The story behind this episode is John Labiento reached out to me to volunteer his services for anything that TLDC needed. And at the same time, I was putting together an event with BLOC Podcast host, Heidi Kirby, for Teachers transitioning to Instructional Designers. And since John was in that audience, the idea for a broadcast with him asking questions to Heidi seemed like an excellent idea.
So what you'll find here is a list of 10 questions John has as a teacher looking to get into instructional design. And who better to answer these questions than Heidi who put together the program for our
Road to L&D virtual conference.
This broadcast could've gone on for more than an hour; there was lots of activity in the chat and several more questions submitted by the audience to add to those John had listed.
This is a perfect warm-up for the event next week so give it a listen and don't forget to register for the conference. It's free and we've got over 400 people already registered to attend.
Luis Malbas
Hello, everybody. Welcome to the training learning and development community. Happy Thursday to you out there. Thanks for joining us today. We've already got a bunch of people already in the session. Gosh, this is gonna be great. Eric R is here. Trish Ward Hey, Kim, and Spalding Christian Torrance. Vanessa, good to see you, Tom. Emily, bunch of you. Thank you so much for joining. So we're 2022 a big focus in l&d right now, I am sure all of you know it. And especially for those of you that are here. It's just been on career. It's an ongoing conversation that's been happening in the community. I hear about it all the time. It kind of has woven itself into almost every event that I've produced over the last couple of years, actually, you know, this transition from teacher to IDX, freelancing, all those types of conversations have been happening just constantly. And and so I'm really excited that I was able to connect with Heidi and actually put together an event that Heidi is helping to produce. It's happening next week, and it's on it's called the roads. l&d transitioning from teacher to instructional designer, the program looks fantastic. I'm really, really excited to, to be a participant in that one, as well as helping to produce it. And, and John lobby, anto, who was one of our guests today had also reached out to me with just some questions specific to transitioning to an ID he is currently a teacher now in higher ed. And I decided, let's just bring Heidi on. And we'll just have a conversation. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to introduce John and Heidi here. And I'm going to pretty much just drop off and let them have the conversation. I hope all of you enjoy. And don't forget to read your you're registered to that for that event next week. It's going to be fantastic. Already 400 people registered, last I checked yesterday. So it's a big event, and it's gonna be worth attending. So with that, I'm gonna let you guys kind of do your thing, and I'm just gonna drop my video and audio out. And we'll talk again soon.
John Labiento
Thanks so much, Luis. Hey, Heidi.
Heidi Kirby
Hey, John. How's it going?
John Labiento
Good. How are you? It's nice to see you again.
Heidi Kirby
It's good to see you, too.
John Labiento
Yeah. So thank you so much for taking the time today to answer our questions. For those of us that are going from the classroom to instructional design, and I'm hearing my feedback really strong right now. So I'm doing my best to ignore it. But so congratulations, first of all, on your new recent role. And for my first question, I wanted to find out, you know, what can you tell us about it? And also, can you share anything about your strategy, from the first time you went from the classroom to add to this last recent time that you were job searching?
Heidi Kirby
Sure. So my current role is customer education manager with a webops company based out of San Francisco called pantheon. So I am overseeing the customer education team is new, first of all, so right. It's a new function built out, there's kind of training living in all the different areas of the company right now. And we're going to centralize the external facing training. And so I have two curriculum developers under me, and I'm actually hiring a technical trainer. Welcome to the team. Week two, you're hiring. Right? So and, of course, my manager is helping tremendously with that process, and everything and onboarding has been really great. So um, but yeah, that's that's basically the gist of it. I don't know too much more yet, because it's only week two. But my search this time was I just feel like it was way different. Because a couple things I think response time from like, recruiters hiring whoever right response time was like crazy long. And I don't know if part of it was the holidays because I was looking from like October through my start date was January 4, right. And I was offered the job on my birthday on December 15. And so there was like two whole months there where I was just straight searching. And there the other day, I just got a rejection email for something where I was like, I don't even remember applying because it had been so long before that. So like, really long response times. And then like recruiters are just burned out, like some of the recruiters I talked to, not at Pantheon by the way, that experience was amazing, but like Some of the recruiters I talked to seemed like they would rather be talking to anyone else on the planet but me. And so it was really hard to like, stay optimistic and share my experience when like, the recruiters were just kind of like a couple of them were just like, maybe they ought to join the resignation. Oh, I don't hear your audio John.
