Devlin Peck
So, you're wondering how to become an instructional designer. Congratulations! Instructional design is a satisfying, lucrative career, and there's an ever-growing need for competent instructional designers.
This comprehensive guide will help you tick all of the right boxes and land your first instructional design job. I recommend bookmarking this page and returning to it as needed to guide you along your journey to becoming an instructional designer.
Now let's explore what an instructional designer is, what an instructional designer does, and why you may want to become one, then we'll dive into the specifics of exactly how to become an instructional designer.
You've heard the term "instructional designer," but you're probably still wondering exactly what an instructional designer does.
Instructional designers create effective, engaging learning experiences. They draw on best practices from education, design, psychology, systems theory, and creative writing to create eLearning, face-to-face workshops, job aids, and other performance support solutions.
While trainers or teachers deliver instruction to a live audience, instructional designers work behind the scenes. Instructional designers collaborate with subject matter experts (SMEs) to design and often develop the learning experience, but they rarely deliver it to a live audience themselves.
In this short video, I talk more about what instructional design is:
Instructional designers report high job satisfaction, earn above-average salaries, and enjoy good work-life balance.
If this career aligns with your interests and you feel confident that you can learn the skillset (which we'll cover in this article), then you should definitely consider pursuing it.
Here are some additional facts that demonstrate why instructional design is a promising career:
Learn more about instructional design salaries in this short video:
Some instructional designers have discussed feeling a lack of purpose, and this is likely felt most often in corporate roles where designers are expected to churn out eLearning.
If helping people is important to you, then you can probably find a fulfilling role with an intentional job search. I found purpose in this field by producing content for other designers, and you can learn more about finding purpose as an instructional designer in this video:
In today's world, the position "instructional designer" has come to represent a wide array of job tasks and responsibilities.
Most often, instructional designers interview SMEs, write instructional content, create storyboards, and then develop the storyboards into interactive eLearning experiences. They may also develop job aids, facilitator guides, slide decks, and other learning deliverables.
However, instructional designers at different organizations can have vastly different workloads or job tasks. Let's consider some of the most common ways to differentiate between the tasks that instructional designers perform.
In the corporate world, instructional designers (IDs) spend much of their time using eLearning authoring tools to build interactive eLearning courses.
Almost every large corporation has their version of a corporate university filled with eLearning courses, and they need instructional designers to help create these courses. Turnaround times are quick and processes are likely well-documented.
In higher education, instructional designers spend much of their time in meetings and helping faculty members convert face-to-face courses into online offerings. They may also help faculty maintain their existing courses.
Also, rather than using rapid eLearning authoring tools, higher education instructional designers develop and modify courses in a learning management system (LMS), such as Blackboard or Canvas.
Government IDs often perform tasks similar to corporate IDs, but note that an ID's tasks will depend on the role and the organization. These are just the general differences.
Another way to distinguish between the daily tasks of an instructional designer is to consider whether they work in-house for a single company or for a vendor that serves multiple clients.
In-house instructional designers support either the employees at their company or their company's customers. Imagine working at Apple, Amazon, Walmart, or any other company with a purpose other than to design and develop training for a range of clients.
Instructional designers who work for eLearning vendors will help develop eLearning for the vendor's clients. Examples of vendors are AllenComm, SweetRush, and Kineo.
At external vendors, instructional designers are more likely to have differentiated roles. Performance consultants may conduct the analysis, instructional designers may design the instruction, and eLearning developers may convert the instruction into an interactive online experience.
When working in-house, instructional designers are often expected to wear all of these hats (and sometimes more, such as LMS administration and program evaluation).
The daily tasks of a self-employed instructional designer may look quite different from those of a full-time instructional designer.
Some self-employed instructional designers take up long-term contract work, so while they're technically "self-employed," they may be expected to work 40 hours per week for a single company.
Other self-employed instructional designers work remotely for multiple clients at any given time on a freelance basis. This arrangement allows them to choose which projects to take on and set their own schedules.
However, when you're self-employed, you're running a small business. Self-employed instructional designers must market their services, pay self-employment taxes, pay for their own healthcare, negotiate contracts, manage client expectations, invoice for their services, and so much more.
Full-time instructional designers do not need to worry about the "running a business" side of things, but they often will not experience the same degree of freedom or earning potential as their self-employed counterparts.
