How to Hire an E-Learning Developer or Get an E-Learning Job

I had a couple of questions this week about elearning jobs. First, someone asked me what they should expect when hiring an elearning course developer. And on the flip side, someone I know was looking for work and wanted some tips on how to get a job.

Here’s my take and some things I’ve done in the past as a hiring manager and when looking for work. Also, I just updated a lot of the event info for this year. Be sure to check out if we’ll be in your area.

Expect an E-Learning Portfolio

For the manager:

Some people are good talkers and do great at interviews. They’re pros at answering your behavioral questions. They may also have a strong resume listing good work experience and education. All of those things are great and important to consider, but can they really do the work? How do you know?

I like to see a portfolio of projects. I want to see what they’ve worked on and know what exactly they did in those projects.

For the job seeker:

If you don’t have a portfolio, how can I see the type of work you’ve done? Often people will tell me that they can’t share what they’ve done because it’s proprietary and they don’t have the rights to show it. While that may be true for some, I’ve found that to be mostly hogwash and an excuse to not show work.

Even if it’s true that you can’t show your real projects, it’s still not an excuse for not having a portfolio. If you can’t show real work, remove the proprietary content and use lorem ipsum text, if you have to. Or participate in the weekly elearning challenge. That’s an easy and quick way to build a portfolio.

This may sound harsh and it’s your prerogative to not have a portfolio. But the reality is that the job will attract other job seekers who do have a portfolio and are better prepared to get hired. Your education and experience don’t entitle you to anything. The only thing that matters is if you can use your skills to help the hiring organization meet its needs. And a portfolio is one of the best ways to demonstrate your work experience.

Look for Diverse E-Learning Examples.

For the hiring manager:

As you know, elearning is more than a bunch of bullet point screens. If that’s what you need, you can hire just about anyone. If you want a good elearning developer you should look for one who can do more than great looking bullet point slides. Some of what I look for:

• How they got past bullet points with unique layouts or small interactions
• Types of interactive content and learning activities
• Scenario driven content
• Software training: simulations or screencasts
• Creativity

For the job seeker:

When assembling a portfolio, pull together diverse elearning examples with different types of courses and interactions. Don’t expect the hiring manager to click through 30 slides to get to the one interesting interaction. Pull the interaction out and show just that.  Don’t show twenty click-and-read compliance courses that are all essentially the same. Also, don’t lock the navigation. That guarantees that the reviewer won’t click past the first slide.

One last point on this: looks matter. You may have the most instructionally sound course to show, but the ones that get the eyes are the ones that look good. Something to keep in mind.

Hire for Desired E-Learning Skills

For the hiring manager:

Understand what role you’re trying to fill and then craft questions to collect the information you need to assess whether the person can fill that role. It also allows you to be consistent in the process across candidates. I like to create a rubric so that I’ve consistent and can compare candidates based on the same question.

This appears to be an obvious point, but often the interviews get sidetracked. And sometimes the hiring staff gets enamored with the person’s personality or other things and never gets around to finding out if they’re really qualified.

For the job seeker:

I used to make a two-column list. On one side I listed what the organization identified in the job announcement. And on the other, I listed my response and my experience. This helped me prepare custom resumes specific to the job application. It also helped me with practicing my interview answers.

Collect some job posting and make a list of what they want and then compare what they want to your skill set. Even if you’re not looking for work, this is a great way to identify areas for personal development.

Assign an E-Learning Project

For the hiring manager:

Some people are good talkers (our industry is filled with good talkers) and sometimes it can be hard to assess whether or not they actually have the skills you desire. When I get to the next round of interviews, I assign a simple project. I tell them I don’t expect a polished module. I just want to get a sense of what they can do and then walk through what they did. It’s a way to establish some context for talking together and for them to show off what they can do.

Here is what I like to know:

• Why did they take the approach they did?
• What part did they like best? Worst?
• Where do they feel they best demonstrate their skills?
• If they could do it again, what would they change?

Some people put in a lot of effort and some put in the bare minimum. Again, they can do what they want. But to me it says a lot when a person who’s competing for job does the bare minimum to impress you.

I’ve had people tell me that it’s ridiculous that I expect them to build a simple module for the interview. That’s fine because it helps weed out candidates. Again, this may seem harsh, but as a hiring manager I usually have more than enough qualified candidates, so if someone is kind enough to make the screening process easier on me, that’s great.

For the job seeker:

If you made it to this point in the process you have a great chance of getting the job. Now it’s time to impress the hiring manager. Here are a few key things to consider:

• Do your best. You’re competing against other qualified people.
• Looks matter. Even if it’s a simple project, make sure it looks tight.
• Focus on activities and interactions.
• You probably don’t have time to build a whole course, but be prepared to talk about what you’d do if you did have the time and resources.
• Humor is good and can make you stand out. But it can also make you stand out for the wrong reasons in our hyper sensitive culture.

The key in all of this is to find the best person for the job. Hopefully these tips help. And for the person who’s looking for a job, you want to be the one who stands out.

If you’ve recently hired an elearning developer or gone through an interview for an elearning job, what tips to do you have? Feel free to share them in the comments.

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