Semiconductor nanowires (NWs) have shown robust hot carrier effects due to their small dimensions. Here, we study the cooling mechanisms of hot electrons in the time domain via transient absorption spectroscopy. Probe energies below the bandgap are used to determine the evolution of the carrier effective mass while probe energies above the bandgap track the conduction band occupation. From excitation intensity dependent measurements, we confirm that electron-hole interactions are a major cooling channel at large carrier density, given the high ratio of mh/me of InAs. Our experiments indicate that this cooling channel is amplified in passivated core-shell NWs. We associate this effect with spatial carrier separation caused by Fermi-level pinning in unpassivated NWs. In core-shell NWs, bands are considerably more flat which increases radiative recombination and electron-hole scattering with the latter cooling the hot electron population. Our results highlight the advantages of carrier separation if high carrier densities are to be used for hot phonon bottlenecks.