This article focuses exclusively on developing the skillset necessary to work as an instructional designer and land your first instructional design job. If you're interested in learning more about freelancing or growing a small agency, then you should join the ID community to discuss this with hundreds of successful freelancers (myself included).
If you're learning about instructional design for the first time, then you're likely wondering whether it's a good fit for you.
As an instructional designer, you're constantly learning. You're mastering new technology, learning about new industries, or diving deep into a subject matter expert's expertise.
You then use this knowledge and skill to design and develop engaging learning experiences that help people do their jobs better (or learn something new more efficiently and effectively).
So, if you like writing, working with tech, working with people, and helping people learn, then instructional design will likely be a good fit for you.
Many instructional designers have great work-life balance, relatively relaxed work environments, and decent salaries. In other words, if you want a job that pays well and doesn't bleed into your personal life, then ID may be a great fit.
However, due to the current state of corporate L&D, it can be difficult for you to make a real impact in your audience's lives. Since many training programs are commissioned by a manager or executive who did not determine whether training will even help solve the problem, many learning projects lead to wasted time and money.
This results in an audience that tries to complete the learning experience as quickly as possible just to check a box. So, if you're looking to make a real difference in the world and see the impact of your work, then you may need to be pickier when searching for the right instructional design job.
You can learn more about whether instructional design is right for you in this live Q&A replay.
As far as the corporate space is concerned, hiring managers are looking for instructional designers who can apply instructional design theory and science, communicate well, and develop eLearning in rapid authoring tools.
There are many people trying to enter the field right now, so experience in a related field and a well-crafted resume is not enough to make you stand out in the job search.
However, by showing hiring managers that you can use the necessary technology and apply adult learning principles to create engaging learning experiences, you can make yourself competitive for most instructional design jobs available today.
If you'd like to read the full instructional design hiring manager report where 101 hiring managers share their insights about how they evaluate applicants, feel free to check that out before continuing with this guide.
Once you know whether or not an instructional design role would be a good fit for your passion and skillset, it's time to work towards landing a great instructional design job.
Here's how to become an instructional designer:
And that's all there is to it! I've turned these recommendations into a step-by-step "become an instructional designer" checklist:
Now let's explore how to become an instructional designer in more detail.
Since instructional design is interdisciplinary by nature, instructional designers must draw on research from visual design, educational psychology, education, neuroscience, user experience design, and instructional design itself.
This section covers some of the most common psychology theories, design principles, and instructional methodologies that employers expect you to discuss in interviews and use on the job.
However, this list is not exhaustive. Reputable Master's programs will cover the theory in much more detail, and we will discuss graduate programs later in this article.
Let's get started.
If you're new to the world of instructional design, then you should read more about ADDIE. ADDIE is an instructional design model that covers every part of the instructional design process.
More specifically, ADDIE is an acronym that stands for Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, and Evaluation.
Let's take a closer look at each phase in detail:
It's important to note that while ADDIE was originally designed for each phase to occur in order, that is no longer the reality (plus, the model has changed significantly since its original conception in the 1970's).
Modern approaches to learning and development (L&D) often require you to manage each phase of ADDIE simultaneously — data and evaluation strategy should be addressed from the beginning of any project, and new insights will frequently affect design and development decisions.
So, despite each phase fitting nicely into its own box on paper, you may not want to talk about them as if they definitively occur one phase after the next.
Learn more about ADDIE in this article that I wrote.
Gagne's nine events of instruction list nine events that should be addressed in any instructional intervention. These events serve as a good blueprint for designing training, especially if you're new to the field.
Robert Gagne completed this work in 1965, but his principles are built upon research that still holds strong today. Because of this, many lesson plans and eLearning approaches aim to satisfy each of Gagne's 9 events.
Let's take a closer look at each event:
As you can see, Gagne mapped out each element necessary for an effective instructional experience. These nine events do not need to occur in order, but doing so is often the most logical approach.
Learn more about Gagne's 9 Events in this article that I wrote.
Action mapping is a performance consulting approach to training design developed by Cathy Moore. It is used at many Fortune 500 companies, and it responds well to the needs of our time.
For example, many organizations spend large budgets to churn out training courses, but these courses rarely address real business or performance needs. As such, they waste the organization's budget that could have been spent on efforts that produce measurable results.
This is where action mapping comes in. It advocates identifying a clearly defined business goal, determining which high-priority actions employees must perform to achieve that goal, and then designing interventions to help employees perform those actions correctly.
