It's no secret that instructional design is one of the hottest fields in education. How exactly does one transition into this field though? On today's episode, Dr. Nicole Papaioannou Lugara from Your Instructional Designer, shares her experience and tips when she was an instructional design hiring manager. Whether you are trying to break into the field or you're looking to transition to another ID role, this episode is for you.
What we talked about:
Explaining your philosophies of learning and learning design
Describing your process (course design process, working with SMEs, etc.)
Mentality of ID hiring managers
Referring to stats
Speaking to the needs of the specific role and company
Conducting research
Preparing for interviews with others
Showing up on time
Asking questions to the interviewers
Mentioned Links:
To learn more about myself and show:
Want to take your higher education instructional design skills to the next level? Check out Instructional Design Institute.
Recording a podcast or conducting interviews online? Check out SquadCast.
Do you want to become a corporate instructional designer? Check out Idol Courses Academy!
Transcript
Luke Hobson 00:03
Hey folks, and welcome into another episode. My name is Dr. Luke Hobson. I'm an instructional designer for MIT, a blogger, a podcaster, and the founder of instructional design Institute. My purpose is to help you make the online learning experience come alive for you and for your students. Today's episode, though, is all about you and trying to find the right instructional design job. I've lost track with how many conversations I've had with folks on LinkedIn, on Facebook and email about how exactly do you land an instructional design job. Now I know a thing or two about a thing or two. But I am not the expert in this and I wanted to find someone who can explain more about this interviewing and hiring process. Luckily for me, and Now luckily for all of us, my friend and colleague, Dr. Nicole Papaioannou Lugara, from your instructional designer.com wrote a fantastic blog post called seven lessons from an ID hiring manager for anyone looking for ID work. this blog post was great advice for anyone really just wondering about what the ID interview experience is like. So whether you are brand new to instructional design, or you're a senior ID looking for your next opportunity, this episode is for you. Speaking of which, if you are an instructional designer in higher ed, looking for your next professional development opportunity, come check out instructional design Institute. This Institute is filled with a nerdy community and the right content to help you take your courses to the next level. Lessons inside of here include Universal Design for Learning, scenario based learning, designing podcasts for courses, working with sneeze and more included the institute's membership, our live q&a calls, and webinars that I also record. Those are brand new, just started doing webinars. And it's been a ton of fun. Really, this is a place for learning nerds to come together and learn how to make their online courses, their online learning experiences even better. Check out the link in the show notes to learn more. And of course, don't forget to sign up for the free trial just to see if really this is right for you. All right, folks. Let's dive into this episode, shall we? Here is the one and only Dr. Nicole poppy on aloo ghera. Want to call Welcome to the podcast.
02:33
Hey, thanks for having me today, Luke, super excited.
Luke Hobson 02:35
Absolutely. I think I might be more excited though. Because I've been wanting you to have to come on to the show. Now for months and months have been after your latest blog post, though, I saw that I shared it in three seconds. Because I was like, Yes, now she can come on the podcast, because we need to talk about this. And to break this down because it is so meaningful for today and 2020 and people trying to transition over into the instructional design world. But before I get ahead of myself, can you please introduce yourself talk a little bit more about your background and what it is that you do?
03:10
Sure. So uh, like you said, I think my name is Nicole poppy out of the ghera. And most people can't pronounce any of that. So we just go with your instructional designer, which is my brand name, and also the agency under which I operate all of my freelance work. So for the past seven plus years, I've been working in corporate instructional design after leaving academia behind. And I also teach developing instructional designers through the upskill experience, which is the learning platform side of your instructional designer.
Luke Hobson 03:46
Fantastic. So like I was saying, Now I could dive into the blog post. It's an absolute once again, I love your domain name that is just so amazing. I just think about it. And it's just once again, it's an absolute perfect domain name for what it is that you do. So with this blog post, which is called seven lessons from an ID hiring manager for anyone looking for instructional design work. That's analysis like got a pink, Nicole, we need to talk about this. Because your opinion it's so different. And it makes it so valuable. Because you are an instructional designer, you have worked in academia, you have worked in private, you are a freelance, you've done so many different things in these fields. And then of course on top of this, you also were a hiring manager for instructional designers. So you have this insane background a compliment everything we're going to be going into so first things first, I want to know what was your inspiration behind writing this blog post?
04:41
That's a great question. And I think it was just a Tuesday night and my blog is due Wednesday and I said a lot of people are talking about getting hired right now. Maybe I should help them out because I did this one.
