Behind the Startup Aiming to Disrupt LinkedIn

Plus, Is College Worth It?

In my latest piece for Forbes, I wrote about Handshake’s news that it had raised $200 million as part of its Series F round at a hefty $3.5 billion valuation—as well as its big plans to try and disrupt LinkedIn by transforming how people start, restart, and jumpstart their careers.

“LinkedIn is focused on your past and Handshake's focused on your future,” CEO and founder Garrett Lord told me.

Bold words indeed. But there’s some logic behind them.

A person’s LinkedIn profile starts with what their job is and their work history. If you’re a college student, you likely don’t have a great answer to that question, Lord argues.

If you’re a first-generation college student, you also likely only know a limited number of people who are on LinkedIn. Given LinkedIn is about connecting with people you know or helping you build relationships from your professional experiences, in some sense that is, by definition, backward looking.

Handshake, by contrast, focuses on the future and where you’re going. It brings together three sides—students, employers, and education institutions—into one platform to facilitate introductions and the building of relationships and unlocking of social capital. To that end, Handshake facilitated over 1.7 million new relationships between employers and candidates last year. And it helps employers recruit from populations they may have historically missed.

From a disruption standpoint, Handshake’s initial focus reflects the low-end of the market—college students who have less disposable income and opportunities than professionals—and Handshake is now seeking to go up-market to continue to work with individuals as they progress and, as is so often the case, restart their careers.

Much as LinkedIn now has LinkedIn Learning to help people on its platform acquire new skills as they progress in their career journey, Handshake is also increasingly helping people build specific skills to be able to get specific jobs.

You can read the rest of the piece and the insights from my conversation with Lord here at Forbes.

Is College Worth It?

It’s no secret that the sticker price of college has soared.

A question parents often ask me is whether college is still worth it. That wasn’t something they were asking nearly as much even a decade ago.

To answer the question, having a clear idea of how to define and measure the value of higher education is critical.

Many important analyses are emerging about the return on investment (ROI) of different programs. These analyses of course have their flaws, as Mark Salisbury, founder of TuitionFit told me.

In our latest episode of Future U, though, Jeff Selingo and I delved deeper into the topic of value. We interviewed Ed Smith-Lewis from the United Negro College Fund and Karen Stout from Achieving the Dream. Both offered takes that called on us to not just think about the value of higher education in terms of the economics—while also being clear that those ROI calculations are relevant. They also noted several of the reasons that a lot of the dashboards around value that have been created haven’t been all that helpful to the students themselves.

Listen to the episode here.

The Unworkable Burden On Schools

Finally, in a recent episode of Class Disrupted, Diane Tavenner mentioned that many of the expectations on schools are unrealistic. That caught my attention because Diane isn’t one to make excuses.

On the latest episode of Class Disrupted, I asked Diane to explain more what she meant. She did by relating how the layering of requirements and regulations on schools has stretched them in unintended and burdensome ways that require a redesign — not a bolted-on approach. Listen here.

As always, thanks for reading, writing, and listening.