By aiming to achieve a business goal, instructional design teams can better hold themselves accountable for the results that they produce. This is important in corporate settings where training is supposed to improve performance.
The other main benefit of Cathy Moore's approach is the action map itself. It keeps you focused on the actions that people need to perform on the job, not just the information that subject matter experts (SMEs) and other leaders think the employees should know.
You can learn more about action mapping in this video that I created or on Cathy Moore's blog, but I highly recommend reading her entire book, Map It. (You can also read my full review of Map It.)
Behaviorism is an approach to psychology that focuses completely on external, measurable behaviors. It also dives into the specifics of behavior modification, or conditioning, via rewards and punishments.
The behaviorist concept most relevant to instructional design is operant conditioning. This approach to learning argues that you can increase the frequency of a given behavior by rewarding people for performing it, and you can decrease the frequency of a given behavior by punishing people for performing it.
It gets much more complex than this, such as with reinforcement schedules, and the types of rewards or punishments that you use can significantly impact an intervention's effectiveness.
Despite the complexity, it would be worth your while to read up on behaviorism so that you can better recognize the psychological underpinnings of many performance interventions.
Behaviorist principles underlie the modern thinking surrounding compensation, praise, badges, completion certificates, and more.
Cognitive information processing is another body of thought in psychology literature. It argues that you must look at the processes occurring within the human mind to truly understand human behavior, and it relates human cognitive processes to those of a computer.
For example, this is a (simplified) version of how cognitive information processing theory explains human learning:
We will not dive deeper into the methods of cognitive information processing here, but it's important for all instructional designers to have a handle on cognitive load theory.
Cognitive load theory states that humans have a limited cognitive capacity at any given time — this is why we can often hold seven digits in our short-term memory, but not 20. It also explains why we can't focus on what multiple people are saying to us at the same time.
This theory will impact your instructional design decisions — you don't want to include any extraneous (unnecessary) content, animations, or visuals because this will distract people and add friction to the learning process. You only want to include the information that's essential for satisfying the learning or performance objectives.
You can learn more about managing cognitive load in my top eLearning tips video.
Kirkpatrick's model of evaluation is well-known in the field of L&D, and many employers, clients, and peers alike speak about Kirkpatrick's "levels" as if they are commonplace terms that all instructional designers already know. Because of this, you should definitely familiarize yourself with this model.
At its core, Kirckpatrick's model outlines the four levels of data that you should evaluate to determine the effectiveness of a training initiative. Let's take a closer look at each level:
That's all for Kirkpatrick's model! I recommend quizzing yourself every now and then to ensure that you know the levels. This model comes up often in interviews, and it's expected that you know it.
Once you begin practicing instructional design and considering how to evaluate your efforts, the first two levels of Kirkpatrick's model will likely become second nature. If you're at an organization that conducts level 3 and 4 evaluation, then consider yourself lucky.
Learn more about Kirkpatrick's Model of Evaluation in this article that I wrote.
Richard Mayer highlights 12 research-backed principles to follow when designing multimedia learning. If you're going to design or develop eLearning, then you should definitely have a solid grasp of these principles; violating them often leads to a confusing, ineffective learning experience.
Let's take a look at a few of the most prevalent principles:
These are just five of the principles, but you're probably already seeing how valuable they are.
Learn more about Mayer's Principles in this video that I created.
Writing learning objectives is a cornerstone task for any instructional designer. These objectives outline exactly what you intend for participants to achieve by the end of the learning experience, and the stem often follows this format:
"By the end of this course / workshop / activity, learners will be able to:"
Then you'd include each of your objectives, starting with an action verb (for example: 'State each of Gagne's 9 events').
However, there are important guidelines that you should follow when writing objectives. Most importantly, your objective should be measurable. Consider the following objective:
"By the end of this course, learners will be able to understand how a computer works."
Is this a good objective? If you answered yes, then think about how you would know if someone achieved this objective. Do they need to turn on a computer? Or do they need to explain, in detail, what's happening within the system from the second that it receives power? The objective above does not make this clear.
Because of this vagueness, you want to avoid using verbs like 'understand,' 'know' or 'learn' to craft your learning objectives. Instead, use specific, measurable action verbs from Bloom's taxonomy.
It's also important to note that you write objectives to guide your design decisions. Once you've written your measurable learning objectives, you can think about how to word them more conversationally before presenting them to your audience. Your audience will likely get distracted by "instructional design speak."
You can learn more about how to write good learning objectives in this video that I created.
