Ashley Chiasson, M.Ed

Instructional Designer & Consultant

Getting Started

Top 3 Instructional Design Interview Tips

You’ve been hunting for an Instructional Design gig and have finally secured an interview – congratulations! Here are some of my top Instructional Design interview tips – I hope they help, and be sure to comment below if you have any other questions.

Note: I’ve been a panel member on hiring committees for many Instructional Designers throughout my career, so these tips come based on things I’ve learned from interviewing others as well as interviewing for positions myself.

1.Be Able to Talk the Talk (and back it up)

Having a formal background in education (e.g., Bachelor of Education, Masters of Education, or diploma/certificate related to Instructional Design) doesn’t hurt and will definitely provide you with a leg up on other applicants who are without such education, but it’s not necessary. Many Instructional Designers are accidental and have become successful in their roles through on-the-job training. If that’s you’re situation, don’t let that deter you from applying to positions!

The key here, regardless of your education, is to be able to talk the talk, and back it up. What do I mean by that? Most Instructional Design interviews I’ve been a part of ask questions related to learning theories, Instructional Design processes, and instructional strategies. These are things that as an Instructional Designer you will use daily, but likely subconsciously, so before you head into an interview, brush up on things like:

  • Blooms Taxonomy
  • Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
  • Behaviourism/Cognitivism/Constructivism
  • Rapid Prototyping/Storyboarding
  • How you work through Instructional Design projects (step-by-step)

If you’re new to Instructional Design or need to brush up on the theory, check out Essentials of Instructional Design, a 10-module comprehensive course covering the end-to-end process of Instructional Design.

2.Have a Portfolio

I’ve been beating a dead horse for YEARS about the necessity of having a portfolio. Even if you don’t do much in terms of development, you can showcase different elements of your Instructional Design career, such as storyboards, graphics, etc. If you do development, showcase samples of projects you’ve built out. Very few interviewees I’ve encountered have had a prepared portfolio ready to go, and most roles I’ve encountered now request one.

A portfolio will definitely boost your chances of securing a gig, because you’re not just talking about things you’ve done, you’re showing them! You’re providing proof that you’re an exceptional Instructional Designer, and that you’re not just fluffing yourself up.

I won’t drone on about portfolios, but if you want to learn more, check out some of my previous posts:

2.Do Some Research!

This could be research related to Instructional Design or just the organization or institution you’re interviewing at. I’ve been floored by interviewees you can’t answer basic questions (or even muster trying to answer the questions) about the organization/institution or why they want to work for the organization/institution. Coming in for any role unprepared really doesn’t do yourself any favours. Some applicants will be able to answer these questions (to the best of their abilities) and it will make them look more desirable than those who come unprepared.

In terms of Instructional Design, I would recommend also researching some recent studies or industry articles so that you’re familiar with things that are going on in the industry and/or are more familiar with current terminology (especially important if you’re applying for your next Instructional Design role after working within the same role for many years).

E-Learning Advice: Where to Find Work

Outside of “How do I get started?”, the next most populous question I receive is “Where can I find work/jobs/contracts?”, and I’ve written a couple of posts on this in the past:

  1. Where to Find Freelance Instructional Design Gigs
  2. Update: Where to Find Freelance Instructional Design Gigs

Both of these posts are certainly worth the review though, because I’m going to regurgitate some of the information in this post (and offer some other resources). However, before you can look for work, you need a portfolio of some sort because the potential clients…they’re going to ask you for one!

If you don’t yet have a portfolio, I’ve talked a lot about building them, and even have a free course: Build Your E-Learning Portfolio – check it out! It’s updated periodically, so if you’re enrolled, you’ll get an email blast whenever something’s been added or changed.

Word to the wise: If you want an Instructional Design or E-Learning job, you need to have something to show potential clients you’re capable of doing. So, stop making excuses for your lack of portfolio and just take the time to get something together! When you look prepared, you also look more professional/marketable.

Okay. Enough preaching, Ashley. On with the post!

