Our shift to 100% free career education
Introducing Earlywork's biggest change in the last 2 years
Today, we’re stoked to announce Earlywork’s most significant change in the last 2 years since starting Earlywork Academy:
📈 The TL;DR
🆓 We’re transitioning our model for jobseekers to a 100% free program
🌏 We’re helping Aussies switch into sales careers across all B2B industries, not just tech
🏎️ We’re providing a streamlined pathway focused on job search skills to land roles significantly faster
🌇 We’re sunsetting Earlywork Academy, our in-depth 3-week tech sales school where students only paid if they landed a job
The first seeds of Earlywork were planted as a free newsletter (this one!!) helping early-career talent find more rewarding roles, so it feels special to come full circle in democratising access to career learning.
It’s a material financial sacrifice in the short term, but here’s why we think this is the right model for career education long-term:
📈 Employer Demand for Sales Talent Beyond Tech is Soaring
Since launching Earlywork Academy in January 2023, we’ve spent the last 2 years helping 400+ jobseekers learn about & land roles in tech sales at 100+ employers.
Over the last year, two things started to happen a lot more to our surprise…
Some of our fellows started to land sales jobs outside of tech by applying on their own accord…and loved their roles. We had all come from roots working in the software industry and were passionate about helping more folks into this space.
More non-tech companies kept asking us for help hiring & training sales reps. Founders, sales leaders & talent leaders from other industries had started to hear about Earlywork via referrals or social media. Because we were running a program specifically focused on jobseekers interested tech, we had to turn them away time and time again.
Universities weren’t teaching sales at all, so most employers didn’t have a clear pipeline to find junior sales reps regardless of industry.
We started to pilot hiring services with a small number of these employers, and it became clear the hiring pain was just as strong if not stronger.
❌ But Our Program Wasn’t Suitable for All Junior Sales Jobseekers
With so much demand coming from employers, our Academy student cohort growth couldn’t keep up at the same rate.
To learn more, we analysed the types of jobseekers who were less likely to accept a spot in the program:
Experienced Applicants Were More Confident Job Searching: For applicants with more professional experience, we often found they had a stronger ability to land interviews & offers without the Academy. However, they weren’t sure about how to choose the right company.
Urgent Jobseekers Didn’t Want an Extended Program: For people who were unemployed or eager to leave their current role quickly, a 3-week learning program prior to job searching didn’t align as well with their desired time to land a role.
Existing Sales Reps Felt The Learning Program Was Less Relevant: For people who had already worked in B2B sales, an extended learning program on sales fundamentals didn’t align with where they needed help as much; the pains for some more so came in the application/interview process.
Low-Income Fellows Felt Hesitant to Commit to a Paid Program: As a success-based program, we had designed our program with a small refundable upfront deposit ($495) to ensure commitment from fellows. We recognised some folks didn’t have the funds to feel safe making that payment, and eventually dropped it to $95. Even then, some felt hesitant about committing to thousands of dollars in education investment should they land a job.
Seeing these challenges alongside strong employer demand across multiple industries + fellow success in non-tech roles, we decided to rebuild our program from scratch to better solve jobseeker & employer problems.
⚙️ Introducing The Earlywork Business Sales Program
We’re helping Aussies de-risk their switch into a sales career at zero cost.
Our new career transition service helps jobseekers efficiently test whether sales is the right career for them.
For those where it’s the right fit, we help them find the right role that matches their goals, interests & strengths, not just the first sales job that pops up on their radar.
Here’s what the process looks like:
EOI: It takes just 45 seconds to submit an expression of interest, after which you’ll receive a call from one of our Admissions Consultants to assist you.
Business Sales Group Interview: If suitable, you’ll get to attend a 2 hour virtual interview session, where you’ll get exposed to a detailed breakdown of the sales career path, practice fundamental sales theory & test your skills with a real outbound calling challenge.
1:1 Interview: If shortlisted, the next step is a deeper conversation with one of our Employment Consultants within the week exploring your motivations for switching into sales.
Partner Introductions & Interview Prep: For reps who make it through that stage, you’ll then be introduced to our Partner Network within days. Throughout the interview process, you’ll have a dedicated advisor to help you prepare for each interview.
Onboarding Support: After landing a role, we train all Earlyworkers live in the end-to-end techniques of outbound calling. Alongside that, you’ll get access to a 1:1 sales coach and in-house sales resources to help you start strong in your new role.
👤 Who Is It For?
Our career transition service is for folks looking to switch to a full-time role that’s more customer-facing, offers better career progression and comes with more financial upside.
Wondering whether you’ve got the right traits for sales?
Having helped 400+ reps start their sales careers, we’ve created the 5 Junior Sales Dimensions as predictors of rep success:
Motivation
Resilience
Confidence
EQ
Verbal Communication
Note: all participants require full Australian working rights.
🏦 How Can We Run This For Free?
We hope to educate hundreds of jobseekers this year for free, but you might be wondering, how is this financially sustainable?
We’re grateful to work with 50+ partners like MYOB, Peninsula Group, Eftsure, BuildPass & Sonder, spanning early-stage startups to global market leaders across a range of industry verticals.
Working with a range of employers, the challenges we typically see with junior sales hiring are:
Not enough applicants are interested in sales roles, because universities don’t teach people it’s a career & pop culture gives people a lot of misconceptions about the role
Hiring managers waste a lot of time filtering, because you can’t tell sales ability from a resume, meaning a lot of irrelevant interviews
High turnover of new starters, because a lot reps lack confidence & resilience to push through the challenges of the first few months
As such, these partners pay to be able to hire vetted sales talent from a wide range of backgrounds beyond their standard applicant pool.
🏫 What Happens to Earlywork Academy?
With the launch of our new program, we are no longer running Earlywork Academy, our extended tech sales learning program.
Over the last two years, we saw close up there’s a lot of value in deeper sales training. However, we’ve landed on the belief that a shorter, industry-agnostic & free program was the better format to support active jobseekers.
For sales reps & managers keen on additional sales learning & coaching, it’s something we intend to explore as part of our future roadmap in helping young Aussies unlock their career potential.
For Earlywork, it’s early days 😊
🤔 Curious about a sales career switch and want a low-risk, low-commitment way to test it out (or know someone who is)?
💼 Looking to hire junior sales talent but not happy with the quality/quantity of job board applicants?
Hit up Dan on LinkedIn for a chat
Want to stay in the loop with the Earlywork journey?
Join in the action at:
🤝 LinkedIn
📸 Instagram
🏡 Earlywork Village
Ciao for now,
🧡 Dan, Jono, Marina, Ryan & Team Earlywork