Instructional alignment is a related concept that is absolutely essential for instructional designers. Once you've written your learning objectives, you'll need to ensure that every sentence, practice question, assessment item, and visual is tied directly to one of your learning objectives. You need to imagine a straight arrow going right through your objectives, content, practice activities, and assessments.
I'd argue that alignment is one of the most important instructional design concepts, primarily because it helps avoid any unnecessary details or information. However, this does put a lot of pressure on you to ensure that your objectives are instructionally sound and worthwhile.
As I mentioned earlier, the theories, principles, and methodologies covered above are not exhaustive. You may want to do additional reading on your own to round out your theoretical knowledge, but this should give you a good starting point for speaking intelligently about the field and designing instruction in line with some of the field's core concepts.
While not all instructional design roles require you to know much of the technology, the vast majority of them do. This is because, as discussed, most instructional designers are expected to not only write the instruction, but also develop it into its final online or face-to-face format.
Many of the skills outlined here apply to developing eLearning, and that's because this skillset is so in-demand in today's economy (especially with COVID and the rapid transition to remote learning).
So, acknowledging that the tech climate can and does change somewhat frequently, I assure you that learning these skills will make you valuable to most companies that are seeking instructional designers today.
You'll also need a computer that can handle the software and development tasks discussed below. Check out this best Laptops for Instructional Design article that I wrote to learn more about the recommended tech specs.
Articulate Storyline 360 is the most popular rapid eLearning authoring tool on the market. It isn't perfect by a long shot, but you can develop highly custom, interactive eLearning in a fraction of the time that it would take you with another rapid authoring tool (such as Adobe Captivate or Trivantis Lectora, which are used by some companies and development houses).
Storyline is also quite easy-to-learn. Think of Storyline as a more powerful version of PowerPoint. It has a similar user interface to PowerPoint, but in Storyline you can also add layers to each slide, add variables and conditions to create a dynamic user experience, and add triggers to make the experience interactive.
Articulate also offers a free 60-day trial for their suite of products. This is more than enough time to develop your skillset with the tool and create a few practice projects. In fact, you can learn the basics - such as adding photos and text to a slide, adding interactivity with triggers, and using the built-in quiz functionality and interaction types - in just a few days.
There are many paid books and courses out there that you can use to learn Storyline, but I recommend downloading the free trial, following along with Storyline's documentation, and building eLearning interactions of your own. You don't need a paid course to learn how to master the tool.
You may want to go beyond the basics, though. What separates an average Storyline developer from a good Storyline developer is the ability to use variables and conditions to build more complex custom interaction types. If you have a coding background or you're good with logic (if-then statements, for example), then this will come naturally to you.
Many new designers start with the eLearning Heroes Challenges to learn the tool. Every week, David Anderson posts a new eLearning challenge for everyone in the community to respond to.
I've also hosted live workshops and recorded videos to help people learn Storyline.
Articulate Rise is a lightweight, web-based authoring tool that you can use to create mobile-responsive learning experiences.
This tool has limited functionality, but it is extremely easy-to-use. People often use it to create "infoproducts" that include text, visuals, and some pre-programmed interactions.
I recommend creating a quick demo in this tool during your free trial of Articulate 360. Including a portfolio piece created with Rise and talking about it during an interview can only help.
As an instructional designer, it's not necessary to master the entire Adobe suite. However, if you're going to develop eLearning using illustrations and vector graphics, then you should know your way around Illustrator.
You're probably not going to create many graphics from scratch simply because there usually isn't enough time or budget available for you to do so. Also, graphic design work is typically cheaper than instructional design work, so if you do need completely custom graphics, there will probably be an in-house graphic designer for you to work with, or you can contract it out if you're running your own shop.
That being said, you will need to know how to manipulate vector graphics, and Illustrator is a great tool for doing so.
For example, freepik.com is an excellent source of vector graphics to add visual interest to your eLearning projects. Imagine that you want to take the cafe building from this city street vector.
With Illustrator, you can download the file from freepik, grab the cafe storefront, change the colors and text, and export it for use in Storyline — all in a matter of 5 minutes or less.
I explain exactly how to do this in this live workshop.
As a side note, you may also want to learn Adobe Photoshop. I haven't had to use it much as an eLearning developer, but if you (or your company) prefer to work with photorealistic images rather than vector graphics and illustrations, then Photoshop will be a more valuable tool in your toolkit. There are also alternatives to Adobe products, such as those in the Affinity design suite.