04:55
So that was really the beginning of it.
Luke Hobson 04:58
I am laughing too because Like I relate, and I totally understand. Like, I have a book, I have a podcast coming out on a Tuesday, I need to follow up with an email on Wednesday. And I got to do that. Yeah, it's this. It's the schedules. And this is what we were talking about beforehand, too, is that I think 2020 has just made it so that like, we're just working constantly, because they're, the brain can't shut off anymore. Because there is so much to talk about if instructional design now a day, you can't avoid it. And I'm finding now that like, I'm just reading instructional design things for fun. Like I don't know when that change happened. But it went from like, Oh, this is only about getting better professional development. Now my gu what are we talking about today? So it's been a, it's been a weird shift. So let's dive on into these because you have seven tips in total. And I would just love to go down the list, expand and talk about each one. So for the very first one, of course, the essential we need to talk about learning. And as instructional designers learning is clearly core to our purpose. It's what we do. It's what we know, how should potential instructional designers prepare for interview questions all about learning,
06:08
I think. And in the blog post, it says it, but I like to think of it as like a statement of learning philosophy. And it's something I had to do when I was studying for my doctoral degree. But just being able to articulate, you know, who's influenced your view about how, you know, learning, design, and learning should work that's important. And just, you know, it doesn't have to be like a specific title or theory, but you have to be able to articulate this is what I think education or learning should look like when it's done, right. And so this is the lens through which I design everything, and helping your hiring manager or interviewer kind of get that feel, and will help them decide if you're the right person for their organization.
Luke Hobson 06:56
So how far should someone dive into this? Like, if I'm talking about just going granular, and I'm a candidate looking to, you know, to go into this field? Are you looking for someone to just explain about like, general concepts of just how people learn? Or is it kind of a bonus, if I'm able to go through like a Bloom's Taxonomy or some other type of framework?
07:17
Yeah, I don't know that you need to have the exact name dropping titles, I think it's really helpful. And honestly, it'll, you know, depending on who you're talking to, might give you a little boost, in their opinion, especially if there's someone who's not familiar with the field, and you're like, Oh, this person knows all their theories. But I think if you can just articulate like the two or three key things that you just find essential about learning. For me, it's always that you can transfer it beyond the context that you're learning in. Right. So that doesn't need a fancy title I've seen to be able to tell people that so if you can do that in a few sentences, your statement of learning philosophy, elevator pitch, you can call it I think that's really good.
Luke Hobson 07:56
Do you remember your first interview question on learning, like when you were trying to become an instructional designer?
08:03
I wish I did. I don't it was so long ago. Um, but I do know that I was lucky enough to I was being interviewed by a company that didn't really have an instructional design department, which we know is common. But they did have like a freelance instructional designer on staff who helped to interview me so I do know they asked about, you know, what? theories. One of the first questions I believe was about like, what what instructional design theories I like or use? Okay, well,
Luke Hobson 08:33
that's realistic. That's a good question.
08:35
That weekend, so that's why I do them.
Luke Hobson 08:40
still fresh in the brain? My first learning question was literally honestly like me trying to break into the field. I was an academic advisor at the time and I'm trying to go into learning resources. And the question that my later on director hasn't got the job she asked me, she just simply asked me what is learning? I'm like, okay, Michael, this is going to be a huge answer. But of course, like you know, I'm still learning myself like I don't know the theories or anything. I managed to somehow give such a broad enough answer that she thought that I was talking about the gods keys theory, and she tied it she basically made it seem like I was way smarter than I was like, Whoa, okay, like I did not go into that level of detail but thank you for thinking that I know something about alerting but that was it was such a I was so taken back by because I'm like oh yeah, I'm prepared to answer like this and this and this and this and there's no general what is learning. Oh, not ready for that. So going down with the list going up to the next tip, you mentioned about being able to describe a process and I think we both know that anyone can name drop and I think unfortunately that's becoming more of a trend is that people are looking at job postings and they're thinking about like oh okay Addy Sam backers design you know, as a whole Bunch that they can talk about. But as an instructional design hiring manager, what are you looking for as a candidate describes their process?
10:08
Yeah, so Abby, Sam agile, great to know, definitely useful, but I don't actually think that it tells me your process, it just tells me you know, like an instructional design term. So I want to know, how do you handle getting information? How do you handle working with people who might not always be super available? SMEs? Um, and you know, how do you sort of manage your own project as you go through? That, to me is way more important, that tells me, you know, what goes into developing learning, and it also tells me that you are able to manage yourself to some degree because I don't want to be a micromanager.