Referrals

Referrals are still where I find most of my work lately, and I’m still flattered by each and every referral. Once you’ve established yourself within Instructional Design/E-Learning communities, and you begin promoting the work of others while also promoting your own work, the referrals will begin to trickle in. But the key to these referrals is participation within communities, on social media, etc. You need to make yourself known in order for people to know you’re available for work.

And don’t be selfish! Referrals are cyclical, so ensure you’re referring to others when you’re swamped and unable to accept work.

Job Boards

For Instructional Design or E-Learning gigs, I find the most relevant job boards to be:

Outside of these job boards, you can sift through craigslist.org for work, which can yield good results, but is a bit more tedious.

Your Website

Next to referrals, most of my inquiries funnel through this website. This is great, especially if you’re busy working on contracts and don’t have admin time to dedicate to hustling for more contracts. There are a few keys here:

  1. Build a website, and if you don’t know how to do so, hire it out. While an initial cost, it will pay for itself.
  2. Include some sort of portfolio on your website (even if it’s not the most up to date).
  3. Include a contact section. THIS is critical. Prospective clients won’t contact you if they don’t know how to do so.

Social Media

If you’re an Instructional Designer or E-Learning professional (or hope to be one someday), you’re looking for work, and you’re not active on either Twitter or LinkedIn, get on both of those platforms.

A lot of work-related inquiries will happen on both of these social media platforms, but unless you’re active and have a relevant profile, they will not be of much value.

Another ‘social media’ type of community I would recommend is the Instructional Design Sub-Reddit; there’s a lot of great advice in that community, but there are also occasional job postings. Be present on many platforms and you’ll increase your ability to be seen and/or hired.

Bid Sites

Lastly, I will include bid sites. I now consider these sites a last resort, only because I believe there is a lot of effort involved for little pay off. Now, this is where I got my start, but not where I felt the most valued. Of all the bid sites, the one that I would consider most worthwhile, and where I believe you will be compensated fairly (in most cases) is: UpWork.

But even on this site, you’ll need to put in your dues. A lot of employers will specify a percentile of quality that they want in their applicants, and to achieve these quality ratings, you need prior work through the site with employers who may not be offering your goal compensation. Often times you’ll need to work some of these smaller contracts in order to increase your profile clout to succeed in winning larger contracts.

3 Tips to Become a Successful E-Learning Freelancer

People are always asking me how to get their foot in the door of the e-learning freelance game, so it seemed only appropriate to put together some tips for becoming a successful e-learning freelancer.

1.  Build a Portfolio!

I’ve written and spoken about the importance of building a portfolio MANY times, but it still never ceases to amaze me how many people making these inquiries about freelancing do not have a portfolio. I understand the reasons why, but they’re just excuses. Get it done. Here are some of my previous posts on portfolio building:

2. Diversify, but also Align Yourself

Diversity is great, but if you aren’t aligning yourself to the work you want to receive, you’re going to get overwhelmed very quickly. The key here is to choose the types of work you want to do, and then include samples aligned to that work in your portfolio. Being diverse doesn’t mean you need to work across authoring tools – doing that is fine, but it can also hamper your workflow and be a bit more inefficient.

Maintain a portfolio of diverse pieces (e.g. different industries or subject matter), but be strategic.

For example, I do development almost exclusively in Articulate Storyline, and that’s because I know that in order to be my most efficient e-learning developing self, I need to stick to one tool that I know and love. Otherwise, I’m going to get cranky when things take too long to develop, and when my workflow has a wrench thrown into it. I’m capable of working in many other tools, but I often do it begrudgingly.

Find Your People!

And by that, I don’t necessarily mean ‘find your audience’. Your audience will likely be prospective clients. When I started this blog, it was more of a place to toss up and maintain a portfolio. I quickly found that my audience here is other Instructional Designers and E-Learning Developers. Not clients.  You need clients and colleagues. Clients will help you get paid (directly), colleagues will serve as an enormous resource, a social saviour, and may help you get paid (indirectly – through referrals). Don’t hang out in an e-learning silo. Even if you’re working independently, you can look for community. If you live in a climate that has terrible winters, you will understand the importance of this statement.