John Labiento
It's all good. Thank you. Yeah, I had some visitors here. Okay. Thank you so much for that answer and sharing about your, your new role. And you know, how it's currently going in the first couple of weeks. And, and mentioning to that, so important to mention about what recruiters are also going through, and considering their perspective as well. So thank you. And I remember listening to one of your podcast episodes, where you're talking about the interview process. And personally, I'm going through interviews for specifically for learning and development specialists. So I've had a few interviews so far. And I wanted to know what what is like a good typical interview process for lnd that we can expect that's reasonable and realistic for everybody.
Heidi Kirby
So um, if you're not familiar with all the different kind of naming conventions all kind of spell it out. So typically, the first person that you talk to you once you've applied, and they're like, oh, this person seems like a cool person to talk to, is the internal recruiter. Now there are like third party recruiters to recruit for different companies and organizations, but straight straight hiring process with a company that has their own internal recruiting team, you'd be contacted by one of their recruiters and do a phone screen, right? That's pretty, pretty typical. They just want to see if you aren't lying on your resume, if there's no crazy red flags about who you are, you know, make sure you're a sane person, you know, just kind of like the basics and touch on some of the basics of maybe the company and the position, but nothing too deep, right. And then the second interview is typically with the hiring manager. So the hiring manager is the person that you will be in most cases, the person you will be reporting to, if you get the job, right. And so those conversations are a lot more behavioral based questions and getting into like the day to day responsibilities and a little bit diving a little bit deeper into your experience. Then after that, that's, that's where organization by organization, it varies widely right in l&d, you might have a panel interview that's pretty common these days, where it's like 234 people who you would be either working with who would be stakeholders like mine was, since my team itself is new. And the people were so new, I talk to stakeholders instead. And so I talked to like people I'd be working closely with in the organization. And then if there's another a lot of times for l&d, there's like some sort of assignment, right? That's become very normal as some sort of assignment. And I always tell people, like, try it, try to try not to take crazy assignments, right? Like, you'll know, you'll feel if the assignment that they're asking you to do is reasonable or not. And it shouldn't take you a ton of time, if they are asking you to do something, and it shouldn't be very company specific. Like if it's too very company specific, that borders on like, are you just trying to get some free free work? And yeah, I love what Eric said in the chat about an assignment is not a full project, right? Like, they just want to see that given a situation, you can create something right? And then possibly, it depends on really the role. But it's, there's a possible ability that you might have an interview with what's called a skip level. And so that is like your boss's boss. Right. And that's usually like the final interview just to in some cases, it might be. I feel like it's kind of 5050. If that one happens at the individual contributor level, it really just depends on the organization. But yeah, that's and then you wait for however long you wait for and then hopefully you're offered the job after all that.
John Labiento
Awesome, thank you so much for sharing that. And that's pretty much use of the process that I've been going through. And it's good to know you know, about the assignments to like, what could be too much. And then I left that suggestion in the chat from Eric, about three to five slides Max as well. Awesome. And so I'm going to start looking at the questions that people voted for and then maybe questions People have also suggested for us. So next question, what do you think is better working with a career coach or doing this all on your own for free?
