How EdTech is Shaping the Future of Learning - Jess Weems Thibault

In today’s episode, I chat with Jess Weems Thibault, VP of Growth at HireEducation, a talent service firm that supports education and EdTech partners in the Early Childhood, K12, Higher Education, and Workforce sectors. 

A former-teacher-turned-marketer, Jess works with industry leaders to strategically grow executive, sales, marketing, and product teams in organizations of all sizes with the goal of providing equitable access to education and economic mobility. Jess spent over a decade working in various nonprofit settings, including as a middle-school science teacher. 

I was curious to learn how her unique background influenced her approach to mentoring in the tech and edtech spaces. How she sees technology shaping the future of learning.

It was a really fun conversation. I learned a lot. And I hope you enjoy listening as much as we did recording it.

Jess Weems Thibault

A former-teacher-turned-marketer, Jess Weems Thibault is the VP of Growth at HireEducation, a talent service firm that supports education and EdTech partners in the Early Childhood, K12, Higher Education, and Workforce sectors. She works with industry leaders to strategically grow executive, sales, marketing, and product teams in organizations of all sizes with the goal of providing equitable access to education and economic mobility.

Jess spent over a decade working in various nonprofit settings, including as a middle-school science teacher. She has an MBA from the University of Wisconsin, an MEd in Secondary Science Education, and a BS in Resource Economics from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

LinkedIn
Website


Thinking Inside the Box

Constraints drive innovation. We tackle the most complex issues related to work & culture. And if you enjoy the work we’re doing here, consider giving us a 5-star rating, leaving a comment & subscribing. It ensures you get updated whenever we release new content & really helps amplify our message.

LinkedIn
Website
Apple Podcasts
Google Podcasts
Spotify
Stitcher
Pocket Cast


Matt Burns

Matt Burns is an award-winning executive, social entrepreneur and speaker. He believes in the power of community, simplicity & technology.

LinkedIn
Twitter

Transcript

Matt Burns: You.

Jess Thibault: All those things go into us really dissecting and kind of classifying. Okay, what is the ideal Persona for this company on the candidate side? So much of it comes down to a question of what motivates you in life. In work, you can get at so much there because so much about what motivates us in terms of work comes down to what's most important. Where are priorities.

Matt Burns: Missing? Someone doesn't call you.

Matt Burns: Constraints drive innovation. Hey everyone, it's Matt here for another episode of thinking Inside the Box, a show where we discuss the innovative ways organizations and their leaders overcome complex issues at work. If you're interested in checking out our other content, you can find us at our shiny new website, insidetheboxpodcast.com, and on all of your favorite podcast platforms by searching, thinking inside the box. And if you enjoy the work we're doing here, consider leaving us a five star rating, a comment and subscribing.

Matt Burns: It ensures you get updated whenever we.

Matt Burns: Release new content and really helps amplify our message. In today's episode, I chat with Jess Weams Tebow, the vp of growth at Higher Education, a talent service firm that supports education and ed Tech partners in the early childhood kid twelve higher education and workforce sectors. A former teacher turned marketer herself, Jess works with industry leaders to strategically grow executive, sales, marketing and product teams in organizations of all sizes with the goal of providing equitable access to education and economic mobility. Jess spent over, ah, a decade working in various nonprofit settings, including as a middle school science teacher. And so I was curious to learn how her unique background and the steps along the way influenced her approach to mentoring in today's tech and ed tech spaces. How she sees technology shaping the future of learning and the changes needed to get there. It was a really fun conversation. I learned a lot and I hope.

Matt Burns: You enjoy listening to it as much.

Matt Burns: As we did recording it. And now I bring you Jess Weems tebow.

Matt Burns: Jess, we've scheduled this and rescheduled this several times. And when I say we, I mean of course me. I want to thank you for your patience and flexibility.

Matt Burns: How, are you today?

Jess Thibault: I'm doing well. It's cold, but it's sunny. I'll take it.

Matt Burns: Sunny is a good way to start any day. A good way to start this conversation is understanding a bit about you, your background and experiences. So for those who don't know Jess.

Matt Burns: Maybe a bit about that sounds good.

