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EF (Education First)

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Great place to work short term - Tour Consultant EF (Education First) Employee Review

3.0
Jan 3, 2021
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

-Travel. In a non-COVID world, you get to travel at a minimum of once a year. The longer you are there, the more you get to travel. -People. Those who work at EF are driven, diverse, excited, and friendly. They are incredible and make great teammates and friends. Everyone gets along really well. -Fun! There are lots of events put on by RED and other employees. They focus heavily on a “work hard, play hard” culture and the events are well attended and fully stocked with beer and food. -Training. Their training program for the TC role is incredible and so in depth. Even after your initial training, you continue to learn and get feedback often. Many people who leave EF say that EF gave them a great foundation to be a strong salesperson and made them a competitive hire. -Insurance. Their benefits are great. -Kate Berseth (President) is amazing. She truly cares about what Tour Consultants want and need and focuses on them as well as the overall state of the business.

Cons

-Turnover is astronomically high. Many reasons being pay, but particularly in Denver, once you become a Senior TC, you have basically climbed the ladder. Unless you are willing to relocate, you have no room for growth in the Den office. If you want to stay a TC, there are plenty more opportunities but do not come with any sort of pay increase. -Workload is unsustainable and inadequate compared to pay. Old systems result in additional time and steps to get simple tasks done. The job can be extremely taxing and it is common to get the recommendation to “come into the office on the weekend” when you feel overwhelmed and share that with mgmt and others. -Goals are set by mgmt without much reasoning for how they are set. Goals do not reset quarterly and instead continue to increase, so if you are behind one month, you get even more behind the next. -Lots of uncertainty during COVID. To a degree, this is understandable given the inherent decline in the travel industry, but the problem lies in upper management continuing to share their optimism for the future of the business with no evidence to support their claims. All in all, EF is a great place to work in your twenties, learn how to be a great salesperson/account manager, and then take that knowledge to another company that will pay you what you are worth.

Explore other reviews about EF (Education First)

5.0
Apr 22, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Good training, good communication especially for a remote position, flexible, great management

Cons

Scheduling and staffing effectively could be challenging due to unpredictable nature of emergency response, which caused both understaffed shifts and overstaffed shifts. In addition, phone-based customer service can be emotionally challenging - customers in stressful situations can often be difficult to deal with.

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EF (Education First) Response
2mo
Hearing that the training, communication, and management stood out, especially in a remote setting, is really meaningful. Thank you for sharing! As you mentioned, the nature of emergency response is inherently unpredictable. Our phone-based support in high stress situations can be central to defining the experience for travelers, and the people who handle it are a big part of that. We’re proud of the team you were part of and hope the skills you built here continue to serve you well.
1.0
Jul 7, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Well structured, comprehensive formal training. Perks and benefits

Cons

Once training is done, you’re pretty much on your own to figure things out. The weekly meetings with your manager end. You spend all day on the phones and there’s not a whole lot of interaction or collaboration going on in the office or across your team. At the end of the day it is a job and the perks and benefits are nice (travel). It just seemed social interaction of any kind, even to ask questions, was discouraged and in fact was viewed as distracting. The cold calling just gets to be tiring after a while, making it hard to stay at the job for longer than 1-2 years. Good entry level sales job, though.

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