Heidi Kirby
So I'm going to give the very traditional non answer of it depends. Um, it really, it really does depend, right? So it depends on a couple things. It depends on who you are as a person, right? Are you somebody who's super self motivated, where you can make a plan for yourself and stick to it and stay accountable? Or are you someone who is, you know, has to be prodded and guided and really needs that kind of, you know, step by step, guidance and explanations. And, you know, if that's the case, like, if you're really self motivated, yeah, do it yourself. But if you really could use that guidance, then, you know, a career coach might be the option for you. In the same sense, though, it also depends on what you're looking for. Right? If you're just kind of looking to, you know, further your current career, probably not the best option. But if you're looking to like transition from one field to another, right, like, I know, a lot of educators who are trying to get into learning and development are working with career coaches, or at the very least, like a resume writer, right? Somebody who's just going to help them a little bit. And so it depends on the what to and it depends on, like, what's out, there is a good fit for what you're looking for in the kind of support you need. And like Kim just mentioned, there's kind of a third option and accountability group where people get together and encourage each other, or communities like TL DC is a community or GL DC is another community, right, that people just get together. And you know, it, it's one of those things where it depends, and it also depends on your budget, and how much you have the ability to spend on your next role. One thing I will say, though, is that isn't a terrible idea. If you've been searching for like four to six months without, you know, without success to find a career coach? No, definitely not. So, um, you know, and the difference between, you know, getting help on your resume, like your local library, which is literally I've seen someone's resume who got help at a local library, and finding somebody who specifically has a background in l&d, who's now helping to coach people in their careers is vast, right like that resume versus tailored to LMD. Resume is night and day. So again, it really just kind of depends on what you want. And I like Eric's comment to that, even within the id space, a career coach can help you develop a path that will make you specifically marketable, it'll they'll help you realize what you're missing, that maybe is a blind spot for you too.
John Labiento
Awesome, those are great points. Thank you, Heidi. Next question, how first of all, like, how do you do it all? And then how do you suggest, you know, for time management teachers that are transitioning, and you know, I know you do a lot for the community and paying it forward? And how do you manage your time? And how do you suggest you know, others manage your time during this process?
Heidi Kirby
Um, I might not suggest people manage their time, like I do, because I am not as well organized as I would like to be. But, you know, take advantage of those moments that you can multitask, I guess, for lack of a better word. So when I was teaching, and I was trying to get into instructional design, I was able to financially dial back my class load, like in higher ed right. And so it was summer anyway, there's not as many classes available. So I dial back my Courseload and I had a six month old at home. And so when I was in his room, like playing with him, and just hanging out, like, I'd have podcasts on, like, lnd podcasts in the background, right? Just to, like, constantly be developing. And, you know, like, right now I'm working my day job. I'm doing this, like, this is my lunch break today, for example, right? And then I'm also teaching a college course. And so like on my lunch break, I'll check my college email and you know, so it's, it's kind of how much leisure time do you want, and I'm the kind of person who, you know, two or three hours at the end of the day where I can just veg out and watch Netflix is good for me the rest of the day, I need to be busy. And so it kind of just depends, and I mean, you got to make a plan to write Can you hear? Can you hear that squeaky toy? That's my puppy. He wanted, he wanted to have some attention a little bit. So he's playing with the squeaky toy. But yeah, you've got to make a plan for yourself. And, you know, don't try to do everything right. What's that phrase? How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time?
John Labiento
I love that. Thank you. And thanks for sharing that elephant phrase with the puppy in the room. Very cool. All right. So next question. How do you go about learning the tools of IDX? When you're first starting out? And I know portfolios are so important. So how can we start building one just like in the simplest and easiest way possible?
Heidi Kirby
So one of the things that I always suggest, because I don't think I did this properly, or right, because I actually had a course of my Ph. D program where we were like, it was like, drinking from the firehose of learning all the different tools. And each week, it was a different tool. But like, we downloaded, like all of the the trials for this class. And then at the end of the class, they were gone. And I had no access to them again, and I hadn't done everything I wanted to do. So the first thing I tell everyone is like, pace yourself with those free trials. Like I think storyline is like one to two weeks, or is it a full month? I can't remember 14 days,
John Labiento
I think 30 days for articulate. I've had it a couple times.
Heidi Kirby
It says it's two months, only a month now. Yeah, yeah. So like, plan for that month, like I'm going to learn and I'm going to do X prot, like, have your project in mind of what you're going to do. And then I like YouTube, right? YouTube is the best place to find tutorials for that kind of thing. And depending on the different tool, there are people in this field who are like pretty popular and prominent who do tutorials on all the different tools. And then like yeah, the free tools to like Tom said, like, check out the free tools whenever like whenever you have time, go ahead and look at those different but definitely the the the paid tools like plant plan at that time, it goes with the time management thing that you asked, right. YouTube, LinkedIn learning has some good tutorials for the different tools as well, depending on on what they are. And
John Labiento
yeah. Awesome, thank you so much. And follow up question for that. I put it in the chat too, if anybody wants to answer for what are some good free tools to check out?