Jess Thibault: I try to be succinct with this type of question. It doesn't always go that way. So we'll see what I can do. But yeah, I think, to know me is really, to kind of see a very wandering path, but definitely with some major themes. I've always been fascinated by art and design. I have been making art as long as I can remember. I did a couple of years as a working artist and traveled around the country and did a residency and all sorts of fun things. I started doing web design when I was twelve. So at the beginning, but then I also have always had this really deep passion for just humans, people making, the world a better place to be. Cliche, right. very social impact focused, even from a young age. So combining those things has been interesting because, for example, I did not pursue architecture and interior design because I was just having trouble finding ways to feel like it was making an impact on sustainability or economic development or human development. But, I found lots of ways to kind of pull the two things together over time. But kind of the journey there that kind of got me there is, I first went into teaching, so I was a classroom teacher for over a decade. I taught middle school science and computer science. I love middle schoolers during that time. So in my also had like four or five jobs going at once, which now I envy that energy level. I don't know where that went. I think kids took it away. but while I was teaching, I was also a youth director at a congregational church. I was an entrepreneur. I launched a web app, for connecting artists and who taught workshops around the world. I, was an artist, as I mentioned. and I also ran outdoor education, so namely backpacking trips. That was kind of my summer thing when I was a teacher. And so through all those things, I got to really, I think, engage in all those different areas, but all of those things kind of brought me to marketing as well. that might be strange to some people, but marketing is a really fun, it's very data driven, but also very design driven. And good marketing can and should really be focused at helping people find things that they need that really address true needs that they have. So I, was a marketing director and communications director for a school. So most of my career has been in nonprofits. But around three years ago, I came over here to higher education. That is a pun. H-I-R-E education. and we're a recruitment agency and we focus on the education sector. So educational technology companies primarily, but some service organizations, nonprofits, as well. And we help with hiring strategy. We run executive search and help those highly impactful, mission driven companies make excellent hiring decisions and extend their impact.

Matt Burns: It's a really fascinating background. I want to get into what you're doing today, but let me spend a minute just double clicking on the path to get there, because as you pointed out, a lot of different things, you tried a lot of different things and you ended up in marketing. And while to your point, it might seem like a lot of those paths are different to me, they actually is a common thread, which is people and communication and bringing those two things together. And the context of course shifted. But the purpose, I don't know that it did. So I'm curious, as you've gone through those steps and you perhaps look around at your contemporaries, how do you think that your path helps you today as a marketer? Whereas if you'd gone through the more traditional coming out of high school undergraduate degree right into a marketing internship, what do you think you stand to benefit from the more diverse background you brought to the profession?

Jess Thibault: That's a great question. What comes to mind is how I often surprise people. and when I'm talking to people, I often kind of get this sense of surprise from the very broad. How do I say this? The way in which I can see how an individual fits in with all the other pieces. And when I am talking to clients, and candidates, when I'm putting together communications, I think that really stands out is I can look at a landscape and see all the pieces. I can put myself in the teacher's shoes because I used to be a teacher. I understand the financial implications of sales, right. And business development and marketing. I understand the data in between. And I think that that's sort of a broad understanding of an entire industry and an entire overall mission and goal of education is rare, I guess.

Matt Burns: I think it is.

Matt Burns: And I think that it does provide additional credibility. Of course, when you can put on the hat of the Persona in which you're communicating to, in large part that just adds a whole different level of credibility. And you can speak to, the conversation, the pain, the solutions with a much greater degree of just depth, which I think is awesome. I also want to double click on ed tech because for those who aren't familiar with the industry, it's kind of come out of, I don't want to say obscurity, because certainly education technology has been around for decades. But of late I have friends in venture capital and private equity. I have friends in the tech industry, entrepreneurs. I have never heard ed tech as much as I've heard it in the last twelve months. And of course, the pandemic is driving a large portion of it. But for those who aren't familiar with the broader industry, perhaps just define what is ed tech and who are some of the key players in that. From post secondary education to those startup cultures, what does the broader industry look.

Matt Burns: Like of Ed tech?