I’ve written some posts in the past about where to find freelance e-learning gigs:

Here’s a good one on where to find your community (or communities):

Instructional Designer Origin Story

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The lovely Kristin Anthony interviewed me last week for her podcast, Dear Instructional Designer (which is bananas – thank you, so much!). After our recorded session, we had a little informal chat about my path, and she asked something to the effect of ‘have you ever blogged about that journey?’. I had to think about it for a moment, because I’ve blogged about it a lot but in several different posts, so it’s a bit disjointed. In any event, I figured I would take the time to let my readers know about the path I took to get from novice Instructional Designer to my present day self…maybe it will become my origin story and I’ll get paid as much as Hugh Jackman in Wolverine…maybe I’m delusional?

Like many, my road to Instructional Design was accidental. I had just graduated with a BA in Linguistics and Psychology, my friend (a former K-12 teacher) told me her company was hiring and that they needed warm bodies and she thought I was smart enough, so I interviewed and got the job (which I’m pretty sure was because the VP at the time was super impressed with my background in Linguistics, thinking I spoke multiple languages…a moment in my life where staying silent was a good thing).

I slogged around there for about 5/6 years, in a training company with very little training, worked on a lot of really cool projects, met a lot of great people (many of whom I still play softball with each year), and completed my Masters of Education (Post-Secondary Studies). At the time, I had freelanced a bit, but it was bumpy.

Initially, my goal was to pay off my student debt, so I took on really random projects (proofreading PhD thesis, transcribing audio interviews, etc.) that I really felt kind of gross about – some were alright, but many were a huge rip off. When I paid off my student debt, I vowed off freelancing, because that was a horrible experience. After about a year or so, I went back to the freelance game, but with a target in mind of providing Instructional Design and e-learning development services. After cultivating a small regular client base, I jumped corporate ship and haven’t really looked back since.

One of my early contracts was with the university I now work at full-time. Yes – I’m not a full-time business woman in the grand scheme of things, but my passion was higher education, so I couldn’t really turn down an offer of full-time employment at a university. Since accepting that offer, I’ve scaled back my business in terms of which contracts I choose to work on, but believe me, I’m still as busy as ever, essentially working two full-time jobs, but I love what I do!

Working in an academic environment is a very interesting experience, much different than working with military personnel, but that’s for another post…

Working two full-time gigs is rewarding because I get my fill of analysis, design, implementation, and evaluation at the university, where my role is predominantly project management, but independently, I get to work develop e-learning for clients that I really love working for! It’s the best of both worlds. In the last year, I’ve been able to take my business in a more strategic direction. Instead of working full-time and having 20+ contracts a year, I’m working full-time at the university and full-time for my business, but I’m working with much fewer clients with more repeat business. It’s been great!

That takes me to present day – I’m getting ready to hit up some professional development opportunities at ATD ICE (for my independent professional development), and CAUCE-CNIE (for my institutional-self), so if you’re at either of those conferences and run into me, please say hello and ask me anything you want to ask! I won’t promise to have all the answers, but I’ll try to be as helpful as possible.

Update: Where to Find Freelance Instructional Design Gigs

About a year and a half ago, I wrote about where to find freelance instructional design gigs, and my experience with each of the mediums discussed. The lovely Christy Tucker (-swoon- I’m fan-girling over here ya’ll) recently gave this post a shout-out in a presentation as being a helpful resource, which reminded me that I really should update my list. So, now I’m here to provide an update with additional resources, because I have since found clients (or had them find me) through some other channels.

