Teamed Career Resources Board
Teamed has collected a number of resources for helping instructional designers and others in related roles develop their careers. This includes training, degree programs, resources, coaching, credentials, and more.
2025 Learning and Development Work and Salary Survey - Blue Eskimo
Salary survey with additional questions about satisfaction and outlook. The respondents for this survey are mostly in the UK, and I appreciate having a different source to point to since most of my other sources are USA-focused.
Talent Stacking For An Instructional Design Career
Connie Malamed explains the concept of talent stacking, or building competence in multiple skills that work well together. She provides some lists of competences for L&D roles as examples of the kinds of talent stacking that might work.
Career Tips All Women Should Know - Scissortail Creative Services, LLC
Kayleen Holt recaps the TLDC Women of L&D 2023 event with a summary of key points addressed in multiple sessions. Reading this article may help you determine how to prioritize which recordings from the event you want to watch.
Transform Your Trashy Teacher Resume
A real life example of a former teacher's resume and how she revamped it to successfully get a job in instructional design. Great to see the before and after as well as the notes on the decisions behind the changes.
How to Become an Instructional Designer: The Ultimate Resource List - Scissortail Creative Services, LLC
An extensive list of curated resources for becoming an instructional designer, including blog posts, videos, books, and people to follow on Twitter. There's a section specifically for teachers looking to transition to an ID career too. (Yes, my ID careers posts are on the list, but there's a ton of other good stuff from other people too).
Instructional Design Hiring Manager Report 2021
Devlin Peck summarizes and analyzes responses from 101 hiring managers surveyed about what factors influence their decisions when evaluating instructional design and elearning candidates.
Teachers in Need of a New Career Path: Think Instructional Design
Article from a graduate of the IDOL academy on how and why to transition from teaching to instructional design
Finding Your Place In an Instructional Design Career
"Instructional design" is a big umbrella that can mean different things in different organizations. This post describes a number of options for the focus of instructional design and related roles.
Go Design Something: Building Your Job-Winning Portfolio
Kristin Anthony's free course on building an instructional design portfolio
Survival Tips for Learning Professionals | LinkedIn
5 tips from Alexander Salas for how to get a job as an instructional designer or elearning developer (although these apply to other fields too):
- Have a website
- Continuously develop new skills
- Have daily social media presence
- Develop work samples
- Keep up with your industry
TLDC Countdown to Conference: Pre-Planning Your Professional Developm…
Trish Uhl presentation on career paths and skill development for learning professionals
10 Great Jobs Where You Can Work Completely from Home - Business Insider
Curriculum developer, online teacher, and SME are on their list. If we're designing learning that can be delivered virtually, there's no reason that we shouldn't be working virtually too. I wish more companies would see the benefit of this and allow more WFH.
7 Questions You Need To Answer Before Becoming A Full Time eLearning Freelancer - eLearning Industry
Things to consider for those wanting to make the leap to freelance work
Why the Former Teacher May be Your Next Star Employee – Part II | James L. Simers
Comparing ATD's list of core competencies to the skills teachers already have. Teachers who want to switch careers might find this helpful for figuring out how to speak the language of business and explain how their skills transfer
KeelWorks - Learning to live: Living to Learn
KeelWorks is a non-profit that regularly engages ID interns. Right now it's a 12-14 week unpaid program for 5 hours a week. It's a good way for people to get some experience before their first ID job.
Articulate - Word of Mouth Blog - 5 Tips to Launch Your Career as an E-Learning Freelancer
Summary of tips from the Articulate freelancer community
1. Find your focus.
2. Save some money first.
3. Set up an online base of operations.
<strong>4. Create an online portfolio.</strong>
5. Track your time.
Answers To Instructional Design Career Questions
Connie Malamed shares her answers to a number of ID career questions she's received from readers, including transitioning from teaching, getting a second master's degree or certificate, and getting a first job in ID.
Definitely Not One-Size-Fits-All: Learning and Development Job Titles — TheWorkSocial
A large list of job titles in the L&D world. This might be helpful for people job searching to have some other phrases and terms to look for.
Updated list 2014: http://theworksocial.com/blog/2014/4/25/learning-and-development-job-titles-2014
5 Essential Qualifications to Look for in an Instructional Designer | WPLMS
Justin Ferriman's list of ID qualifications. I disagree with almost everything on his list. Justin misunderstands the role of IDs and thinks we need to be mini-SMEs with industry experience so we don't "annoy" SMEs with our questions. I've written a lengthy comment rebutting his arguments.
Excuses for Not Having a Portfolio | Ileighanne's Blog
List of common excuses IDs give for not having a portfolio, with responses and solutions. There's a list of portfolio resources at the end of the post.
The eLearning Guild Publishes 2012 Global eLearning Salary & Compensation by Bill Brandon : Learning Solutions Magazine
Summary of the salary report (salaries declined slightly) and a calculator where you can enter variables and see a baseline salary.
The 2011 Non-Official Global eLearning Guild Salary & Compensation Calculator — Travis's Thoughts
Calculator based on the data from the eLearning Guild salary survey report. Choose your variables and see the average salary.
Online Education for Instructional Designers: Picking the Right Program by Lorna Collier : Learning Solutions Magazine
Learning Solutions Magazine article on online education programs for instructional designers. Compares certificates to masters degrees and PhDs. Includes ideas on how to pick a program that is the right fit for you. The table at the end with a list of schools, programs, and costs is very helpful.
Joining The eLearning Tribe: The eLearning Coach
Tips on how to enter the field of e-learning or instructional design, with ideas for networking, job searching, and improving your skills
Cammy Bean's Learning Visions: What’s Your Experience? ID Degree or Certificate Program
Check the comments for responses from people who have ID degrees or certificates and share their thoughts
Interviews with Designers - Christy Tucker
My interview with the UW-Stout ID certificate students in March 2010. Students contributed possible questions on a wiki, then decided as a group what the top questions would be for me to answer.
Custom E-Learning Training & LMS Solutions Kineo - New Skills for Instructional Designers
Slides from a presentation on ID skills, specifically at the intersection of instructional design and IT. Especially interesting were the comparisons of word clouds from descriptions of graduate programs in ID with word clouds from ID job descriptions.
Kapp Notes: Accidental Instructional Designers May Want to Just Say No
Karl Kapp revisits the value of instructional design degrees, arguing that people who accidentally find themselves in the field should decline to develop learning until they've been trained. Karl also identifies what he feels is the most important skill instructional designers should have.
So, to me, the most important skill an instructional designer can have is being able to apply instructional strategies. To know when to use a mnemonic and when to use an analogy. When to model the behavior to be learned and when to provide a check list. When <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructivism_%28learning_theory%29" target="blank">Constructivism </a>is a good theorietical underpinning for a topic and when a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitivism_%28psychology%29" target="blank">Cognitivism</a>-based approach is necessary. <br>
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Instructional designers add value by serving as catalyst who accelerate the process of learning for individuals.
Learning Visions: Accidental Instructional Designers #dl09
Notes on a DevLearn session on how people got into instructional design and what they feel are the important skills. Out of 25+ IDs, only 2 had advanced degrees in ID.