. Handshake fundamentally has really tried to actually change the system. When we talk about systemic change, that is what Handshake has attempted to do. So when Handshake first came into the market, it came on as a network, and that's. Fundamentally very different than what existed back then. What existed back then were closed enterprise systems that each school would purchase and then

Eloy 7:34

Mm-hmm.

Christine 7:34

And so the only employers that were going to that school were still the only employers that would be willing to recruit at that particular institution, and instead a, a employer would have to log into tens of thousands of different. Systems, They have to log into each one and they have to post their position or positions over and over and over and over again. And as you can imagine, as recruiters, they have limited time. So what this did was it resulted in a lot of employers saying, I only recruit at my 10 core schools. Or I only worked at my 20 top schools, right? But all of this talent existed at hundreds, thousands of other institutions that they weren't tapping into. So when Handshake became a network, they said, you only have to log into one system and you can actually post and recruit across all of our handshake schools. And so what happened was, as. New institutions started joining. Every single institution saw a 200 to 300% increase in the number of employers and opportunities for their students. Nobody, nobody lost. Nobody lost because equity is not a zero sum game. So it, it was quite powerful to be able to see that. And as we continue to evolve, we're very focused on making sure that we continue to live out our mission of democratizing access to students and to, to their opportunities. and we wanna do it in the most engaging way possible so that students feel like they both have. Humans in their life, like their career centers and their advisors, but they also have access to this information and to these opportunities and together that is very powerful.

Eloy 9:14

Well, I'm glad to hear that there are still humans involved because after A S U G S V, it made me think that, the day of the human is over. Now, a a lot of what you mentioned really is about accessing networks, accessing information. And certainly for me that's, that's powerful because the kinds of students that I've. Worked with It is that lack of information, that lack of having access to a network that really stalls your ability to find the kinds of opportunities that. you're really hoping, uh, to get, to get at and you hear about, the other institutions having, the big employers show up at the business school and have access there. So have you actually seen through your platform, individuals and, and colleges and universities from parts of the country that have not always had the kind of access that the big universities always, highlight? Ha Have you seen them have greater access?

Christine 10:10

We have absolutely. There's actually a really interesting story that we just heard from one of our campus partners. Palm Beach Atlantic, uh, was recently just telling us that one of their students not only applied to a job at Goldman Sachs, which as you can imagine, Goldman is not going to Palm Beach Atlantic. But they got an interview and they ended up getting an offer. And so that was really exciting. That's, that's a great example of the types of stories that we actually hear very regularly, and we know from many of our employer partners, they have been able to two x three x, sometimes four x, the number of diverse candidates that they find because they're able to actually recruit across multiple institutions and not just their top 20 are their top 30.

Eloy 10:51

So at A S U G S V, you were on a panel that, was discussing skills-based hiring and, and this notion of skills-based hiring has been, in the news quite a bit. There's been a lot of people talking about it. I know my friends over at Jobs for the Future. I think, uh, Maria Flynn was your moderator has been really focused on this issue. From the handshake perspective, from your perspective, what does skills-based hiring actually mean and look like?

Christine 11:18

Skill space hiring is about looking at a candidate and assessing whether or not they have the skills that are necessary for the job rather than simply relying on their credentials. Their degree or their major as a major educator for whether or not they can do the job. And we are seeing more and more employers talk about wanting to do skills-based hiring or trying to dip their toe into skills-based hiring and figure out how can we actually do that. So I think a lot of employers for us are really asking themselves the question. What are actually the skills that are needed to do this job rather than say, what is the major or what is the degree that is needed to do this job? And often we just simply use degrees or majors as a

Eloy 12:02

Right.

Christine 12:03

for collection of skills. And so it's just a matter of having to breakthrough and say, okay, well if you say that you want a psychology major or you want an economics major, or you want an engineering major, why? What are you assuming that that major. Has or comes with, and it's helping employers to break that down to the skill level so that they can actually find students who maybe don't have that degree, but actually do have that skill. One of the things that we found was really, quite impressive in one of our most recent reports is that, Over 80% of our non-technical majors in the class of 2023 actually have tech skills. Whether that's data analysis, whether that's it, whether that's software engineering and it's, it may be self-taught or they may have gone through a credentialing program or a bootcamp or something else on their own, but that's a really great example of where you might be leaving talent on the table because you're not thinking about those particular skills.

Eloy 12:57

And so with these changes happening and, and I, which I think are, are good changes we've been talking about sort of breaking down, some of the biases that employers have had for, for decades. and just focusing on the proxy of that, uh, that degree. What would this mean? What would a skill-based hiring ecosystem mean for the way that Handshake operates?