Bid Sites

For starters, in the last post, I discussed Odesk.com and Elance.com, these sites have since merged and exist under the umbrella company Upwork.com. I no longer haunt these sites looking for new contracts. Why? Because I don’t like the concept of bidding on projects. Sure – it might be for some, and I definitely dabbled in my fare share of bid sites when I was starting out, but I would compare them to Tinder (that ‘dating’ app) in terms of how icky it the concept behind the site makes me feel. Using these sites, I felt like I wasn’t being valued for my experience and expertise, but instead my ability to compete with other bidders…and let’s face it–I’ve never been a competitive person.

Action Steps: Take it or leave it; they’re a great place to go if you’re just starting out, but can leave you a little icky feeling as you progress through your freelance career.

E-Learning Heroes Community and Job Board

I’m still active within the E-Learning Heroes community (and will be until it ceases to exist), and always encourage instructional designers and/or e-learning develops participate in the community; especially when it comes to building your portfolio. The ELH community is a great place to showcase your work, share your knowledge, and help others…so in turn, it is also a fantastic place for potential clients to headhunt you! You just never know who’s lurking among the forum posts. Be generous with your participation and sharing, and someone will surely notice.

One of my best long-term contractors found me through the ELH community and sub-contracted work to me over a year ago, and we have been working together, for a client I feel good about doing work for, ever since!

Recently-ish, the good folks at Articulate added a Job Board, and you need to go there and bookmark that page right now, because there are new jobs posted every week (and sometimes everyday) that you should really check out!

Action Steps: Participate in the ELH community (especially the weekly challenges), and lurk that job board!

Referrals

Referrals are now where I find most of my clients, which is awesome! It means that people in the e-learning community think I’m doing good work and feel comfortable referring me to work with their colleagues, or referring their clients to me to do overflow work when they’re too busy to do it themselves. For this method, sharing really is caring. So whenever I experience overflow, I am quick to forward my clients to many qualified instructional designers.

Referrals are truly a form of flattery, and for that reason, it’s how I prefer to find new clients these days.

Action Steps: Share your knowledge, participate in like-minded communities, refer others, and karma will return the favour!

Social Media

The results of participating in social media is similar to that of referrals because it often leads to referrals! I’ve found a lot of clients through FaceBook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and have even been recruited by several clients on LinkedIn. Social media is definitely where your new-age clients are hanging out. There are great Twitter chats out there (Guild Chat, Chat2Lrn), and a fantastic sub-reddit related to all things instructional design.

Action Steps: Participate in social media spheres, but participate in a meaningful way. Don’t spam your Twitterfeed with archived posts from your website. Be a giver! Promote others and they’ll likely promote you!

My Website

I wrote about finding clients through my website in the first iteration of this post, and it’s still producing a steady stream of work and/or business inquiries. Most inquiries reference my contributions in the E-Learning Heroes community (as explanation for how they found me), but many reference my portfolio and certain work in the portfolio that appealed to them. Why am I talking about this again? Because if you want your clients to come to you, you need to get a website and/or portfolio, and show them what you can do! Oh! And don’t forget — make sure you communicate effectively to ensure potential clients know how to contact you and can do so easily. I use a WordPress plugin for my contact form. It makes life easy.

Action Steps: Build a website (or have someone build one for you), include a portfolio of some sort, and include contact information.

Again, I hope this post was informative, and if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask! I’ll do my best to provide you with an appropriate response.

Freelance Advice Round-Up #1

Over the past couple of years, I’ve written and spoken frequently on the topic of freelancing and independent contracting. After presenting on How to Become a Successful Freelancer at the Articulate Community Roadshow 2015: Toronto, I had a lot of questions that involved things I learned through doing (e.g. sending my first invoice, drafting a contract, etc.). In an effort to respond to these questions, I’ll be starting a new blog post series!

The series should go live next week, so stay tuned, but in the meantime, here is a collection of some of my most popular blog posts where I become your Freelancer Sensei and impart all of my wisdom:

Take a look through those posts and let me know if you have any pressing questions – just leave those in the comments section; I’ll address them, I promise! And don’t forget to pop back frequently next week when the new post series goes live.