Luke Hobson 10:47
Yeah, of course. And everything for instructional design really should come with being a project manager, Relationship Manager, like, Well, yeah, all those. Everything needs to go into that, because we were just so many hats, and it's just becoming and now as things keep on growing, I feel like our jobs are is expanding more and more to now like, Oh, you can take on this. You can go down this road, you're like, Okay, let me figure this out. Now, going off of that, I've seen some job postings recently that actually called out using one ID model over another. So I'm kind of curious on your perspective on this one, if they are actually saying and basically declaring him a job posting, but you need to have an ad background. Does that, like what does that actually mean? As far as for like, if I had a background as something else? Is that going to hurt me? Is it transferable? Like, what is this person thinking about?
11:45
Yeah, I totally think is transferable, if you don't know the acronym, go read it and be ready to talk about it. In your job. I mean, for the most part, all instructional design projects are going to require you to think about how do you get the information you need to know to do the work? How do you design it so that it makes sense for the learning population and the task and the organization? What do you need to do to make this stuff? And then how do you deliver it and figure out if it worked out? Okay. So whether you describe that as it as Sam, whether you think of it as linear as something else. There, those components are always going to be in the air. So I don't think it matters. I think if you want that job, and the rest of it looks good, and you've been using Sam and they use Addy just go over my ideas, figure out how your work has fit into that model,
Luke Hobson 12:30
talk about it. It's really amazing. When you boil down what it is that we do, you can talk about just like that, is perfectly true. Like there are very simplistic ways of thinking about it. And then you can go and look up something and they might have a three hour video for you to watch all about like the you know, the fundamentals of Addie. And they're going through all these things. And it's like, give me just like a minute, and I could tell you how to do this. We don't need to have like you to write a dissertation on something that you shouldn't have to as you mentioned, elevator pitch, you should be able to give that elevator pitch. And if not, then I guarantee that the hiring manager is going to be like, okay, I've had enough like you talk too much.
13:12
Yeah, and especially since like we were saying most of the hiring managers are, there's a good chance they're not learning people. So if you spend you know, if they probably just pulled Addie out of a book somewhere, because they saw an instructional designer, and that was like the next keyword. So if you spend five hours talking about it there, it's not going to mean anything to them.
Luke Hobson 13:30
Have you talked to any recruiters lately for anything like with 2020 of them just like calling and saying like, Hey, are you interested in XYZ? Yeah, project. I've had those phone calls, and I can help I'll take whatever phone call, right. And sometimes, I'm talking to the person and then like, as we just having like a casual conversation, I can tell literally what you just said, they have no idea what they're doing. They're doing their very best, but they just don't know. And I've had a few of those conversations where I was just like, Hey, listen, I'm not the right guy for you. But like, do you want me to kind of just explain more about what it is you're talking about? Because I can already tell the next couple of interviews you're going to do? The person's gonna do the exact same thing. Are you gonna be like, what's, what's going on? And I've had to just have some of these like heart to heart conversations with recruiters to being like, let me tell you about instructional design, because I can tell you last
14:23
Well, thank you for doing that service for the rest of us in the industry.
Luke Hobson 14:28
just just just trying I just feel bad because it because instructional design to too many people is just so new, even though it's not new at all. But to many people they're like we've never had to hire for this type of position before and you can just tell where you're like, oh, let's let's help out everyone else and today in society because, yeah. So your next point is one that I've seen that's usually often overlooked, and I'm not sure if that's because folks are kind of afraid to talk about the statistics or whatnot, but it really is diving into stats and showcasing your work. Can you explain more about this?
15:03
Yes. So from the most basic storytelling perspective, if I'm looking really quickly at a resume, the easiest thing for me to do is to look for numbers. They'll stand out from all the words. So if you can quantify your results, it instantly will tell me a much stronger and more easily accessible story. So like your resume just kind of rises to the top, because it's been easier for me to read. But also in business, people are looking for real impact. So if you can, again, quantify the work that you've done, if you can give me percentages, or statistics, or at least case studies that show me that you are doing more than a task that you're really creating impact, then awesome, then I'm like, Oh, this person, they know what they're doing. And they can help me. And I think a lot of people and this is something I learned when I was writing resumes, too. We do we stick to those tests, we just say like, Oh, I design learning. I wore many hats, whatever you did, but you don't tell me what you created for that business. You don't tell me about the impact.
Luke Hobson 16:10
Now, what do you think that is?
