Is EF (Education First) a good company to work for?

EF (Education First) has an overall rating of 3.4 out of 5, based on over 6,456 reviews left anonymously by employees. This rating has been stable over the past 12 months. 61% of employees would recommend working at EF (Education First) to a friend and 48% have a positive outlook for the business. The best reviews about EF (Education First) have been left by employees working as Sales Manager , Director and Intern .

Does EF (Education First) pay their employees well?

According to anonymously submitted Glassdoor reviews, EF (Education First) employees rate their compensation and benefits as 2.9 out of 5. Find out more about salaries and benefits at EF (Education First). This rating has improved by 1% over the last 12 months.

How satisfied are employees working at EF (Education First)?

61% of EF (Education First) employees would recommend working there to a friend based on Glassdoor reviews . Employees also rated EF (Education First) 3.2 out of 5 for work life balance, 3.7 for culture and values and 3.2 for career opportunities.

What are the top reviewed jobs at EF (Education First)?

English Teacher (293) , Teacher (246) , Tour Consultant (238) , Online English Teacher (199) , ESL Teacher (198) , Sales Coordinator (137) , Sales (74) , Activity Leader (73) , Online ESL Teacher (67) , Sales Consultant (63) , Manager (61) , Educational Tour Consultant (46) , Marketing (42) , EF Activity Leader (40) , Sales Associate (40)

What are the pros of working at EF (Education First) according to real employee reviews?

"Met some great people and walked away from each class with a smile on my face." ((in 417 reviews)); "Overall really great culture and very easy to feel welcome!" ((in 334 reviews)); "Colleagues are great and share similar values for the most part." ((in 210 reviews)); "Great benefits and travel opportunities." ((in 165 reviews)); "The work environment can be fun and energetic." ((in 114 reviews))

What are the cons of working at EF (Education First) according to real employee reviews?

"You'll be doing a lot of work for low pay and have no life outside of EF." ((in 601 reviews)); "Employees are generally over worked and have an incredible amount of work for such a low salary." ((in 503 reviews)); "Poor management and lack of decisiveness from managers that have been stagnating in their roles for too many years." ((in 311 reviews)); "There can be long hours and you get told no on the phone quite often." ((in 157 reviews)); "Bad manager leading the country" ((in 125 reviews))

What are employees saying about EF (Education First) layoffs in 2026?

Explore Glassdoor’s employee reviews to understand what current and former employees are saying about EF (Education First) layoffs and their outlook for job security at EF (Education First) in 2026.

What are the top reviewed EF (Education First) locations?

Boston , Cambridge , Denver , Tarrytown , San Diego , Austin , New York , San Francisco , Thornwood , Santa Barbara , Miami , Chicago , Miami Beach , Brighton , Los Angeles , Washington , Honolulu , Atlanta , China , Redondo Beach , Remote , Long Beach , Pasadena , Monterey , China Grove , Dallas , Houston , Seattle , Portland , Baltimore

EF (Education First) reviews

3.4

61% would recommend to a friend

(4,611 total reviews)

Edward Hult, Ph.D

62% approve of CEO

48% positive business outlook

Ratings by category

3.8

Diversity & inclusion

3.7

Culture & values

3.2

Work/Life balance

3.2

Career opportunities

3.1

Senior management

2.9

Compensation and benefits

EF (Education First) has an employee rating of 3.4 out of 5 stars, based on 4,611 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The EF (Education First) employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Education industry (3.8 stars).

Ratings by demographic groups

Race / Ethnicity

Gender

Sexual orientation

Disability

Parent or family caregiver

Veteran status

Reviews by job title

5K reviews

3.0

Mar 4, 2022

You can't always get what you want

Matching specialist

Recommend

CEO approval

Business Outlook

Pros

The EF community is great! Pre-COVID we had a lot of fun in the office for happy hours, kick offs, and holidays.

Cons

The culture is great but when COVID took that all away, you were left with the harsh realty of the company's overall failures. It felt like the Hult family had one thing in mind when COVID hit- protect themselves and their wealth. Managers were over worked, staff was forced to work major overtime with no relief in site. Sure, it's horrible being a travel based company in a global pandemic but there was more they could have done to care about their employees. Example: it took A YEAR for the Boston office to offer employees the option to pick up their office belongings and offer to borrow an office chair to use while we worked from home- any stipend for home equipment- FORGET IT. Pre-covid when they built the new Hult college campus, EF employees suffered at the hands of the students- mostly wealthy international students. Just another example of putting profit over people. The most obvious failure is how low EF salaries are compared to the same positions in the market. That's a whole other story that I'm sure you're already aware of. Look, if you're a college kid looking for a taste of corporate life, EF may be a place to start. Don't make the mistake of getting too comfortable- this isn't a place to stay for too long.

