Recent tech layoffs in the last two years have seemingly fuelled business school enrolment. How has an MBA qualification helped these individuals in their careers?
By Nick Harland
“Absolutely horrendous,” is how one former tech worker describes the job market at the moment. “So saturated,” adds on another former tech employee Dylan Reiling. For Krysten Klosowski, the reasons for her former employer’s cutbacks were simple: “They grew too big too fast.”
These stories are becoming ever more familiar in the tech industry, which not long ago was seen as almost bulletproof. The COVID era saw wild growth that precipitated giddy rounds of hiring: both Amazon and Meta doubled their headcount from 2019 to 2021. But a storm of factors described by Deloitte as “high inflation, elevated interest rates, and considerable macroeconomic and global uncertainties” soon led to industry-wide cutbacks.
The speed of the turnaround was astonishing. According to job loss tracker Layoffs.fyi, the first quarter of 2022 saw an estimated 9,909 lay-offs across the industry. By the first quarter of 2023, that figure had skyrocketed to 167,574.
Yet education has long provided an escape route for people in times of economic strife. By the time industry lay-offs peaked in early 2023, business schools had already started making moves to attract those displaced workers. Application windows were wedged open indefinitely, test waivers waved in front of applicants, while the normally-premium admissions consulting was offered for free.
But when we hear about industry lay-offs, it can be easy to focus on the headline numbers rather than the personal stories of the thousands who lost their jobs. What happened to those ex-tech workers who made the bold leap into an MBA? And what does it say about the wider winds of change in the industry?
Although some voices predicted that online learning would become the post-COVID study format of choice, it hasn’t quite worked out that way. According to figures from the US National Center for Education, in 2018/19 the proportion of students taking online courses was 35 percent. In 2021, that figure skyrocketed to 59 percent. But that proved to be its high water mark. It has since fallen year-on-year to 53 percent – below 2021’s peak, yet still above pre-pandemic levels.
Those figures are also reflected in student demand for MBA programmes. In 2020, a staggering 84 percent of business schools reported a growth in applications for online programmes. By 2022, that figure had fallen to just 19 percent .
Clearly those lockdown-fuelled levels of interest were never going to be sustained. But as demand starts to level off, distance learning looks to be entering its next phase. Because although interest in the format is higher than pre-pandemic levels, questions around its credibility continue to linger. One global survey from this year found that 44 percent of online students still think an in-person course is more valuable. Another study revealed that the majority of employers believe in-person courses provide employees with better technical, leadership and communication skills. Just 54 percent of those employers valued online and in-person programmes equally.
So how can schools overcome these preconceptions? Sandra Affenito is the chief academic officer and provost of Post University in the US, which has been offering online courses since 1996. Affenito believes robust accreditation is one way of dispelling some of those doubts. “You want to make sure you have that seal of approval from accrediting bodies,” Affenito explains. “It’s key – not only for our students, but we also want to make sure what we do is measured. It makes sure our online programmes meet the standard, so that means optimal delivery and rigour.”
Career reset
Dylan Reiling had never considered an MBA before. In his thirties, and holding down a senior tech role in San Francisco, it didn’t seem like he would ever need one. “Truthfully, at that point in my career I assumed I wasn’t going to get an MBA,” he tells QS Insights Magazine. “I feel like tech – compared to other industries like consulting or finance – you don’t need an MBA as much.”
Up until that point, Reiling’s career had followed the Silicon Valley playbook. Having worked for some top-tier tech names in the Bay Area region since 2017, he joined a bright young San Fran startup in October 2021. It had just attracted Series C funding and was seemingly heading towards a bright future. So far, so Silicon Valley. But within a year, that growth capital gradually shrunk away. Reiling was laid off a year later, his future suddenly uncertain.
“It definitely wasn’t a great time,” he recalls. “For context, I had just moved into a one-bedroom in San Francisco, which is very expensive. But once I was laid off, I only received three weeks of severance, I didn’t really have health insurance, so it immediately became a big financial burden. I was almost immediately draining my savings just trying to pay rent and health insurance and very basic things.”
The timing couldn’t have been worse. Tech lay-offs were almost at their peak, with budgets withering and hiring halted. Reiling started job hunting straight away, but discovered a very different market to the one he had known. He reached the final round of interviews five or six times, but was knocked back each time. “There was always another applicant from a bigger company with more experience,” he laments.