16:12
I think it's because it takes a little bit of extra thought. And sometimes people don't realize they have the data, right? So I joke that like, also numbers, you could say I had a podcast that had four listeners, and I then grew it to 10 listeners. And that is, if I'm just adding percentages, kind of do terrible math now. Great, I grew it like over 50%. Right? If I put I grew my podcast over 50% on my resume, that was amazing. And no one knows. It's just from four to eight. So just finding little things like that, even if you're a teacher, right? Saying I taught English is really different from saying, I led over 800 students over 12 years to successfully develop skills in the English language. And it's the same exact thing. But one is an impact statement. And one is a just attack. And it might just be a little harder for you to think about what are the numbers, but just do that little extra work? It's gonna put you closer to the top of the pile. I know
Luke Hobson 17:19
for sure it absolutely has. And I know that when I was rewriting my resume, I tried to go back and I really should do this a lot more. But of course, she's kind of Yeah, right, exactly. She's like me, too. But when I think about it, and well, the exact same thing you were saying is that it was harder to do. And I know that when I was thinking about a certain project I wasn't thinking about a number of people had an impact on. So I developed online learning communities that was inside of there. What I did not put in, like on top of that was the fact that this was the only online learning community platform for the school at the time. And there were 60,000 students who used it. Wow. Right, exactly. So it just went from me saying like, Hey, I just make a couple of LinkedIn groups to all of a sudden, just like, hey, every student at this school is trying to access this in the undergraduate program. So like, that just has so much more of an impact compared to exactly what you were talking about, too. Because I think that people just default back to wanting to use more like a qualitative, like you want to, like tell a story. But you can only have so many words until like, it just kind of starts to blur on the resume, and it doesn't stick out.
18:30
And obviously everyone's gonna be telling theoretically, if you're applying for job, right? Everyone has a similar story to some degree. So those little impact statements really make you stand out because nobody is going to have that exact experience.
Luke Hobson 18:46
Exactly. I still have your tip to you about the 50% thing.
18:50
Number that works better, right, four to eight not impressive. 50% impressive. Yeah. Even 50% is 200% I'm terrible at math.
Luke Hobson 19:00
You're also talking to someone who's really bad at math. So
19:04
she's an English.
Luke Hobson 19:07
My backgrounds in graphic design. I'm not meant to do this now.
19:12
Everyone else listening was like no, that math is totally wrong.
Luke Hobson 19:17
I'm sure there's gonna be a few few comments now. It's It's It's fine people. This isn't the real world. It's already happened to where my screen has frozen randomly during this interview. And I was like, Oh, no, what am I going to do? So you know what this is 2020 where it is riding with it just like everyone else right now in our field. So it is what it is. So going to your next tip, which is on speaking to the needs of a company and showcasing how you could be a good fit. I love this one. I really want to talk about this one. How would you recommend doing this? If there isn't that much information specifically about the department that you're applying for, like publicly available?
19:57
Yeah, so obviously, if it's publicly available, go straight have internet stalker, like look up everything. If it's not, then I would say read that job description really closely that's like your your golden ticket, right? If they're looking for someone who's really analytical, you're going to start to see that in the way they describe the tasks, even though they're talking about instructional design work. If they're looking for graphic design, you know, specialists, you're going to start to see that in the doc, the job description. And so you don't want to speak to a general instructional design position, right? Like, that's like when people put objective to obtain a job in instructional design at the top of the resume, don't do that. But also, it doesn't tell me that you've actually considered the things that we need in our organization. So if you can be specific, again, bonus points, if you can find the organization, think about their mission, think about the things that are important to them. But if you can't at least make sure you've figured out what they really want from that job description.
Luke Hobson 20:55
And that was the reason why I asked about that being hidden away, because I think the default I would hope for most folks, is to go into the website, LinkedIn, Facebook, whatever, and look at everything. And then it's always kind of interesting how sometimes you can find like, the Learning and Development Department, and sometimes you can't, it's just like, they're obviously core and central to the organization. But it's not always that easy to find more about them. And then come to find out that like, you know, you'll find this massive organization, and they have a team of like two people like, Oh, no,
21:27
honestly, even the biggest organizations I worked with
21:32
how many people on them?
Luke Hobson 21:33
Hmm, no, there's there's one in particular, I'm actually thinking about and I said to really, there's one, there's only her and she she is it for so many people that when she told me that I was like, that's not okay. Like, how are you literally being like this amazing superhero, to 1000s of people who need training and education. And it's just, it was nuts. Like, it's just like, I can't imagine doing so. So I don't know.