Finally, once you know your way around either PhotoShop or Illustrator, it's much easier to learn the other. If you have the time, I recommend learning both. In fact, if possible, try learning as many tools in the Adobe Creative Cloud as you can. They will only make you more valuable, and learning them will round out your skillset as a creative digital professional.
Adobe XD is a free tool that you can use to rapidly prototype for your eLearning experience.
Many eLearning designers use this tool to mock up the visual design of their slides before moving into Storyline and developing them. This helps ensure that your design is more professional and polished.
I recommend downloading this tool whenever you're ready to create a portfolio-quality eLearning experience. Use Adobe XD to iterate on your designs before jumping into Storyline.
We do this because XD is more user-friendly than Storyline, and it allows you to mock up your visual designs more quickly and efficiently. Also, when you iterate on your design and make sure that it looks good before moving into Storyline, the visual quality of the end-product will be much higher.
You can use the Adobe XD documentation to learn the basic functionality. You don't need to add any interactivity to your prototype. All you need to do is lay out the elements on the screen.
Talking about this as part of your process is also a big win in an interview, so don't skip this tool!
While TechSmith is most well-known for Camtasia, Snag-It is an excellent piece of technology. It lets you take precise screenshots, rapidly edit them immediately afterwards, and then share or export them as you please.
This saves an immense amount of time over traditional screenshot workflows, especially when you're creating documentation that includes many screenshots.
Due to its ease-of-use, you will not need to spend much time "learning" this software in the traditional sense. Instead, I recommend picking it up and using it as your default screenshotting method going forward. It's also capable of screen recording, but Camtasia is a more robust tool for this if you need to use any advanced screen recording capabilities.
Camtasia is a great tool for instructional designers to create and edit videos. One of its strongest features is that it's very efficient and easy to use; on top of this, it has many templates, advanced screen recording features, and so much more.
While I often use Snag-It to conduct simple screen recordings (and Storyline has screen recording functionality, too), Camtasia is great if you need advanced functionality and more control over your screencasts. I recommend downloading the trial, learning your way around the tool, and then tabling it until you find a need for it in your daily work.
HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript are languages used for front-end web development. HTML5 is a set of tags and syntax that provides structure to web pages. CSS makes it possible to style web pages, and JavaScript is used to modify the functionality and interactivity of web pages.
Before rapid eLearning authoring tools hit the market, software developers had to use web development languages like these to develop eLearning from the ground up. That's no longer necessary, but having a solid basis in these computer languages will ensure that you're up-to-date on your technical skills and setting yourself apart from most instructional designers.
So, while most instructional designers don't have in-depth knowledge of these languages, learning them will allow you to extend the capabilities of eLearning authoring tools, build web pages to host your learning resources, and take full advantage of xAPI (discussed next).
To learn these skills, Free Code Camp is an excellent resource. This site provides step-by-step lessons that you can undertake to earn your Responsive Web Design Certification, and you'll also be able to complete realistic projects that require you to think like a programmer.
I also recommend checking out Scrimba. You can take courses on this platform where an instructor guides you through the code, and you can pause the experience at any time to play around with the code and see how it affects the output.
xAPI is a specification that allows you to track how users interact with your learning experiences and perform on-the-job. Better yet, it's interoperable, meaning that you can easily combine data from multiple tools and organizations.
When you analyze these streams of data, you can draw powerful conclusions about the effectiveness of your learning programs.
As far as the skillset is concerned, you can use JavaScript to send custom xAPI statements from an eLearning interaction. Without knowing how to do this, you are extremely limited in the type of data that you can collect.
For example, using JavaScript to send custom xAPI statements, you can easily see:
If you have no JavaScript experience, then sending custom xAPI statements can seem like a somewhat daunting and highly technical task. Fortunately, there are some great resources that will make this process much easier:
So, while learning how to send custom xAPI statements isn't absolutely necessary to land a job, it makes you very valuable to companies that take advantage of the modern technology (especially as xAPI adoption grows in the coming years).
Vyond (formerly known as GoAnimate) is a rapid video authoring tool that you can use to create animated videos relatively quickly. The tool lets you develop in three different art styles: business, contemporary, and whiteboard.
Videos like this are excellent for soft skills training, explainer videos, and more. The tool is great for instructional designers because it's easy to use and much faster to develop with than if you were trying to build an animated video from scratch. This makes it viable for eLearning budgets that can't afford completely custom animation.
