In The Heart Of Silicon Valley, A Soft Landing For The Laid-Off

Hundreds of tech companies are based in the Bay Area of California, with concentrations in San Francisco and the South Bay’s Silicon Valley. As tens of thousands of tech workers lose their jobs in a major industry bloodletting, it makes sense that business schools in the area would step up and offer to help the jobless get back on their feet.

One of three major B-schools in the area, UC-Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, has offered those laid off in the last six months not only an application fee waiver to its part- and full-time MBA programs but a deadline extension as well. Now a second Bay Area B-school is getting involved: Santa Clara University’s Leavey School of Business, which has launched an initiative to support recently laid-off workers by making it easier to apply to a suite of degree programs — and by throwing in a not-inconsiderable scholarship sum for admits: $3,000, minimum.

Leavey may be lesser known than Berkeley Haas or that other B-school in the Bay Area, Stanford Graduate School of Business, but its appeal to tech workers is well-established. The school’s Evening MBA was ranked the No. 19 part-time program in the nation by U.S. News & World Report in 2023, making it the fourth straight year of a top-25 placement for SCU. Leavey’s executive MBA is ranked No. 13 by the magazine. Leveraging its close connections to its neighbors, the Leavey School is also ranked highly for employment at tech companies, with 85% of graduates from its on campus master’s degrees working at Silicon Valley firms.

“In the virtual world, you can work from any place on the globe, but location does still matter,” Ed Grier, dean of the Leavey School, tells Poets&Quants. “More than 80% of our graduates remain in Silicon Valley, producing a robust alumni network that consistently provides job placement for our graduates. As one of the nation’s leaders for employment in big tech, students can trust that the power of our Santa Clara network, when combined with hands-on, real-world experience provided by industry-leading faculty with dozens of years of experience in tech will set them up for success in the current market.”

TENS OF THOUSANDS LAID OFF; B-SCHOOLS STEP INTO THE BREACH

Tech layoff tracking site TrueUp reports that as of December 12, there have been 1,434 layoffs at tech companies with 221,151 people impacted so far in 2022. The worst month of the year by far was November, when nearly 60,000 lost their jobs. So far this month, TrueUp reports, nearly 11,000 have been laid off. Among the recent firings: Playtika, a mobile gaming company based in Tel Aviv, Israel, laid off 500 on December 9; Amber Group, a crypto finance firm in Hong Kong, laid off 400 the same day.

Another tracking site, Layoffs.fyi, tracks tech layoffs reported in Bloomberg, the New York Times, and other media outlets; it reports different totals: Of 964 tech companies with layoffs, 149,876 employees have been laid off.

The bloodletting has prompted several top business schools to reach out in various ways to let laid-off workers know they have options in academia if they choose to go that route. The first to make a high-profile offer to lure tech workers was Northwestern Kellogg School of Management, which offered to waive its Graduate Record Exam or Graduate Management Admission Test test score requirement for those applying to the part- or full-time MBA programs in round 2; applications are due January 4 for Kellogg’s Evening & Weekend program, and January 10 for its full-time programs.

Other schools have followed Kellogg’s lead, including MIT Sloan School of Management, Indiana Kelley School of Business, and Bay Area tech MBA factory UC-Berkeley Haas School of Business. See links to stories on these schools’ overtures at the bottom of the page.

LEAVEY’S OFFER TO TECH WORKERS: NO GMAT, MINIMUM $3K SCHOLARSHIP

Santa Clara Leavey does not have a full-time MBA program, but it does have a suite of well-regarded graduate programs, including a Part-time Evening MBA , Executive MBA, MS Business Analytics, MS Finance and Analytics, and MS in Information Systems. Its programs “harness the influence of global business models to deliver an exceptional education based on real-world applications, giving you unprecedented access to a rich network of Silicon Valley professors, peers and professionals,” the school boasts.

Its offer to those from the tech industry who have been recently laid off, and who are interested in applying for any of its programs:

• Waived application fees;
• No GMAT/GRE requirement;
• Scholarships of at least $3,000.

Additionally, for anyone applying to the part-time MBA, the school will extend the application deadline to January 20, 2023.

“The Leavey School of Business focuses on providing a values-based education,” says Dean Grier in a post on the school’s website. “It’s disheartening to see so many tech experts lose their jobs, so we’ve decided to create initiatives that will help those who may decide to increase their credentials with a master’s degree.”

Learn more by calling 408-554-4539 or emailing gradbusiness@scu.edu.

DON’T MISS SANTA CLARA LEAVEY — THE OTHER B-SCHOOL IN THE HEART OF SILICON VALLEY

AND SEE MORE OF OUR COVERAGE OF B-SCHOOL OFFERS TO VICTIMS OF TECH LAYOFFS:

ATTENTION LAID-OFF TECH WORKERS: A TOP-5 B-SCHOOL WANTS YOU TO CONSIDER AN MBA

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2 TECH-HEAVY B-SCHOOLS JOIN THOSE WOOING LAID-OFF WORKERS

INSIDE NYU STERN’S UNIQUE OFFER TO LAID-OFF TECH WORKERS

UCLA & CORNELL ARE LATEST B-SCHOOLS TO MAKE A PLAY FOR TECH WORKERS WHO HAVE LOST THEIR JOBS