22:00
So it's a really quick also, as you're reading that job description, because what he just said, make sure you're not going to be the one person at like a 5000 person organization wearing 8000 hats, because you're not going to be sustainable. You're not going to be happy there long term.
Luke Hobson 22:17
Oh, no, there's no way and you're going to be asked to do things that are definitely not instructional design related. Yes, you'll be you'll be the whatever. And it's actually kind of goes back to the episode that we had with Heidi Kirby talking about the differences between corporate instructional design and higher education, instructional design. And it's actually can be the same thing. Hopefully not. But it can be the thing where you are just the sole person within the school, or within the company. And you were expected to do literally everything, even if it doesn't apply to learning or anything else.
22:49
Yeah. Yeah. That person?
Luke Hobson 22:52
No, you do not want to be that person who is randomly told they're going to be doing workshops, and all this other stuff. And you're like, that's not in my job description. But let's try and hope people like this. So no, I get it. So your next step makes a ton of sense with having someone help you to prepare for the interview. And I feel like a lot of people don't do this, they just go in and wing it. And of course, you need to stand out from the crowd and preparing for is obviously one way to show how much you care. So how should someone do this of actually properly preparing to go through these interviews or mocking up with someone or hiring someone? what's what's the way to do this?
23:30
Yeah, I think, to the best of your ability, try to figure out what you think somebody who's going to interview you would ask, and that might be by asking other people in the field, what they've been asked before that might be researching the company and figuring out what's important to them. What's on that job description? You know, there's all of that preparation you can do. But honestly, if you just have someone roleplay with you, and someone you trust not to be totally ridiculous, it can be really helpful, because for most of us, you know, it's the thinking on our toes part that gets us it's not that we don't know the information, it's that we're nervous about being able to like shoot out information on demand. And the other part of that is just feeling more comfortable, right? So even forget the answers, just like feeling more comfortable and at ease, knowing that you've done it before. That really helps.
Luke Hobson 24:22
And the more that you actually say it and speak about it out loud to you, you're gonna remember, that's part of learning. So really shocking thing, the more you practice something, it's actually going to stick like weird concepts. One thing that I found too, and I'm not sure if, if you've also done this for trying to find the interview questions for companies, I found that some of them are actually publicly available of people who have gone through past interviews. So if you go and actually look up a company on say Glassdoor Glassdoor will have and of course, like, you know, you need to take that, looking through the lens of somebody who potentially did Did not get the job. So of course, you know, be wary of different things like that nature too. But for some of them, I read them. And I was like, yeah, those are solid instructional design questions that you can absolutely practice and prepare for.
25:12
That's great. I have not done that one myself. But everyone should mark that down as a good tip.
Luke Hobson 25:19
Do you have any other websites to go to? It's the only one I've found so far that has had this type of like overview of the actual interview process. And then if you go down the rabbit hole enough, you can search by department by the job title, I bet eventually you can get to talking about what it is. And they even actually rate how the interview went. So they give you the pros and cons of like, not only the questions, but like even the interviewer, and yeah, it gets, it gets really interesting. So
25:47
no, they do that. I just knew the employer review. So that's good to know.