Heidi Kirby
Um, of course, I'm a big fan of the micro learning tool, seven tats. That's a fun one. And it's got a very it doesn't have a steep learning curve, right? It's pretty easy to kind of pick up. There's, like there's basically like free Yeah, like Tom saying adapt authoring tool. There's basically like, open source versions have many different tools that you can use. So like, if you just Google like open source storyline or open source Camtasia you can find free tools like open shot video editor is like an open source tool that I downloaded because I didn't have Camtasia when I was looking for a job and so I just typed in Camtasia open source and so open shot video editor was that. That suggestion and then Kim made a really good suggestion that Mike Taylor and Tracy Parrish both have lists of free tools. Mike Taylor, I don't know as much about Tracy Parrish, but my Taylor's always like publishing lists like full lists of different kinds of free tools.
John Labiento
I love that awesome. Thank you all have to check some of those out and they help those of us that are listening to well as well. Next question, let's see. Oh, yes. I love this question. How can we best leverage our considerable experience in higher ed in the job search as an l&d specialist or instructional designer?
Heidi Kirby
So I think the biggest thing for me was learning some of the foundational instructional design models and theory and adult learning principles from the instructional design slash performance improvement side of things because what it does is like you don't know what you do and don't know when You first like, open an instructional design job description you're like, Okay, I feel like I've kind of done some of that, but I'm not really sure. And so learning more about kind of like, Id 101, and foundations and like the history of the field, and some of you know, the, I'm not gonna name any specific theories or models, because there's so many of them, and I'll just mess it up. But you know, just some of the basics, right? Because then it starts to make sense, right? You're like, oh, I have done a needs analysis, I did this, this and this, oh, I do. I am good at project management. Because I've done these things. And oh, assessment, that's easy, you know, and I've measured and learning analytics and things like that. So for me, it's really about like learning those fundamentals, and then being able to see, you know, the connections.
John Labiento
Awesome. Thank you, Heidi. And, yeah, and somebody mentioned in the chat, Eric said that he'd say, It depends if it's corporate ID, or higher ed ID. So that's perfect segue for next question, what is the difference between a higher ed LMS and a corporate LMS. And also, just in general, a higher ed ID role versus corporate.
Heidi Kirby
So I can't speak too much to the higher ed ID role, of course, um, because I've never been in that situation. But I've taught in higher ed. And so first, I'll say, I was on Dr. Luke opsins. podcast for not one, but two episodes where we talk about the differences between corporate and higher ed ID, like we just share, like cuz he's in higher ed. And we just like, quick fire a bunch of questions to each other to compare right even down to like salary and like very specific things. As far as LMS goes, what I've noticed is that LMS is these days are all kind of like, there's a certain uniformity that's happening within the LMS world, because like, I feel like there's this, this foundational set of features and functionality that are just expected LMSs have come such a long way just in like the several years that I've been in the field. And like when I think about using them as an end user before that, like they've come so far. I think I think the difference really is there's, there's a few more like trendy features in corporate LMS is that I don't know if they exist in higher ed LMS or not, because I'm only using them as an end user, but like, you know, the user generated content and the like, trying to get people engaged in organizations to use the LMS. And like different, like, you know, being able to tag someone in the LMS. And like these different kinds of like social, very trendy things that that are that are out there. I haven't seen them use successfully. So if somebody has good examples of that, actually, Jonah Goldstein, 360, learning, he would have really good examples of that, because 360 learning is like an LMS. It's built for social, so they probably have some pretty good use cases. But yeah, those are the differences that I've kind of noticed in my limited experience.
John Labiento
Awesome. Thank you, Heidi. And you know, coming from using a higher LMS, I've noticed some of those social functions to a little bit more as a play. Next question, this one is from Kim. And she says, What's the best way to quickly learn about how businesses function? Financials, org structures, enterprise software, like SAP, corporate jargon, etc? If one has never worked anywhere, but in higher ed? Is there a book or books, online groups, podcasts or anything? That's a good source?