EF (Education First) Response

4y

Thank you for sharing your review. We are happy to hear you enjoy the EF community and the fun we all have together. COVID impacted our industry and organization greatly and we learned a lot about how to navigate a changing work environment and support our team members. We continue to review our compensation structure regularly to ensure we are offering a competitive package within our industry. Thanks again for taking the time to leave us a review. We always want to improve, and your comments are invaluable in helping us do that.

3.0

May 25, 2021

Continuation of high school

Tour consultant

Recommend

CEO approval

Business Outlook

Pros

Professional development opportunities Travel opportunities (working) It’s a good place to go for a year or two right out of college to gain experience - just don’t stay longer.

Cons

Very low compensation (salary is 40k, and bonus is hard to hit) Pressured in working longer hours (when in office, leaving at 5:30 is looked down upon) Work life balance is not a thing Sales directors can be bullies. Hope that you get a good manager. Everyone gossips about everyone Favoritism No future at company / no way to move up They don’t care to retain good talent Stressful Will never allow long term work from home / flexible work schedules. If you’re not extraverted you won’t do well here - must be the loudest person in the room in order to receive recognition.

EF (Education First) Response

5y

Thank you for your feedback. I'm glad you were able to take advantage of the professional development and travel opportunities during your time at EF, but I'm sorry you walked away from your time here with negative feelings. We do not tolerate bullying at any level of the organization. Please email hr@ef.com to connect with a member of our team about your experience - we take this feedback very seriously. I'd also like to share that while most of EF Boston will remain remote this summer, we have offered flexible options for those who wish to return to the office sooner, as well as a workplace flexibility plan for people to keep a hybrid schedule once normal office operations resume. This is an exciting new phase for EF. Lastly, I want to reassure you that EF cares deeply about retaining good talent in all forms, and we will continue to work to be the best employer we can possibly be for all of our staff. That's why feedback like yours is so helpful. Thank you.

1.0

Apr 18, 2021

You are worth so much more.

Operations

Recommend

CEO approval

Business Outlook

Pros

There are still some really amazing people working there. I hope for their sake that the company makes it.

Cons

Leaving this place is such a relief. After spending sleepless nights as an on-call 'emergency expert' and still being expected to show up for day shifts, being discouraged from talking about salary with my peers, and working from a dangerously broken laptop, I finally remembered my own value as a person and an employee and was able to find work with a better company. If you're a skilled worker, I promise your value will be better recognized, utilized, and compensated at any other company. If you're straight out of college or in dire need of work, this place will be tempting. I made this mistake for you, and after about 2.5 years and 3 different roles, I'd advise you to look elsewhere. Current 'diversity' initiatives are extremely lacking and require staff to 'brainstorm' on makeshift 'task forces' without any actual structural or culture changes. I literally had to personally confront a manager (who later, ironically, led one of these task forces) about a profile picture they had in blackface. If you are part of the BIPOC or LGBTQIA+ communities, don't trust this place. They do NOT have your back and you will be asked to 'educate' the majority white, cis, straight staff under the guise of 'professional development.' Take a look at the company responses on other 1-star reviews here - that is the exact tone and attitude you can expect from the recruitment and development team. I wish I had better things to say - I pretended to be happy here for too long. The fact that selling group tours to senior citizens during a global pandemic feels incredibly unethical is never acknowledged. I do hope your experience is better than mine, but this place is in dire need of fundamental structural change.

EF (Education First) Response

5y

I want to thank you for taking the time to share this feedback and can assure you that we take it to heart. I'm sorry you had such a negative experience at EF. As for our diversity efforts, we have work to do, and we are committed to doing the work. We never intend to burden our BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ community members with educating the rest of our population, so I appreciate you sharing that experience. A lot of incredible professional development content has originated from our Employee Resource Groups (EFinity groups) - we're grateful that so many members of the EF community have come forward and volunteered their time in that way. We have also brought in consultants and educators from outside EF to train on topics like Unconscious bias, Understanding Racism, and manager trainings focused on DEIB. As an education company, we know how important professional development will be in our efforts to create a truly diverse and inclusive workplace. As for your comment about the manager's profile picture, I'm very concerned about that - if you're willing, we would appreciate if you would share more details with us at HR@ef.com so we can properly investigate. The pandemic has made this past year and a half a challenge for us. All along, we have focused on following CDC recommendations, keeping our customers safe, and providing flexibility that allowed our customers who wanted to plan for future travel to protect their investment in the process. We are grateful to see the light at the end of the tunnel now and look forward to resuming more travel. Once again, I thank you for your time and I wish you all the best in your future endeavors.

Viewing 112 - 114 of 4,611 Reviews

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