... and now I'm job-hunting in earnest and jfcsstrrssfgchujbgfryhgftyhgerswww. I hope this is the right place to vent about this sort of thing, but I'm feeling so incredibly stressed and frustrated because I really want to change careers (TEFL teaching is a dead end, and the conditions have got so much worse in recent years) and I know I could do a junior frontend job perfectly well — I've put so much with into getting good at it in my own time — but it's beginning to dawn on me that there's basically no way in to the industry unless you know someone who can help you get a foot in the door.
I don't know where I'm going with this tbh — I just needed to vent somewhere — but it would be nice to hear any advice anyone can offer, or even just the lamentations of anyone with similar experiences...
So this problem may be local to Spain, but over the last fifteen years there has been a huge change in the industry, with everything consolidating into these huge, HR-driven companies. The era of small academies wasn't perfect, but they were generally friendly, family-run places whose strategy was to deliver a good service. The new model is about getting people in and out the door, and monetizing propriety materials — which are increasingly AI-generated. Oh and pay is stagnant or worse.
There has been a change in the profile of student too — from people driven by a desire for personal enrichment and just enjoyment (no-one has the spare cash for that anymore) to people who need to pass a particular exam for work.
There's also the timetable — split shifts every day, all but ensuring that you never see your kids. That isn't new, but there used to be enough demand that you could piece something together as a freelance.
Thank you for elaborating.