Jess Thibault: Great question. Something I love talking about and certainly, get to talk about every day, which is fun. so educational technology at its core, in terms of its goal, is to make education either more impactful or further reaching, whatever that goal is. What's the ultimate goal of education? Really is a great question too, right. some people would argue that it's credentials for credentials sake. I tend to lean towards. It would be nice if the goal was career readiness and economic mobility and things like that, right? But headed in that direction, it is a huge lift to educate a human, right? And, there's so many different dynamics in that. And that's why the Ed tech landscape is fairly complex. Educational technology ranges from security systems to learning management systems, to actual simulations and visuals and content, to these massive databases and big data, right? I mean, it is a very complex landscape because it really is a microcosm of the rest of tech in a lot of ways, right? It's all the different techs applied really specifically to how do we educate humans. The ed tech landscape, one phrase that people use is it's pre k. So early childhood to gray. Some people say grave, I prefer gray. But really it is a continuum of lifelong learning, right? definitely the bigger chunks are k twelve, because that is the mandated public education, and then higher education. So the bachelor's degree, the master's degree, et cetera. those are very highly, structured institutions that there's a lot of tech involved there. But then there's also kind of parts of that, that school. What about corporate learning and development? What about professional development? What about workforce development? So it's all part of that landscape. And basically it's all the different ways, like I kind of listed earlier, it's just all the different ways that technology can make it easier to educate. So in terms of stepping into a classroom, there's so many different aspects. Like, as a former teacher, even though I started teaching quite a while ago, my first classroom just had, a tv monitor mounted into the ceiling. There was no projector. I wrote a grant, got a projector the next year, because I was like, this isn't working for me as a digital native. I was like, no. And so it's little things like that. Even though it's like, well, how much more effective is it for me to draw something on a whiteboard or try to just explain something auditorially as opposed to showing a simulation? Or even better yet, getting some sort of interactive content where, I can actually hear from every student in the room and no one gets lost.

Matt Burns: Right?

Jess Thibault: So it's all different. But that's around teaching and learning. It's also just how much time do teachers spend on planning and grading? Well, there's a huge movement. How much grading can AI do? Lots. Okay. And that technology is just going to continue. So it's a little bit of everything.

Matt Burns: Hey, everyone, it's Matt here. I hope you're enjoying today's conversation.

Matt Burns: And before we continue, I, want.

Matt Burns: To update you on my latest creative.

Matt Burns: Project this week at work.

Matt Burns: Every Friday at 07:00 a.m. Pacific Standard Time. That's 10:00 a.m.. Eastern. And 03:00 p.m.. GMT, my good friend Chris Rainey of HR leaders and I discuss the latest trending topics on the minds of executives globally, from organizational culture to technology and the future of work.

Matt Burns: We cover it all, and we invite some of our favorite colleagues to join.

Matt Burns: Us, from Dave Ulrich to Whitney Johnson.

Matt Burns: and executives from m iconic brands.

Matt Burns: Such as NASA, Krispy Kreme, and WebMD.

Matt Burns: What can I say?

Matt Burns: We like to keep things interesting. And if you've been following us for.

Matt Burns: A while, you'll no doubt recognize the fun partnership Chris and I have developed over years. Podcasting together, we're not afraid to be.

Matt Burns: Real, share our own challenges, and ask the tough questions. Joining? Well, that part's easy.

Matt Burns: Follow me on LinkedIn, click the bell.

Matt Burns: Icon on the top right of my.

Matt Burns: Profile and you'll get notified when we go live.

Matt Burns: And now back to our discussion.