So, while this tool isn't completely necessary, learning it ensures that you have another tech skill up your sleeve that employers will find valuable.
Finally, you should know your way around an LMS. Even though there are hundreds of LMSs on the market, you should learn what they're generally used for and capable of.
The reason for this is that virtually every mid- to large-sized company uses an LMS to host their eLearning content and deliver it to their employees. Instructional designers in full-time in-house roles are often expected to manage courses and users with these tools, so LMS experience is a common requirement for instructional design jobs. This is especially true in higher education where the LMS doubles as the content authoring tool.
The best way to learn LMS administration without access to an LMS at your current job is to take advantage of free trials and demos. I recommend trying TalentLMS — it has a free plan, it's simple to learn, and it will help you learn the key functionality (such as uploading courses and enrolling users).
One more note — Learning Experience Platforms (LXPs) are gaining traction in the learning tech market and may be replacing more traditional LMSs. You don't need to worry too much about this as a new instructional designer, but it wouldn't hurt to read up on typical LXP features so that you can speak about them intelligently.
Finally, AI will most likely become more important in the field in the near future. A great way to future-proof your ID skills is to learn the most AI tools. I talk more about it here:
That covers all of the core tech that you should have a grasp on as an instructional designer. If it seems overwhelming — don't worry. You can likely land a job or contract with only Storyline and Illustrator under your belt, but you should make continuous effort to learn the others on this list.
As you keep up with the technology, your diverse toolkit will ensure that you stay relevant and valuable to companies and training departments around the world.
You may think that as long as your instruction is sound and your learning experience is functional then you're good to go. But you would be wrong.
How content is displayed visually has a large impact on how that content is consumed. Visual design doesn't only make things look "pretty." Used well, visual design and composition can demonstrate relationships, make content easier to consume, and reduce cognitive load.
You also may see seasoned professionals argue that visual design doesn't matter. This is in response to the influx of high-budget 'flashiness' in eLearning that's often unnecessary and uncalled for, but it's hard to argue with the four basic principles of visual design.
The four principles are contrast, proximity, repetition, and alignment. By learning about these principles and applying them in your own work (from eLearning slide layouts to printed materials), you'll ensure that your work looks clean, intuitive, and professional at first glance and beyond.
Let's take a closer look at each principle in more detail:
Think of this section as a very brief introduction to visual design. I highly recommend grabbing a copy of The Non-Designer's Design Book and practicing with these principles until they become second nature.
Learn more about visual design principles for eLearning in this video that I created.
Once you've learned the theory and developed your technology skills, you're ready to create your instructional design portfolio. Your portfolio will be the most powerful tool at your disposal to land instructional design jobs or contracts.
When most employers are looking at potential candidates, they want to see what you can produce for their organization. You want these employers to look at your portfolio and think to themselves, "this is exactly what we want." Making employers feel like this will maximize your chances for landing an interview and the job or contract itself.
Furthermore, instructional design portfolios are more important than ever in 2021. COVID-19 brought a new surge of professionals from K-12 and higher ed into the field, and your portfolio will often make the difference between getting an interview and getting overlooked.
On top of the clear benefit of landing yourself a job or paid contracts, building your portfolio is also an opportunity to reflect on your process, share your work with other designers, and carve out a space on the web that's all about you and your professional development.
The main point of your portfolio website is to put your projects on display. So, before you start building your portfolio website, you should create at least three solid portfolio pieces. You've likely created some interactions and projects as you've learned the technology, but you will want your core portfolio pieces to be as polished as possible.
You may be wondering what to create. If you're self-employed and pursuing contract work, then you should develop portfolio pieces that reflect the type of work that you'd like to do.
For example, if you want to create eLearning branching scenarios for clients, then you should develop a few for your portfolio. Or if you want to focus entirely on face-to-face instruction (not recommended in today's L&D climate), then you would focus solely on facilitator guides and participant workbooks.
If you're looking for a full-time corporate job, then I recommend creating an eLearning-heavy portfolio. If you can create visually appealing eLearning projects that give people good practice opportunities and address real business problems, then you will likely have no problem landing a great job.
If you're unsure what topics to focus on for your projects, then the best place to start is to focus on what you know. Since you may not have a subject matter expert available, it's up to you to ensure the accuracy of your content. Some people choose highly accessible topics, such as how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and others draw from their previous work experience to create materials that will help others learn.
