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In January 2022, I began my journey as an Associate Instructional Designer for Keypath Education. I’d been a college instructor for six years up to that point. Five years as a Graduate Teaching Associate and one year as an Adjunct Professor. In today’s post, I’m discussing my transition into instructional design and offering advice for anyone else looking to make this career pivot.
My Job Search Experience
I applied to over 60 ID jobs in the span of August to December 2021. That’s a lot more jobs that I felt qualified for and excited about in comparison to my two years on the academic job market. LinkedIn was an incredibly helpful resource during this process. I talk about the Premium version in this video, which I definitely recommend. I ended up interviewing for a few different companies and getting two offers before finishing the process for most of them. Learn more about the experience in the video above.
Why I Transitioned to ID
There are a lot of reasons why someone might decide to do a career pivot. I talk about a few of my reasons in this video. Taking the leap into a new career is definitely nerve wracking, so make sure to take plenty of time to reflect on your past experiences and consider what you want for your future. Journaling your thoughts can really help with this process.
Creating an Instructional Design Portfolio
If you’re applying to instructional designer positions, I highly recommend having a digital portfolio ready to go and linked to your resume. My portfolio was definitely key to getting my interviews. Multiple recruiters and hiring managers mentioned how helpful it was to be able to sample my work before even speaking to me. A couple jobs actually required me to make a piece for them as part of the process. But most just relied on the resume and portfolio. So, create one ASAP!
Final Thoughts
If you’re interested in instructional design, here’s my full playlist of videos on the topic. Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn, as well, since I’ll be keeping up on there as I network and learn more about this new field I’m in. If you have any questions after watching the videos, let me know in the comments. I’m happy to provide more insight into my experience.
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