Matt Burns: It's a little bit of everything, and it's a challenging, if I can say, this, stakeholder group to introduce technology to. So, I've had the privilege of being a human resources professional for a number of industries, but I've never spent any time in education and healthcare, and that's been by design, because most of my contemporaries in those two industries talk a lot about the pull to them, because of the sense of purpose and of course, the very clear connection between their work and broader societal impact. I mean, if you're supporting school, district, or higher educational institution, and you're driving the human resources strategy for that, you're having a very real effect on people's lives. Amazing. That being said, there has been a lot of, I think, fair questions asked about the value of education in a world that is evolving very quickly in a situation where questions are being asked regarding how does traditional higher education, at least in this context, translate into job performance. I think those questions have been asked, yes, and increasingly, especially in a recessionary, inflationary environment, some questions about affordability talked about in terms of, does it make sense to sign up for $200,000 in student loan debt if the job you're going to go to is going to earn you incrementally more than if you didn't have the education to begin with as employers reduce the hiring requirements and simultaneously just try and put, pardon the expression, butts and seats. So there's a, really interesting play. There is additionally, and this is where I let my personal bias leach into the conversation, I've always loved to learn, and I never liked education because education, to me, felt like we're going to put you into a very confining box. We're not going to identify and recognize the unique parts of yourself. You mentioned what's the most messed modality for teaching? I think we all have an understanding of some people learn auditorially, visually, experientially. There's lots of different ways people can learn. And as you grow up and learn, that changes. And people are dynamic. So it's not a binary question. There is an element of sophistication, and I don't envy a teacher of having to take 30 people at different levels of start to finish on the same journey and try and end up at the same place. That's tough when people have unique, special needs, when there's other factors that have nothing to do with the classroom or the topic or the relationships in the room come into play. So I get it's complex. And at the same time, it never really made sense to me that we would pay people to lecture in front of a classroom of others. That feels more like entertainment and less like teaching, because there really isn't, a back and forth. And most people I know don't learn through being talked to and taking notes. There's a level of disconnection between what education has been traditionally in, terms of its delivery and what was actually in the best interests of students. And more recently, we definitely see education systems transforming, more evidence based approaches, teachers changing, and having more skills and more technology. You've mentioned a whole bunch of really great stuff. My question for you is this. You're communicating to a stakeholder group that also understands all the things I just mentioned and has their own narrative. So as you're trying to identify and ultimately place the next generation of education leaders, how do you find the right cultural fits, understanding the wide swath of people who are. Some of them are still stuck in 1960 m, and some of them are racing towards 2050. How do you find in a finite talent pool, how do you find the right fit culturally so that you can place the right people in the right opportunity to realize the best outcome?

Jess Thibault: Okay, so there's a few different aspects of this. So much of it is driven by the company. Companies have cultures, companies have cultures, and missions and all that stuff that are explicit and implicit. It takes a lot of good questioning and listening to try to uncover that. but that's the first step. Whenever we launch, a search, we have like 30 to 45 minutes launch call just to really dig in. And we usually have a lot of information already about what our client wants for a vp of sales or a marketing executive. but we really want to dig in because there is so much that's unsaid. There's so many kind of red flags or nuances that come through those conversations, too. And it's not that one company isn't somewhere we'd want to work, but it just, or isn't somebody that isn't a company that a candidate would want to work for, but it's just a different type of candidate. Right. I think one of the biggest divides, although it's changing all the time, is the publishing world versus the software world. They really are different. I mean, the big publishing companies are always evolving, and they will continue to create more tech, but they are always going to be content focused. Right? They are the information. They change how they deliver that information. But still, the parts of the cell are the parts of the cell, and the kids got to learn the parts of the cell, right? Whereas, software companies that are actually trying to change maybe, the way a child is assessed or the way a teacher can deliver content, or the way that students, in colleges are engaged with and have conversations around particular issues, or the mental health crisis, or, the way that we train nurses and doctors, right? So all those different pieces, the ways in which we do those to get the best outcome possible is a problem that people are often trying to solve through software, right? So these companies have so much ingrained in them that determines, it qualifies or disqualifies major pools of applicants or candidates, really. I mean, we're on the headhunting, side of things for the most part, right? Like we are going to determine who is that perfect candidate and we're going to go find them. So along with what are they selling? Another big kind of differentiator to make that match is often what we refer to as kind of that startup mentality.

Matt Burns: Right?

Jess Thibault: Where is this company at? Are they in that early stage? Are they seed stage? Series a, where it's about how fast can you iterate? How comfortable are you with risk and ambiguity? That's kind of one phase of growth. Then there's that kind of series b, like high growth, right?

Matt Burns: Okay.