Better yet, you can develop learning materials based off of the information that you're learning on your journey to become an instructional designer. For example, take a section of this article, research it more deeply, and turn it into an interactive eLearning experience to help pass the knowledge and skills along to others. This has the added benefit of helping you learn the information more deeply as you teach it.
This section includes an affiliate link. Using it will support me and the content on this site :)
After you have a few solid projects, you'll want to decide which tool to use to design your portfolio website. Each option has its strengths and weaknesses, outlined here:
Learning to code is great, but if you do not have the time or desire to learn the technical know-how necessary to build your site from the ground up, then I recommend using either Webflow (more customization options but larger time commitment) or SquareSpace (very easy to use and decent customization). You can learn more about the evolution of my portfolio website here.
Here are some additional tips for creating your instructional design portfolio:
I discuss all of this further in my guide to creating an instructional design portfolio.
Many people considering instructional design as a career ask themselves if they should pursue a Master's degree in the field. These degrees go by many names, but some of the most common keywords include Instructional Design, Educational Technology, Instructional Systems, Learning Design, and Workplace Performance.
In short: you don't need a Master's degree, but it will definitely help. If your primary goal is to land a job, then your focus should be building a solid portfolio (we'll cover this more in the next section).
However, there are a few situations in which having a degree may be necessary. This is particularly true for higher education positions and some government contracts. When government agencies start accepting proposals for a project, they may have specific requirements about the education-level of the designers. And, for positions in higher education, employers often place higher value on formal academic credentials.
So, if your focus is on landing a corporate job or securing corporate contract work, then you can do without the Master's degree.
That being said, instructional design degree programs can definitely help accelerate your learning and professional development. Reputable programs will ensure that you're up to date on the latest theory (some of which I've discussed above), you'll have plenty of class project opportunities to build your portfolio, and you'll be able to build strong professional relationships with your professors and peers.
To choose a program, you should look into the curriculum, the professors, and the post-graduation statistics. I recommend choosing a program that's heavy on instructional design theory and hands-on projects. It's best to stay away from programs that are technology-heavy due to how frequently the technology in this field changes.
So, whether you're in a degree program or not, learning the technology will fall in your own hands. You need to take it upon yourself to learn the tools and build your portfolio if you want to maximize your chances of success.
If you're looking for something that's less of a commitment than a full Master's program but will still help you get your foot in the door, then you can consider a graduate certificate program. Instructional design certification programs usually consist of five classes, and they will cover the core instructional design theory and principles that you will need to know to get started in the field.
If you feel so inclined, then earn a Master's degree or graduate certificate to learn the theory, network, and gain hands-on practice, but take learning the tech into your own hands.
Also, there are plenty of instructional design courses online to supplement your academic degree or learn instructional design on your own.
My own program, ID Bootcamp, helps you learn Storyline, get a handle on the full ID process, and create an effective portfolio that shows off your skills.
You can learn more about the results my students have gotten thanks to the Bootcamp here.
For instance, my student Kristin was able to land a job at Amazon Web Services. She says:
“The bootcamp helped me build a flagship project and portfolio that I’m incredibly proud of. As I approached the job market, I felt confident calling myself a learning experience designer and talking with prospective employers about my design and development process. I was even approached by a few recruiters and hiring managers to apply for roles within their companies after they saw my portfolio on Linkedin. Ultimately, my portfolio helped me land multiple offers and a great position with my dream company, all thanks to Devlin’s bootcamp!”
Networking is very important for landing contracts or securing a job. It may help get your resume and portfolio in front of the right people, but it also helps you learn from mentors and stay up to date within the field.
Let's take a closer look at three key networking avenues.
LinkedIn is where you should devote the majority of your networking efforts, especially if your primary goal is to land paid work. For example, before I started working from referrals, nearly all of my clients first found me on LinkedIn, then visited my portfolio, then reached out to me via email. My business never would have taken off like it did if it wasn't for my efforts on LinkedIn.
First, you want to get your profile in good shape. Here are some tips for doing so:
Once your LinkedIn profile gives off the impression that you're a professional, aspiring instructional designer, then you're ready to start networking.
Start with the people whose work or portfolios that you've come across, and always include a personalized note along with your invitation. Let people know you found out about them and why you'd like to connect (to share knowledge, follow their journey, stay in touch, etc.). If you're interested, feel free to send me an invitation to connect.