Christine 13:19

There are different components to this. I think the first is actually helping students to articulate the skills that they have, right? So one of the things that we recently just implemented, uh, sounds very basic and very simple, but is actually incredibly helpful in the search process, which is helping with the, skills taxonomy and actually making sure that when a student enters the skill that they have, they're able to select, for example, PowerPoint. Because Eloy, you would not imagine the number of different variations that you could write, that you have PowerPoint skills. They're 17 to be exact, right? And so something as simple as that is actually really important for a tech platform because if one person puts P P T, another person writes out Microsoft PowerPoint, another one writes PowerPoint, right? You're gonna get so many different variations when an employer goes to select or search for that skill. They're not gonna put in 17 different versions of that. Right, and so then you end up again missing a population of students. But when we can actually standardize that, so you start typing in PowerPoint, we give you the suggestion, you select it, it all of a sudden it makes it so much easier for an employer to be able to do that. Excel is another great example of a very common skill that employers search for, but people write it a number of different ways, and so that is one of the things that we've already started to do in Handshake. The other pieces that we wanna start thinking about are how can we surface insights and data that allows a student to know as they continue to click on jobs or internships that are interesting to them? It seems like you're really interested in X, and all of those job descriptions seem to require or prefer X, y, and Z skills. We see that your profile has listed. Two out of the five skills, do you have these other three skills? And prompt them to either enter it if they haven't or if they don't one day. I think we would love to be able to actually connect them to a learning marketplace where they might be able to get those skills and where they can actually start to acquire some of those additional skills that can make them a more competitive candidate. So those are some of the ideas that we're starting to float and bounce around at

Eloy 15:26

I, I think that last idea is, is such a wonderful, opportunity. This is something that. We've been talking about for a long time, which is how can we more personalize the, education and workforce experience for, for the learner? How, how do we give them more information so that they make more and better choices about, uh, where they can go and, and actually help them think about what would be next? just as you said, if they're missing one skill and that one skill could get them into a different kind of job. Be wonderful if they had that information, and then the opportunity to see where they might get that skill.

Christine 16:04

that's right.

Eloy 16:05

So Handshake serves a lot of different types of, learners, recent grads, current students, and a lot of different generations. And you serve a lot of, um, gen Z students. What, what are some of the trends that you're seeing in this generation of job seeker and what are the challenges in serving? Different generations of job seekers. And do you see any differences in the way that employers think about them in their recruitment and hiring practices?

Christine 16:33

I'll start by talking about this particular class The class of 2023, we actually surveyed three different times this year to get a gauge their sentiment and what was important for them. One of the most interesting things I think for me to highlight is this particular class is seeking stability. At the beginning of this school year, 74% of this class said that stability was one of the top factors in whether or not they would look at a company or a particular job. And as we went into the spring semester, that number increased to 85%. And I'm not at all surprised by that. And I think the reason being is they came back to spring semester and they saw headline after headline after headline of layoff. Especially with big tech, and these are companies that, for most of them, throughout the majority of their lifetime, they saw growing very, very quickly and being very, very successful. And all of a sudden these big companies that historically have been fantastic are suddenly laying off thousands of people. Now, if you think about it, this class is also the class that has experienced a completely different experience every single year of

Eloy 17:44

Mm-hmm.

Christine 17:45

freshman year to their senior year, they have had to adapt every single time. And they're also the class that really came of age during the last recession of 2008. So many of them also experienced the impact of that on their families and on their parents. So I think it's. Not really a surprise that for many of them, they're actually gravitating towards more what they consider stable companies or stable positions. So our top 10 searched companies on Handshake is actually a list of companies that we have all heard of. For over 50 plus years, you're looking at Raytheon and Nike and Capital One, right? Like these are the tried and true companies that have sort of stood the test of time and they've seen the economy up and down and they've sort of made it essentially. And so this class is really looking for that sense of stability, that sense of professional advancement, and they're more willing to consider other types of industries than maybe what they had first gone into thinking when they were. Entering their senior year, so over 36% of our students are saying, I'm open to thinking about how my skills could be applied to a different industry or a different role or a different sector, and I think that's very promising actually. We know that our federal government hiring is actually up 36% this year compared to last year, and the reality is we know that this generation has very little faith. In a lot of our institutions, the federal government being one of them. And so I think with that though, means that we need some change. We need some infusion of new ideas and new blood. And I hope that for many of these students, they will take their very fantastic skills and they will apply it in some of the areas and sectors that quite frankly, as a society, we need the most.

Eloy 19:24

Wow. I think that's a really interesting point that you make. not only are you're helping these students, but you're also generating quite a bit of information and data and insights into how they're thinking. It's, it'll be interesting to see how, how that further supports building out the network. Now, you, you mentioned, a lot of these tech for firms laying off and I think you've traditionally been supporting, current grads, recent grads. Are any of these, recent, folks who have been laid off trying to access your platform, and, and this is, would this be a good platform for them to access?

Christine 19:58

Certainly we have a number of young alumni who also come back to Handshake and continue to look for maybe their second job or their third job, whether they were laid off or not. Um, many had success with their first job, and so they're coming back to us and they're essentially growing, and I would say we're growing with them. We had a chance to help them through their four years, help them get into their first job, and for some of them we're now helping them with their, with their next step. So Handshake is absolutely a great place for you to come back and continue to look for that. That next opportunity. And I think as we continue to evolve and grow, we will continue to have more and more, seasoned positions as well.

Eloy 20:35

You mentioned a lot of the challenges that you're trying to solve for what do, what do you think are the greatest pain points in matching students with hiring managers that you need to solve for today?