Jess Thibault: We've found market fit, we've found profitability. Now we need to scale. That's a whole set of skills, it's a whole set of, mentality about how you approach your work. And then there's the kind of post that, right? I mean there's still growth, but it's usually a, ah, slower year over year. And sometimes the goal is different, whether it's VC or PE or whether IPO is the mean. All those things go into us really dissecting and kind of classifying. Okay, what is the ideal Persona, for this company on the candidate side? So much of it comes down to a question of what motivates you, what motivates you in life. In work, you can get at so much there because so much about what motivates us in terms of work comes down to what's most important. Where are priorities?

Matt Burns: Right?

Jess Thibault: Is it. Well, financial goals are number one for me. work life balance is really important. I just want to know that I make a difference. but then also there's so much more. Most candidates want some sort of voice into strategy and want an opportunity for growth. Those are huge. That informs so much of what makes a good match, if that makes sense.

Matt Burns: Yeah, it's complicated. I appreciate the nuance in understanding. You mentioned a number of really valid considerations. I mean, company maturity and lifecycle. The type of person you're going to hire in a role for a series a organization is very different than a series B organization. You might hire at series a, hoping they have potential to step up into series B, but they are different skill sets. As you pointed out, the context in which the person is entering into whether the company has been around for 50 years and is a professional, higher educational institution versus a startup. Also the context changes. I'm also curious, as somebody who's recruited a fair amount in his own career, I'm assuming that role also comes into play because I can imagine that there are certain roles in this space that are more difficult to locate fits than others. I think about CTO type roles versus heads of sales roles, and I'm not trying to denigrate one over the other, but there's a finite amount of resources of people that can step into one versus another skill set. It's also a longer term horizon to build the skills in one or the other. Are there particular roles or particular challenges that for you at this moment in time, are more challenging? Or is it really just a function of going to the network, finding the right fit, and putting those two things together?

Jess Thibault: It's definitely both. So one of the biggest kind of considerations there is domain expertise. And this kind of goes back to your previous question as well. I would say the roles that we are called on most often to fill are sales roles, and that has to do with the fact that selling into educational institutions is a very unique challenge. And then there's so many nuances in that. So here are some of the ways that we break this down. If you sell into k twelve versus higher education, that's one split. There's not a lot of crossover between the two. They are very different rolodexes or very different strategies. If you are in k twelve, for example, the differentiation between, well, what's the sales strategy? Are you going after superintendents and states? Right. Do you need contacts at the DOE, or are you going from a bottom up approach where, no, it's the teachers and the department chairs. Right. Those are two very different selling strategies. Those also tend to be more consultative sales versus, more transactional sales.

Matt Burns: Right.

Jess Thibault: So two different selling strategies, two different personas, two different career histories. Then we start getting into, like, well, what type of solution are they selling?

Matt Burns: Right?

Jess Thibault: And is it SaaS or is it more content based? So all those nuances. But we get requests from clients as nitty gritty as I need, somebody who has a rolodex of superintendents and a history of selling half, million to $1 million deals at a district level, five year SaaS in Chicago. And we're like, okay, yeah, that person exists. We will go find, you know, it really does depend. And then on the higher education side, it's the same kind of thing, right? Because higher education has these really unique roles within it, right? There's a ton of software around admissions and student engagement, which also can feed into alumni and career readiness and that sort of stuff. There's back end data type software, right? And then there is teaching and learning and a lot of teaching and learning. And this also goes back to a point that you made earlier is some of the trends that we see are very interesting and absolutely, I want to definitely validate what you said earlier. Higher education in particular, m is going through some growing pains and all those questions of investment versus return on investment and career readiness and what is the market? I don't think there are any answers yet. And it does have major implications for k twelve education as well. Because if colleges are going to change how they do admissions, or if they're going to change kind of what it takes to be successful in college, if they're going to shift what that looks like, to reflect what the career market looks like.

Matt Burns: Right.

Jess Thibault: The whole trickle down is a big question mark, I think, hanging over, them right now. But there's a lot of tools and stuff being generated to try to. How do we connect more with students? How do we, engage? And then how do we help professors teach?

Matt Burns: Well, right.

Jess Thibault: Not just lecture. Right. How do we create, innovative educational teaching environments at the higher education level? I mean, so many professors, they never learn how to teach.

Jess Thibault: They're experts in their field. And that's enough.