After exhausting the contact list that you already have in mind, you can start searching for people by job title. Some common titles are instructional designer, eLearning developer, learning experience designer, and curriculum developer. You can search for instructional design managers and team leads, too.
When you find people that you'd like to connect with, send them a request to connect along with a personalized invite. Be honest and transparent, and the recipient will more likely than not accept your request.
As your connections grow, take your time to read people's profiles. Reach out to them if your curiosity is sparked by something that they've included. Try to start genuine conversations, let people know where you're at in your career, and return to LinkedIn daily to interact with your feed.
Learn more about how to use LinkedIn effectively in this article that I wrote.
Whereas a good deal of networking and engagement used to happen at face-to-face conferences, that has shifted online.
Now, instead of having to pay $2,000+ to attend a popular conference such as DevLearn, you can attend live workshops and presentations from the comfort of your home.
Attending live events like this is an excellent way to engage with experts in the field and network with people in the chat. You can also discuss your takeaways on LinkedIn, and people who also attended the event will likely engage with your post.
I recommend checking out Cath Ellis's live streams on YouTube and my live events hosted in the community space.
Next to LinkedIn, Twitter is the social media platform with the most active group of L&D professionals. Similar to LinkedIn, I recommend following all of the L&D professionals that you already know, then search for title keywords to find others in the field.
Twitter is slightly less professional than LinkedIn, and many people post tweets that are slightly more personal. More importantly, though, people often share L&D articles that they find interesting and post their latest thoughts on different aspects of the field. This makes it a great platform for staying up-to-date in the field and learning more about other L&D professionals.
Finally, several organizations host instructional design Twitter chats. For those unfamiliar with this concept, Twitter chats are scheduled for certain times every week. Everyone monitors the hashtag associated with the Twitter chat, and then you can respond to questions from the moderator or respond directly to other people's contributions. It's a great way to get your name out there and engage in discussions about learning and instructional design.
While your portfolio will help you the most with landing paid work, many employers and potential clients want to see that you've successfully pulled off real-world projects for other people.
The best way to gain experience with instructional design is to do so at your current organization. You can inform your supervisor of your goal, and you can inquire about potential projects that you could help with. Organizations often recognize the value in developing their people, so if you've developed a skillset to help them do so, then they stand to benefit from that.
If you're a student, then you can ask professors and student organizations if they need any online learning materials to help them teach their classes or educate their constituents.
Another option is to reach out to local nonprofits to see if they could use the help of an instructional designer. This is a great way to gain experience and help a cause that you believe in at the same time.
Once you're ready to start applying to instructional design jobs, you're going to need to craft your resume.
As far as the job tasks are concerned, you should pull out tasks and responsibilities that are most relevant to those of an instructional designer: focus on curriculum development, educating others, creating learning materials, using new technology, and, at the very least, solving problems.
You can create a traditional, Times New Roman 12-point font resume, but it will be a much more effective effort in personal branding if you create your resume to mirror the design of your portfolio. Use the same font, colors, and design elements, and include a link to your portfolio right at the top of your resume. This will make it a seamless experience for employers transitioning from your paper resume to your digital portfolio.
Once you have the resume in place, begin applying to jobs. 'Instructional designer' is the most common title, but feel free to search for some of the others that we've discussed: eLearning designer / developer, curriculum developer, learning experience designer, and learning and development specialist.
If you've done well with crafting your resume and creating a strong portfolio, then you will probably start landing instructional design interviews. Employers will ask you about your previous experience, process, skillset, and goals. You likely have a good understanding of this yourself, but you need to feel comfortable talking about it with others.
Considering this, it's a good idea to talk about your story as an instructional designer with as many people that are willing to listen. Answer questions such as:
When you can answer questions like these comfortably, then you're ready to interview.
Many employers will also want to see what you can do compared to other designers, so they will ask you to complete practice projects. While it's unfortunate that they require you to work for free, this is a necessity for many full-time interview processes (at least, it is when you're just starting out).
And in this short video, I share even more on how to find a job in the industry:
If you've made it this far in the guide, then congratulations! Following along with this guide is a surefire way to break into the field and land a great instructional design job.
If you would like to connect with us more deeply and get some support along your journey, then feel free to join thousands of instructional designers in our ID community.
And that's a wrap! Thank you for taking the time to read this guide, and I wish you the best of luck on your journey to becoming an instructional designer.
If you have any other questions, please share them in the ID Community.