Christine 20:46

I think it starts with being able to articulate what the employer wants and what the student has, which is actually a very core and basic fundamental problem that has existed for a really long time. Technology is fantastic at being able to help make connections or help recommend or suggest particular people and or jobs, but only if you have good data that you're working with. And so a lot of that comes down first to what we were talking about with skills-based hiring. Can the employer actually articulate what they need? What is it that they need and what are those particular skills? And I would also say this generation, because they care about working for companies that align with their values and they are looking for also certain types of benefits that will treat them well As an employee, employers need to be able to articulate some of those pieces. It's not good enough to just have your job description and maybe salary. You need to actually. Be able to articulate the other things that your company stands for, uh, the values that you espouse and the benefits that you provide, Those are different factors that students look at, and the better articulated that is from the employer side. The better we can help match to a particular student. On the student side, I think one of the hardest challenges is that the language in academia is not the language in industry. And so for a lot of students, they don't know how to translate the experiences they've had at school or through their co-curriculars or in their coursework or in their projects in a way that resonates with the way an employer might talk about. Those particular skills. And I think that's actually where there's a lot of opportunity for our colleagues in career services, for example, to be that translator and to be that bridge between the faculty and academia as well as the recruiters and employers, and to help the students start to learn, oh, when you talk about this this way, you actually probably wanna say it like this on your resume, or you wanna say it like this in an interview so that it can help to bridge that gap.

Eloy 22:48

You're obviously very excited about the work that's going on at Handshake and for a good reason. What excites you the most? Your, your leading education strategy. What excites you the most about what you're doing now, what it might mean to students in the future? I.

Christine 23:02

what I'm excited about the most is actually being able to truly marry the best of technology with the best of

Eloy 23:09

Mm-hmm.

Christine 23:10

I think that alone is something that we don't talk about enough in, in tech. I think often people wanna, you mentioned it about a S U G S V I think sometimes people talk about tech being the, the all saving grace of all of the problems that you're gonna have. And I just don't believe that. I believe that tech is a really powerful enabler, but it also needs to be partnered with the human touch and with humans who also add their expertise to it. So at Handshake in particular, One of the, the biggest initiatives that we're working on right now that I'm quite excited about is how do we give students access to all of the opportunities that exist on handshake, while also building the world's most powerful curation tools for our institutions and for our schools. To be able to layer on their knowledge and expertise of their student population, of what their students enjoy and like so that students can have the most relevant recommendations and experience when they come onto Handshake. That is not only matched for their affinity to their institution, but also to their own personal interests and desires. And I think being able to do both of those things, Is powerful and it helps a student to feel as if they truly have a community, both locally as well as a bit more expanded. And I think that can change the confidence that a student has going into this first internship or this first job, which by all accounts is one of the most anxiety ridden experience that most students would say they have.

Eloy 24:41

Well, I would agree with that. As we, begin to wrap things up, let me ask you this. We, we've mentioned our, our time at A S U G S V, and it's always interesting. There's always a lot going on there, lots of people. I mean, it was so crowded this time around. What are some of the thoughts and insights that you walked away, with when you were leaving a S U G S V? What struck you?

Christine 25:04

Well, I always enjoyed my time there. There's no shortage of ideas, uh, that come out of that conference. I think one of the things that, that strikes me the most though, is, We don't truly have the full ecosystem present at that conference. That conference primarily has Vbcs and EdTech. And so you look at a lot of technology providers and I heard a lot of conversation amongst a lot of people about how tech was gonna disrupt this and tech was gonna solve this, and so on and so forth. And again, it goes back to my notion that technology is a fantastic enabler, but there are people on the ground that are doing this work. Day in and day out with our students. And the only way for us to have true systemic change is to ensure that we are engaging those individuals, making sure that they're bought in so that they can help usher this change and more importantly, sustain it. Because otherwise, all of these fantastic ideas aren't going to stick, and they're not going to have the impact that we're looking to have with students. And so I think it's very important, to actually view. What are the strengths of technology? What are the strengths of the people on the ground, and how can we find a way to actually see ourselves as one team that's working together rather than, you know, if you actually think about, um, children around the age of two or three, they often aren't playing with each other. They're in parallel play. So they're playing next to each other, but they're not actually playing with each other. And I think sometimes when we look at technology and education, that's exactly what's happening. We're playing next to each other, but we're not always playing with each other. And I think it would be quite important for us in the future as we continue to find ways to play with each other so that we can actually optimize for the strengths that both parties bring together.

Eloy 26:56

Well, Christine, handshake is very fortunate to have your insights and perspective, and I really do appreciate you taking the time outta your busy schedule to spend time with me here on the Ran.

Christine 27:08

Thank you for having me. This was fantastic.

Eloy 27:10

All right. Well, everyone, thanks for joining me on the rant. I've just had a great conversation with Christine and talking about the great work that's happening at Handshake. If you enjoyed this episode, hit the like button and leave me your comments to hear more episodes. Subscribe to this channel or follow us on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks for joining us, and we'll see you soon.