Matt Burns: Well, it's in the title, yeah.

Jess Thibault: And often they're there more to do research than to teach. And so that's another dynamic that is tricky. It's a lot of pulls in different directions.

Matt Burns: There's a lot of parallels with that industry, in the healthcare industry, and you have people in that industry that love to do research, and we talk about bedside manner. And similarly, there's this push recently around technology to try and optimize the patient experience and better use data. And there's a similar tension between the use of technology tools and what they mean in the context of somebody's expertise. And I have friends who are physicians, and I have friends who are professors that will actively denigrate technology because they see it as a substandard replacement for them in some way, shape or form, as if it's that binary, which I don't believe that it is. And I often will counter with, ah, a conversation that says, in an ideal state, with no constraints around time or energy, or all the other extraneous factors that can influence both professions, I can accept that you, at your best, might deliver a better outcome to a student or a patient. However, I'm a realist and understand that you have a workload that far exceeds your capacity to deliver against it, that there are extraneous factors that influence the ability for you to drive outcomes. And there's lots of science that points to different delivery vehicles being more compelling more engaging and ultimately more effective if knowledge retention is the measure we're looking at than you standing in front of a classroom and droning on about your course lesson. And fine, I appreciate that. But as I mentioned earlier, that's more entertainment and less about. More about access to somebody who's smart for questions and interactivity, and less about the learner experience if the goal was meant to be retention. And, it is fascinating for me because I understand that tension, and I also encourage people to find the beauty in innovation that facilitates and frees them up to do the things that they actually want to do, whether that is teaching or whether that is research. Because the reality is, we need to see progression in both And we force people into awkward positions of having to be and wear two different hats when that really isn't how we treat a lot of other professions, we generally apply more of a strength based approach and encourage people to follow their passions. But this is a very rigid structure that, as much as it has an impact to the patient and to the student, also impacts the practitioner. So I want to acknowledge all that, and I also want to point out that that places more complexity in your role, because you're not just trying to find the sales leader with, experience managing 500,000 to a million dollar deals with the rolodex of superintendents that's based in Chicago, that's already a needle in a haystack. And then you layer in all I just talked about, and you now, I'm sure, get questions from candidates about what is the company's digital transformation roadmap and what's their view on AI? And all these questions that were not part of the discourse three years ago have now made for a more what's their approach on remote work? And how much flexibility do I have to determine the context in which I'm employed? And those things all come into play. So I'm curious how you keep up to date with what's happening in the broader industry so that you can feed that information back to potential candidates and potential clients who are also trying to design and develop postings and jobs that resonate in the market and attract the best kind of talent.

Jess Thibault: Part of what we do every single day gleans, the information that we need to make those decisions, right? We are talking to people every single day. We are a team of around ten. All we do is talk to people all day long, right? And so part of what's important is to have a team of recruiters that are looking for that insight constantly, right? Like, what does this conversation tell me about the industry as a whole? About shifts, about changes that are coming. So part of it is like, we're just always listening and gathering information and talking to each other about it. we have a really strong team, very collaborative team. We meet together multiple times a week just to kind of share insights. Right. But in a more strategic strategy, one of my jobs is to attend conferences or to send delegates and to have this conference strategy, that is a good thing about being in education, I think. there is this climate of always learning, right. And so there are some very strong conferences, in our industry, that really are just these great opportunities to listen, to observe. What are the struggles? What's the focus? Last year, I went to south by southwest.edu, and my takeaway from that was really just how much Covid had accentuated cracks and gaps that were already there in the first place.

Matt Burns: Right.

Jess Thibault: Covid didn't break anything, really. it just showed what was already. You know, there's definitely a silver lining there that I think a lot of those issues are very front and center now, and we can tackle them head on. Just looking at k twelve, the amount of gaps in math and literacy that were revealed has just really set the stage for some innovation that was long overdue there. And so those are the types of things that I can really take away by attending conferences. Right. And seeing what's being talked about. Where are the constituents and the stakeholders from government, from the education institutions themselves, from the ed tech industry, from other nonprofits, and foundations that are working in this space. When everybody gets together, what are they talking about? What are the solutions that are being presented, and what is the data that's being presented and analyzed? I would say the other thing that really came out of COVID along those same lines was a, ah, refocusing or maybe focusing more heavily for the first time, I don't know. on efficacy, is what we're doing effective? Are the outcomes being achieved? Do we even have outcomes in mind?