Luke Hobson 25:50
Yeah,
25:51
only one I'd say. So um, I was on the fence, I guess about being a freelancer for five minutes, and I decided to do a job interview at a university, we had to do a panel interview, and that was nothing like any of the interviews that I'm describing. But um, that was like really strange, because what they do on a panel interview, maybe you've done them before, but they gave me all the questions. When I walked in, I got to write all of my thoughts out. And then they went around the room. And there were, I believe, six people, and they would each ask me a question, and they were not allowed to respond. And anyway, and then they will go on and ask the next question. So they basically gave like a little speech, there's no, back and forth. It was really weird. I can't say I enjoy the experience. But I, if you're applying for a academic instructional job, that might be something you come across,
Luke Hobson 26:40
you know, and unfortunately, yes, like I've had had a similar instance to where same thing, I applied for a role. And then there was a same thing for academic jobs, there's always multiple rounds. And this was on I had a panel interview as well. Third rounds type of a deal. And same thing, I got the questions prepared ahead of time, I was asked to make an entire module on a certain topic could be anything that I want to do. And I did fantasy football. So I know football, my Let me tell you and break this down. And of course, like, in my mind, I'm like, I'm doing great. I found an E book by Matthew Berry, who is this, like the inventor of fantasy football, and I had like, all these different graphics and stuff. I was like, Hey, I'm gonna kill this. And that was my same experience. It was a panel back when we actually could go and meet in person. And that was a thing. And there was a ton of people in the room. And one question went up, I answered the question, and everyone is either nodded, or they looked at the next person to ask the next follow up question. And I remember sitting there being like, I can't tell if I'm doing great or awful, like, please give me
27:48
my presentation, they asked me to do something similar, right to create a learning experience. And my learning experiences are almost always interactive, whether it's online, or I'm teaching something. So I'm asking them questions, and they're just looking at me, like they can't respond to totally sucked all the life out of the presentation. Horrible. But I guess that's the way it's done in some places, and just know that that could be a possibility. Yeah,
Luke Hobson 28:11
I mean, definitely. Hence, why we should be preparing. Because you should be preparing for anything. Unfortunately, you might have a panel interview, I know someone who just had a panel interview via zoom. And yeah, I know, it's like, I am so sorry. I should have great. So you know, house after super proud of her. But what that is stuff. I can't imagine trying to do that. And actually look at everyone too, as you're going and trying to make eye contact and just, you know, it's that's, that's really rough for everything. But no, most academic interviews are much more about, like you were saying, talking about the learning experience and describing it and you know, all those different types of good things, relating everything back to transferable skills, the real world has is going to benefit the students, things that they should be talking about. So hopefully, if you can prepare ahead of time for interview questions around those, it will make sense as you go and describe your course. And if not, then maybe it's it's not the right fit, which is entirely possible.
29:12
So I wanted the job after I did the interview either.
Luke Hobson 29:16
Yeah, you know, that's, that's really the thing that I think we keep on going back to is that you need to figure out where your place is, and all of this, and if it's not for you, and if you're not going to potentially treat your writer or to help you grow. I think that's like the big thing too, about like, what is next afterwards, when you're thinking about six months down the road? If I get this job a year from now, two years from now, are you going to hit a ceiling? And it seems like for most of these jobs, you might and you might not know your next step and maybe you'll it will come in time and there will be over different things. But it's entirely possible in this very wacky economy that like you could just be stuck somewhere and you got to figure out where do you go next? To get that experience if your employer can't help you get there. That is the real world. Um, you also talked to before about hiring someone for this? How would someone go about doing that?
30:14
You mean like finding finding instructional design?
Luke Hobson 30:18
Yeah, like you mentioned before about why trying to hire someone who actually knows what they're talking about to make sure that you have like, adequate, adequately prepared for this? And let's say you go on Glassdoor there's nothing there, you ask your friends, they ask you some ridiculous questions that just don't make sense. And they don't know about instructional design. So you're like, I'm going to hire a professional? How would someone like, go about doing that?
30:39
Got it. Um, you know, there's a ton of people in our field that maybe ton is over exaggerating, but there's a good number of people in our fields who do coaching. And so if you want to pay someone for their time, they'll they'll gladly help you. There are some people who are just very kind. And if you ask them nicely, they will also, you know, help you out. And so I would say, do what you're comfortable with, I mean, some people, you know, like, I am really sensitive about my time. So like, I'm almost more comfortable paying a coach. But if you're a grad student, you just left in, you know, fine, and you don't have the money just like ask, what's the worst they can say is? No,
Luke Hobson 31:19
no, that's the worst they can say, Well, I asked too, because I've talked to quite a few people now who like, they're definitely getting frustrated with not hearing feedback, like, you know, they will go through the entire thing will make it to the second round, third round event. It's just like, cold silence. And you get back the traditional auto email response saying like, oh, we're so sorry, find a better candidate. And then you're left to wonder like, well, what's wrong with me, basically, is like the feeling of rejection there. And maybe it you know, it makes sense to go into find a professional and to, you know, reiterate and talk about those same questions and answers and just say, like, Did I do the right thing? You know, in your opinion, if you were hiring for an id like, does what I actually say it makes sense?
32:00
Yeah, yeah, I, honestly, I'm all about going beyond yourself, I think that we are too far, in our own perspectives, to really see what we could be doing better a lot of the time anyway, you know, like, and I just want to come back to what you said, there's usually nothing wrong with you, if you didn't get the job. It's just that someone else happened to have like this big shiny thing that they were looking for. And that doesn't mean you don't have something, it just means they had whatever it was at the moment. Like it's, it's, you know, and you can totally not know what that is. And their recruiter could come back to you and say, there's no feedback, and it could be genuine, they could have thought you were awesome. And you just weren't the person. That just happens. It does. I've
Luke Hobson 32:45
been a part of a few interviews. And sometimes that really is the worst, by the way, when you have two amazing people. And then just a person a is B cell Person B because of experience expertise, they're a better fit for the culture, or you know, whatever it is, and you're like, but I love this other person. Like, I'm gonna hire both.
