Business Schools Want To Scoop Up Laid-Off Techies

Big Tech may no longer have any use for them, but business schools are bending over backwards to woo laid-off engineers.

They’re even lowering the application requirements for them, Bloomberg reported.

Symbiosis

The tech industry has been decimated by wave after wave of layoffs since the middle of last year. According to Layoffs.fyi, a site that tracks job loss in the tech sector, some 126,000 tech workers have been pink-slipped so far this year. The casualties come from all corners of the tech sector and it’s very possible companies’ belts will continue to tighten, with Bloomberg reporting Meta is bracing for another round of layoffs soon.

But as they’ll teach you in business school, every challenge is an opportunity — and business schools have carpe’d that diem. Bloomberg reports almost a dozen MBA programs have loosened their entry requirements to welcome laid-off techies:

• Standardized tests are among the hurdles laid-off techies won’t have to clear, alongside well as application fees.
• The decimation of the tech industry came at an opportune time for business schools, many of which were seeing lower application rates in 2022 and going into 2023, according to Caroline Diarte Edwards, director at MBA consulting and counseling firm Fortuna.

The tech layoffs have produced a sad but predictable wave of disillusionment. Former Twitter engineer Justine de Caires told CNN in an interview this week the tech job market currently resembles “hot garbage.”

“I was sitting down earlier this week after a wave of rejections and I was kind of like, maybe I should go be a firefighter or something… because the tech jobs are just not happening,” they said.

Beware The MBA Boss: The allure of an MBA isn’t just to get a job, it’s getting a top job, one where you’re deciding who to let go rather than lining up in front of the chopping block yourself. Research by the Financial Times might make companies think twice about the value of that qualification, however. It found that when MBA grads took over from CEOs with no such degree, there was no real improvement in the company’s fortunes. “The biggest shift when a chief executive with a business degree takes charge is a decline in wages and the share of revenues going to labor,” the FT reported. That’s something they really don’t teach you at Harvard Business School.