Matt Burns: Sometimes?

Jess Thibault: An even better question, this question of efficacy is really big right now. It's, what are we all shooting for? And are we even making gains in the right direction? So, yeah, I love hearing what people have to say about that and get to hear a lot about different perspectives on that from candidates and thought leaders.

Matt Burns: We've talked a lot about this context of job search, job candidates hiring, but you m know better than most. This is also a conversation about retention, where getting someone in today's market challenging enough lots of effort, energy, resources deployed. If that person leaves three months down the road, that's a lot of wasted effort. That's a lot of lost resources, opportunity cost. When you're working with organizations and trying to establish a plan, a roadmap, how do you advise them to think about not only the attraction part of this equation, but also the broader retention and engagement parts of the conversation?

Matt Burns: Yeah.

Jess Thibault: And the two go hand in hand. Absolutely. The same reasons why somebody might take a job are usually very similar, if not the same, is why they stay at a job. Right. And so in this particular industry, people want to make an impact. People don't get into ed tech just for the money, for example, or other kind of, less mission driven reasons. people want to know that they are making a difference. Now, that said, they also want to know that they have a product that is sellable. Right. You can have a great product that makes a great impact, but it might not actually sell. Right. I mean, market fit is still a thing.

Matt Burns: Right.

Jess Thibault: the finances still have to be there. and lots of other things, I think growth opportunities. People want a voice into strategy. Oftentimes they say, I want a seat at the table. They want to know that they're building something that's actually going to go somewhere. Ah, those are the things that we hear the most. as far as why people want to leave, so many times I've heard people say, well, I came to this company to work under a certain leader, and then they left, which is just such an interesting one, because, good leadership is hard to find. It always is going to be. And I think that that's particularly telling because I don't often feel like people fully take into account what losing a good leader does. I think it's very hard to measure that because it does shake up most people under them and it does make them much more open to leaving. So, yeah, that's an interesting dynamic for sure, but people want stability, they want growth. they want a product that sells. That's what makes people stay. But also culture. I mean, I cannot tell you the number of times that I've had a candidate say, look, this is what I'd love to make. But what's more important to me is fill in the blank culture.

Jess Thibault: I want to be taken seriously, and it can even come down to really mundane things, like, I just want a corporate credit card. It's really hard for me to have my expenses mixed in with m my financial, my personal finances, and I'm not great at that. Can I just get a company card. Sometimes it's really simple things and you're just like, wow, has this manager not asked this person, what do you need? It can be really simple.

Matt Burns: Simple. And yet, if it was that simple, you and I wouldn't have jobs. So I feel very good that we're going to have job security as we try and navigate this period of time ahead of us. And I just want to thank you for shining a light on an industry that affects all of us. We may not think about it, but we've all been through an educational system, whether it's public or private, the underpinning of that kind of technology, the delivery, the experience that's m evolving at a really rapid rate. And the next generations are going to have a very different experience than we had, and we're going to look back and laugh on our experience fondly. And we have an opportunity here, to your point, to identify and retain the next generation of people that really do care about making a difference and doing the right thing. And that's a space where, as we move forward, we can't have enough bright, purpose driven, intelligent people working in this space. What I'm going to do is I know we're going to have people listen to this podcast and want to learn more. So I will include all of your details in the podcast show notes along with where best to find you. Thank you so much for your time today, for adding your insights and looking forward to keeping in touch.

Jess Thibault: Thanks so much.

Matt Burns: Matto HR is a digital transformation consultancy working at the intersection of strategy, technology and people operations. We partner with organizations, private equity and venture capital firms to accelerate value creation and identify the organization's highest leverage initiatives. And this can take place in many forms, from strategic planning and alignment to technology procurement, implementation and integration, along with organizational design, process reengineering and change management. With our proven track record of working with complex, high growth organizations, we provide a lens that goes beyond the balance sheet, increasing enterprise readiness, resilience and value. For more information, check us out at Bentohr.