33:05
We're gonna need them eventually. Right?
Luke Hobson 33:07
Yeah, exactly. And that's what you always say, like, please stay in touch, like, like, strongly hinting, like, make sure we stay in touch, Hint, hint.
33:18
So when I worked at the other company, where I was the, the manager for the department, one of the people I interviewed, we didn't hire at the time, because when we did have a director for five minutes, they thought this person was too inexperienced. They don't even like a TA. And then a few months later, when the director left, and I was pretend director, I don't know I was doing all the work. Um, I was like, No, this person was awesome. I mean, we call that person back in and they wound up being like one of the best hires, I mean, hands down impressed. Everybody had a great work ethic. And he actually, I guess, I've said no to you see, but he left the job he was doing to come work for me, which was flooring to me. But um, yeah, I mean, he couldn't have had any inkling at the time when we told him sorry, like, somebody else hadn't experienced that we were gonna call him back in four or five months. So keep it positive as long as they're not jerks. Yeah.
Luke Hobson 34:15
Now, of course, that's a common story, too. I feel like that happens a lot. So yeah, try to keep an open mind, even though I know it's so hard that getting that rejection email this makes you just want to just shut the laptop down forever and be like, Nope, that's it. I'm gonna do something else in my life. So no, I understand. Well, the next tip on here we really don't need to talk about but it's good tip say is to show up on time.
34:42
Yeah, I mean, things happen. Obviously, you know, but to the best of your ability. Do it.
Luke Hobson 34:49
Yeah, and I always impressed too when people show up to and this is just me. I'm always impressed when people show up to zoom meetings early. Because like you get that notification about like someone's already in like, you know, the waiting for you what Am I Oh, that's awesome. Even though I know that the the madness of 2020 has made all of our calendars have literally no breaks in between zoom meetings, Sasha said is what it is now. So I understand there was a another meeting, I was in and ended like 30 seconds early from another meeting. And I literally sprinted to my kitchen to grab coffee, and like ran back without trying to spill set coffee. And that's what I feel like it is nowadays. So I know that most folks are like really understanding what's happening right now. Because it's just different.
35:34
Yeah, yeah. It's a matter of like you're not in back to back because your meetings? Yes, set your, your alarm clock or whatever you need to do to show up on time.
Luke Hobson 35:44
Exactly, exactly. I tried to set alarms on phone, laptop, and like everything else, just in case, you're not forget about said thing. So that's my little tip right there on that one. And then finally, let's go into the last one, which might be the most important one of them all, which is being able to ask questions back to the interviewer, what are some amazing examples of questions that you would ask back to them to learn more about the job and the organization. Um,
36:16
I have to say, This part's really important, like you said, because this is what will tell you if you want to work there or not. And I just want everyone to remember, they are looking for talent they need but you have to offer. So don't go in like desperate for the job, even if you're desperate for the job. So you know what happens when you might be sometimes, but like, remember that you are talent, and you are interviewing them just as much as they are interviewing you. And so for me, as an instructional designer, I would definitely want to know, things about their process, their workflow. Is it chaos all the time? Do they meet their deadlines? How did the handoffs get made is there a project manager, my solo, like, all of those things about process are really important. And they will give you some insight as to whether you are going to be working a nice cozy nine to five, or like eight to midnight. So I think that one's really important. I would ask them about their philosophy of learning also, because there are definitely really different ways of thinking about how we teach people. And if you're someone who doesn't believe in online learning at all, for example, I know there's too many of us out there. But if you didn't, then you probably don't want to go to an organization or they want to put everything online. Great, common sense. But you want to make sure you ask about these things. Other questions that I would definitely ask, ask about your, who your manager will be and what their management style is, like, I think that's really important. You might not get an honest answer, but you should try asking. Right? So those are the things you want to uncover basically, what's the work environment like? Or Oh, and the other one? What are the expectations that you have for me, within the first six months, because one, it'll tell you if they have expectations for you, which are kind of important. And a good manager will have some expectations for you so that you're both on the same page. But it's also just going to give you an idea of what you need to bring to the table and what you need to accomplish.
