The Reality of EdTech Jobs: Layoffs, Hiring Trends, and How to Actually Get Hired

Like what's your post check on like, is this company's right sizing? Is it they hired too much post COVID? Is it AI? Is a slower market? Like what's your read in the ed tech market right now?

I think the ed tech market right now is incredibly confusing because I feel like two things are really happening.

You've got companies that are laying people off, but then you've got companies that are also hiring.

And oddly enough, sometimes it's literally the same company.

And like they're calling it everything from, you know, right sizing to restructuring to realigning, whatever, you know, corporate jargon you want to use this week.

But I think at the same time, companies are being more, you know, thoughtful and they're much more risk averse than they were a few years ago.

I feel like a lot of companies are.

trying to hire you know not so much potential more like he you know what have you sold you know have you done it before um you know relationships that you can leverage immediately um so yeah i think they're kind of being more thoughtful and it's just kind of all over the board i wish i was you know a genie and can tell you exactly how this is going to pan out but i don't think really anybody knows

And what I'll tell you as well is, you know, in the past, I feel like friends of mine that have been, you know, looking for jobs or even companies that reach out and they're like, hey, do you know this person? I'm always like, I do or I don't, but it doesn't matter.

Like, can they quickly activate what they did at their previous role for your role? Because I think this is my opinion and my opinion only.

Right.

The dynamic of like come into a company, spend three months learning the culture and the product and then sell your next three months, that stuff is over.

If you can't in 90 days prove that like you are worth your salary, like you're out.

And then one thing we always talk about as well is a lot of these companies have not experienced today's market.

Magic School, Brisk, I mean, you name it, every single AI company has only seen COVID days of flush money.

And like, we shared an article yesterday that came out, right, with LAUSD having $271 million shortfall, right? Like...

if if LAUSD is having that because of teacher salaries and all this stuff just imagine all the other districts and then like how that correlates what that happened right like they have less money they're gonna spend less money all the contracts they're gonna review and like I think there was a different article that got shared by one of the other boys where New York City paused all new contracts right so like this is all like gonna uh reverberate out right into the ecosystem and like so it's it's a unique market for sure

no absolutely and yeah i think that's kind of a lot of these companies they got us for funding uh they hired scaled and they thought okay we need 100 you know sales people come to find out that's not how it's going to work you know after esther funding's done i think

Yeah.

Ryan, I'll turn it over to you.

My view on ESSER funding is it's like 2% interest rates on homes.

It doesn't really exist.

It existed, but it doesn't exist, right? Two things can be true at the same time.

And Jacob, that's a great point.

And Jenna, we've known each other for a long time, including when the market was what the market always is going to be.