Eventually, Reiling faced one rejection too many. “I remember exactly which final round it was when it happened again. I thought: ‘This obviously isn’t working.’ It wasn’t until the market beat me down that I realised I needed a plan B.” Reiling started seriously considering an MBA, and ended up winning a place on the programme at Kellogg School of Management in Illinois.
Others faced similar headwinds at similar times. Krysten Klosowski had held down sales roles at the likes of Salesforce and DocuSign, but was laid off from her job at Airtable in December 2022. Most of her team had been there for less than a year. It was a similar story for Risa Ichwandiani, who had been Head of Commercial at the air logistics provider Teleport until May 2024.
Like Reiling, it wasn’t a pleasant time in Klosowki’s life. “Amid the layoff, it was tough dealing with the unknown and uncertainty that it comes with,” she recalls. But unlike Reiling, an MBA had long been swimming around her thoughts. “An MBA was something that I had always planned to get, but being laid off helped me put that plan into action.”
For Ichwandiani, the lay-off also represented a chance to reset. “Normally, I would feel nervous with the uncertainty,” she says. “But I had long thought about doing an MBA, so the timing aligned perfectly.”
After Texas McCombs waived test requirements and extended their third application round, Klosowski successfully applied for the school’s full-time MBA programme. Ichwandiani, meanwhile, joined the MBA programme at the Asia School of Business in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. A new chapter was about to begin.
The paths followed by these students are becoming increasingly common – and those winds of change are also being felt at the other side of the admissions table. Gale G. Nichols is the Executive Director of the full-time MBA programme at Kelley School of Business in Indiana. Although Kelley didn’t see a surge of applications amid the lay-offs – ‘”t normally goes the other way” – she acknowledges that a once-boiling industry has now reduced to a simmer.
“Tech has definitely become more popular over the time that I’ve worked here,” she says. “It is a very hot area, but it has been a bit more challenging for students to get jobs in tech over the last year or so. It has been more competitive and they have been cutting back on hiring.”
With more and more tech workers starting an MBA, it feels like we’re on the verge of a culture clash. “I think people in tech are generally under the view that an MBA doesn’t add a lot, that it’s more valuable to have experience… they really value more where you worked than where you went to school,” says Reiling.
Still, he has noticed an increase in the number of MBAs in the tech industry in recent years and himself is experiencing the career uptick that it can provide. “The biggest thing and the end goal for me going into this programme was positioning me for a job,” he says. “And I do think it’s done a great job at that. During my interview process I was getting interview offers from basically all of my target companies – Salesforce, Apple, Amazon… I don’t think that would have been possible without an MBA.”
For Klosowski, the programme at Texas McCombs has more than met her expectations. She has used it as a chance to pivot, taking the opportunity to explore new areas and potential new directions in her career. Similarly, Ichwandiani’s MBA has provided her with the career reset that she hoped it would. She’s now working for a startup in Southeast Asia, with one eye on a COO role in the future.
As these students can attest, being laid off is a challenging time in life. It makes you question yourself, your abilities and your priorities in life. The situation they were faced with may not have come about by choice. But it did mean a chance to take stock and reassess their own priorities. Nichols has noticed those shifting priorities among Kelley students.
“A lot of students want to do something more meaningful nowadays,” she says. “I think many students are looking for that deeper gratification, and they’re no longer just driven by salary or working for a big-name company.”
Education can provide new direction in life and act as a springboard to brighter things. But tough economic times should not be seen as a land grab for new students. Now more than ever, universities must offer students that meaning and gratification they’re increasingly looking for in the workplace.
“Looking back now, I consider myself lucky,” says Klosowski. “Because it gave me time to think about what I really wanted for my future.”
Reiling is more cautious about his unexpected career change – though it’s trending in the right direction. “We’ll have to see how it works out in the long-term,” he says. “For better or worse, it has been a new life experience. I’m in a new part of the country in a new city, experiencing new things – although I’m hesitant to call it a blessing in disguise until I see the long-term picture.”
Whether an MBA provides that gratification for these students remains to be seen. But one thing seems certain: this career path is one we’re likely to see more of in the coming years.