Heidi Kirby
That's a really good question. And I don't know if I know the answer, because for me, it was like, immersion, immersion therapy. So if anybody has a good suggestion, in the chat for business 101 Like I didn't learn any of that until I was knee deep in it all. And I was like, What is a what is an HRA s and what are what are benefits? You know, I was an adjunct professor. I was like, How do I sign up for these benefits? Right, so
John Labiento
awesome, very cool. Yeah. So it sounds like a lot of that you can learn kind of on the job and your new role, and things like that. Awesome. And this could be my maybe my last question. Are there any tips that you have for using new l&d terminology or language during this interview process because like, personally, I do find it's easier to do, you know, on the resume and then you catch yourself in an interview, like maybe saying student, and then I recently had an interview in Spanish as well. And so I'm like, You know what, I need to come up with a glossary or translate maybe that glossary that we've seen in teaching a path to LMC? You know, for those terms. So how would you suggest managing kind of the vocabulary during an interview? Very cute puppy, what's, what's his name?
Heidi Kirby
Thank you. This is Rudy. Rudy, Rudy. I think, well, you know, you mentioned having to do an interview in Spanish, right? And so my answer is kind of similar. Like to learn the language, like immerse yourself in it, right? Listen to the podcasts, like have have informational interviews of people, if you have a count and accountability group, like Kim said, like, see if they'll do mock interviews with you, where you can practice and, you know, practicing speaking, the language makes the most sense. But you're probably still gonna, like make references to things in the classroom, right? Like, it's just gonna happen, it's natural. And hopefully, you are on a video call where you can like, kind of gauge the other person's reaction. If they're getting confused by what you're talking about, then, you know, you have to figure out quickly how to translate it. But, um, you know, for me, it was like listening to podcasts, right? That really helped a lot with like, the, the difference in language because, you know, once you start hearing the same things over and over, you start like making that mental model in your mind that you're connecting those two phrases you're familiar with, it makes it easier to talk to others about it.
John Labiento
Yeah. Wonderful. Thank you, Heidi, those are awesome suggestions. And thank you so much, as are all my questions, you know, if anybody else in the chat has a question, maybe we could open that up. But thank you so much for your time today. And I'm so excited to start using some of these new things in my search. So thank you.
Luis Malbas
You know, I have a question. I guess it's kind of for both of you. So John, do you have a vision of what you want to do as an instructional designer? Like what your dream job as ideas? And Heidi? How important is it to have that vision to have an idea as you're going through this process?
John Labiento
Yeah, I'm currently looking for learning and development specialist roles. And I know ideas a big huge part of that as well. So that's sort of my dream goal right now. And just, you know, I've always loved helping and transforming people's lives and communities and helping improve, you know, performance, and people reach their goals. So that's what I'm really passionate about.
Heidi Kirby
Nice. Yeah. And I think it's super important to have like the one maybe two roles that you're specifically going for, because otherwise, from a hiring manager perspective, I feel like you might just be experimenting with possible new careers. And considering the fact that it takes three to six months to even get you up to speed on like the company, the company, culture, the product, you know, if it's a SaaS company, something like that, you know, I don't really want to take a chance on someone who's experimenting, I'd rather have somebody with like, John's perspective of this is what I want to do. This is how I want to help, because then from a retention standpoint, I'm probably going to retain him longer,
Luis Malbas
right? Because Heidi, I've always looked at you as somebody that had a pretty solid idea of the direction you wanted to go. Like, whenever I think about you, I always think l&d leader, she wants to be an l&d leader, like, you know, and and not if that's not for everybody, you know, right,
Heidi Kirby
for sure. Yeah. And that's totally fine. If you're like, I just want to design stuff for the rest of my career. Awesome.
Luis Malbas
Yeah, no, that's great. Well, thanks so much. The both of you for doing this. I'm really, really excited about next week's event. And, you know, so hopefully, John, you're going to be there. And Heidi, of course, you have a session towards the end of the day, and I'm not sure how we're gonna moderate everything. But you know, everybody bring your questions the next week event, next week's event, and, yeah, attend with the other 400 people that are gonna be there. It's gonna be a lot of fun. I can't wait to see everybody there.
Heidi Kirby
Thanks for having me.
John Labiento
Thank you so much, Luis. Hi, everybody. Have a great day.
Luis Malbas
All right. Bye, everyone. Thanks a lot. We'll see you next week.
