Handshake is best known as the career platform for university students — the place where students connect with employers for internships, graduate roles, and entry-level jobs. But Handshake has expanded significantly into the AI training space with its AI Fellowship programme, which connects students and early-career professionals with paid AI training opportunities at some of the most prominent companies in the industry.

If you are a student, a recent graduate, or someone earlier in your career who wants to break into the human data space, the Handshake AI Fellowship is one of the most accessible entry points available. This review covers what the Fellowship involves, what it pays, who it is for, and how to make the most of it.

What Is the Handshake AI Fellowship?

The Handshake AI Fellowship is a programme that connects participants with paid AI training and evaluation projects. Unlike traditional internships or graduate schemes, the Fellowship is designed to be flexible and accessible — you do not need to be enrolled at a specific university or located in a particular city. The work is remote, the hours are flexible, and the projects are real: you are contributing to the development of AI systems used by major technology companies.

The Fellowship model is particularly well-suited to students who want to build experience in the AI industry while still studying, and to early-career professionals who want to add credible AI training experience to their CV without committing to a full-time role.

What Kind of Work Does It Involve?

The AI training work available through the Handshake Fellowship covers a range of tasks, with the specific projects varying over time based on what AI labs need. Common types of work include:

  • AI output evaluation — Reviewing and rating AI-generated responses, identifying errors, and providing structured feedback to help models improve.
  • Data annotation and labelling — Categorising text, images, or audio to create training datasets for AI systems.
  • Prompt creation and testing — Writing prompts and test cases that help evaluate how AI models respond to different kinds of inputs.
  • Specialised domain tasks — For participants with specific backgrounds (STEM, languages, creative writing), there are often projects that leverage those skills at higher rates.

Pay Rates

The Handshake AI Fellowship is a paid programme, which is one of its key advantages over unpaid internships or volunteer research positions. Pay rates vary by project and the complexity of the work involved, but participants typically earn:

  • Entry-level annotation and evaluation tasks: $15–25/hour
  • More complex evaluation and feedback tasks: $25–45/hour
  • Specialised domain tasks (STEM, languages, technical): $35–65/hour

These rates are competitive for flexible, remote work that does not require prior professional experience. For students comparing the Fellowship to a minimum-wage part-time job, the rates are meaningfully better — and the experience is far more relevant to a career in technology or AI.

Who Is It For?

The Handshake AI Fellowship is explicitly designed for students and early-career professionals. You do not need years of experience in AI or data science to participate — the programme is structured to be accessible to people who are earlier in their careers and want to build that experience. That said, participants who have relevant skills (strong writing, analytical thinking, domain knowledge in STEM or professional fields) will typically access better projects and higher rates.

The Fellowship is also a genuine credential. Having AI training experience from a programme associated with Handshake — a platform that major employers use and trust — carries weight on a CV in a way that less structured gig work might not. For students thinking about careers in AI, machine learning, or technology more broadly, it is a meaningful line to be able to point to.

The AI training industry is creating a new category of work that did not exist five years ago. For early-career professionals, getting in early is a genuine advantage.

How to Get the Most Out of It

A few things that will help you succeed in the Handshake AI Fellowship:

  1. Complete your profile thoroughly. The more detail you provide about your skills, background, and academic focus, the better the project matching will be. Do not leave sections blank.
  2. Take the initial assessments seriously. Your performance on any screening tasks will determine which projects you are offered. Treat them as you would a job interview.
  3. Highlight domain expertise. If you are studying law, medicine, engineering, or another specialist field, make that clear. Domain-specific projects pay significantly more than general tasks.
  4. Be consistent. Platforms reward reliability. Completing projects on time and to a high standard will open up more and better opportunities over time.
  5. Use it as a portfolio builder. Keep notes on the types of projects you work on and the skills you develop. This experience is genuinely valuable in job applications and interviews in the AI industry.

Handshake AI Fellowship at a Glance

Pay ratesGood ($15–$65/hr)
Barrier to entryLow (accessible to students)
Work flexibilityHigh (remote, flexible hours)
CV / credential valueStrong (Handshake brand recognition)
Best forStudents & early-career professionals

The Bottom Line

The Handshake AI Fellowship is one of the best entry points into the human data industry for people who are earlier in their careers. The pay is competitive, the work is real and relevant, the hours are flexible, and the Handshake brand adds credibility to the experience. If you are a student or recent graduate looking to build AI training experience while earning, this is a strong option.

For more experienced professionals, the Fellowship's rates may be lower than what you can command on platforms like micro1 or Mercor. But as a starting point — or as a way to diversify your platform portfolio — it is well worth considering.