Support Specialist, Contract

About Handshake Handshake was founded on a simple belief that everyone deserves a path to a great career, regardless of where they went to school or who they know. In 2025, we started Handshake AI and built the fastest-growing AI data business in history. We work directly with frontier AI lab researchers to create evaluations, publish benchmarks, and push the boundary of data. Partner hand-in-hand with world-class AI labs, Fortune 500 partners and the world’s top educational institutions Handshake is looking to bring on a Support Specialist, Contractor to provide support to our employer, student, and career services users. This role is a 6 month contract with the possibility of contract extension or conversion to our permanent Support Specialist role upon evaluation of fit for the role and company needs. At its core, this is a technical enterprise support role: you'll provide strategic email, phone, and video consultation and support for customers and users from small organizations to huge marquee brands like Google, Amazon and Cornell University so you'll need to demonstrate confidence in every setting with them. If you are resourceful and attuned to detail, love digging into a complex and technical product, building strong relationships with customers and team members, and solving a wide variety of questions, bugs, and workflow needs - this is the role for you! You will work closely with our Support Team to provide efficient and effective support and contribute to an overall seamless experience for users. You will help unblock our users, share trends and learnings with the Support, Success, and Product Teams, and continue to improve the customer experience and our team operations. As an advocate for our career centers, students, alumni, employers, and Handshake AI fellows you’ll improve the Handshake user experience and make an impact on our mission to democratize opportunity. Contribute 40 hours per week during our business hours, Monday through Friday. Provide amazing email and phone support to Handshake customers via internal ticketing systems. Phone Volume: ~10 calls over a 4 hour daily phone shift 5%: completing administrative tasks (emails, checking daily announcements, training, etc.) Note: email and phone tickets will involve highly technical troubleshooting and workflows, building and troubleshooting custom reports, and making sure to provide tailored, personal responses while building relationships Use app demo environments, troubleshooting tools, help center, team communication channels, and internal documentation systems to find the quality answer for a wide range of users Maintain a standard level of excellence in regards to response times, resolution times, equal share of queue, and the quality of the customer support experience Flex across support queues with a positive mindset, including Trust and Safety and Handshake AI, as team needs shift. Be both a support specialist and an experienced consultant for users of the Handshake platform Utilize internal tools to manage issues between Customer Support, Customer Success, Product, and Engineering Location: if working from home, you must be located in AZ, DC, CA, CO, CT, FL, GA, ID, IL, IN, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, NC, NM, NV, NJ, NY, OR, PA, SD, TN, TX, VA, WA, or WI. We’re a growing startup and always refining processes, tools, etc! Connects with teammates and actively builds a sense of community on Support and with other teams. Communication: Excellent verbal and written communication skills with a clear ability to communicate complex topics with simple language. Ability to maintain or exceed ticket and quality goals. Desire to help give people the chance to build the career they want, no matter where they're from or what school they attend Retains knowledge, shows ability to partially solve issues independently, and asks questions to increase personal knowledge. Looks for ways to put AI to work for customers and the team. Positive, eager to learn, utilizes resources, takes and gives feedback, connects with support team and key cross team stakeholders. Diversity and Inclusion: Eagerness to contribute to and help build a diverse and inclusive team and exhibit these values internally and externally with customers or users. Coverage: Can provide a regular schedule to provide consistent assistance to users. Bonus Points: ZenDesk experience Programming, IT, data analysis or computer science courses, major or certifications Experience using AI tools or building lightweight automations to improve support workflows. EdTech or Higher Edu, customer service, leadership background, majors, courses, certifications Previous experience working in an Enterprise SaaS Customer Support team at a fast-paced startup or hypergrowth tech company, or customer focused position involving technical knowledge of a company's products and services Relevant experience in cross - functional communication or close partnerships with various teams (Success, Sales, Product etc) Be sure to be as detailed as possible and answer all parts of the prompt. Virtual onsite interview: The first part of the interview will consist of a live exercise where we will assess your troubleshooting skills as you share your computer screen and navigate a prompt. #J-18808-Ljbffr