Luke Hobson 38:22
I think it's my favorite question of yours is talking about like, how are you going to measure my success? Yes, I will. Because this is so crucial. Going back to the whole Am I going to hit my ceiling within a year from now? Like you're going to know they're going to be able to should be able to give you an accurate answer talking about is it going to be from the the courses to the feedback to the you know, whatever it is around the organization that's going to determine Are you actually doing a great job or things kind of figured out? I love when you ask questions back and they you know, see you're saying like, you might not get the honest answer, but their facial expressions will give it away. That's the best I can't remember what question I asked before in an interview, but we talked about something around like are the instructional designers. Oh, gosh, was a question. It was something along the lines of like, are the instructional designers going to be like ranked at the bottom of this hierarchy where like, professors are going to rule all and unfortunately, the IDs are going to be like, kind of forced to do like, you know, whatever has to be done. And like one person in the room was just like, Oh, no, no, we have a fair and balanced relationship and the other person in the room was laughing. Like, her facial expression tells me that things are bad. And of course, and that's a significant part of the job. Like if you don't have the proper relationship balance and like you know, if you don't have the right say and it's just you're forced to do what might not be considered, you know, a great type of Have a course or a good learning experience, then? Yeah. Do you really want to do that? It's the
40:07
question to ask. Definitely.
Luke Hobson 40:11
absolutely want to go thank you so much for your time and going through all of these tips and everything for the sword because everyone's going through this right now it feels like at least, everyone is currently going through this right now of transitioning over into the ID world and many folks to like, we talked about all things for new to ID. But also, this also applies to many people who want to transition from one instructional design field to another corporate, higher ed, nonprofit, working government agency, there's all these different things you need to be mindful of. So it's gonna help anybody. So if they want to know more about you your work and what it is that they do, or where can they go to find you.
40:52
You can go to your instructional designer.com at your instructional designer on Instagram, Nicola piano PhD on LinkedIn, which you probably won't be able to sell. So just start with your instructional designer stuff, and you'll find me. And if you're really interested in taking some of my courses, I think right now only scripting voiceover for videos open. But you know, upskill, experienced calm is where all that stuff lives.
Luke Hobson 41:17
Excellent. And I'm gonna put the links for everything. So you don't need to type it out. You can go into the show notes, they can find it. But hey, either way, really good to know when they'll call. Thank you so much, once again, for coming on the show.
41:28
Thank you for having me. This was really fun.
Luke Hobson 41:30
Well, folks, I told you that episode was going to be awesome. And I'm pretty sure it delivered. There are so many good stories and pieces of advice and expertise, all found within that entire podcast episode. I have to absolutely say though, for first and foremost, thank you so much for Nicole for actually coming onto the show. And I have to give her a massive shout out because we had every interruption you can think of with this episode, my laptop for some reason or another randomly froze on me while we were talking and I had no idea of things are still recording. And then right after that, like 10 minutes later, Amazon can in my house dropped off a package and my dog went nuts. He just lost his mind. Of course, while it was still on the podcast episode, which Luckily, none of you folks heard thank you to the power of editing, and we still had an awesome conversation, we were still able to talk about everything. And really, I just hope you enjoyed it. And once again, Nicole, thank you for putting up with me my shenanigans and everything else that went into this episode, be sure to connect with Nicole on all social media platforms, which I have linked for you in the show notes below. And you can read more about her blogs, including the one that we talked about today. And look into her courses on upskill by going over to your instructional designer.com. If you did enjoy today's episode, please share it with your network on LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, or whatever platform you're using. Everyone is currently applying for ID roles. And they need to hear this episode to provide some guidance and clarity on next steps on really just what to do. And as a mental reminder for you. If you are someone who has been getting shut down from job after job, I know it's an awful feeling. You start to doubt your abilities, your wonder if you're doing the right thing. And my last piece of advice for you is to not give up, keep on working on your craft and try to get better every day, every week. Every month. When I was trying to break into the ID field. I was turned down at least seven times for going through multiple rounds of interviews with promising leads hearing about signs that everything is going well I'm probably going to get the job. And then Oh, hey, surprise, I didn't get it. So after going through that for so many times, eventually, I basically quit and had to pick myself back up onto my feet and saying like you got to keep on going. You need to keep on pushing through. This is what you want to do. So don't give up. So that's my advice for you. Don't give up. You're awesome. I believe in you. And I know you can do this if you work hard enough at it. Once again, folks, you can find anything more about me the show or the institute over at Dr. Luke Hobson calm. Until next time, my friends stay nerdy out there and I'll talk to you later.