This panel of past and current hiring managers will consider key questions on what they look for and what they don’t during the recruitment and interview process. From CVs to portfolios, interview questions and whether or not those LinkedIn posts really will get you the job.
Tom McDowall
Hello, and welcome to this panel session. I wouldn't say this afternoon, it's the end of the day for me, but I think it's this morning for a lot of people. And so wherever you are just replaced the appropriate time of day, so I don't sound daft. So this panel inside the mind of a hiring manager, we've got some fantastic people here with us today, that will introduce themselves in just a moment. And we're really going to be looking at, you know, what is it that gets you that interview? What is it in that interview that gets you in the next interview or the job? But whilst everyone's just introducing themselves here on the panel, please do in the chat. Say hello, let us know where you are. And of course, what what, what stage are you at in your current kind of job search? Are you actively looking? Have you gone through this and have some things you want to share? There's going to be time at the end for q&a. So I'll throw the softball questions. And then you can come in with the really difficult stuff at the end. Which point I'll just stay very quiet and Pretend I'm not here. So let's jump into introductions. My name is Tom, and I'm sort of hosting and asking the questions and avoiding any real responsibility. Then how did you want to introduce yourself next?
Heidi Kirby
Yeah, sorry, I was giving a shout out to Cleveland in the chat. I'm also from Cleveland. I work as a customer education manager for a tech company called Pantheon by day where I've hired instructional designers and other l&d professionals. And I also posted lnd podcasts, and I'm pursuing my PhD in Instructional Design and Technology. So I've been around for a little bit. And yeah, that's basically
Tom McDowall
awesome Joe, next.
Joseph Suarez
Sure. So I'm from Columbus, Ohio. So not too far from Heidi, two and two and a half hours or so. My name is Joe, I'm independent learning experience designer. We've been doing that for the past couple years. But prior to that I worked 13 years in a couple different corporate roles. So as far as today is concerned, I in those roles, I did a lot of interviewing for various roles. Trying to think exactly, it was like seven or eight different roles that I did interviews for. And Kara North couldn't be here today. So she asked me to be in her place, which I know are some big shoes to fill. So when I can, I'll try and think of what her perspective might be.
Tom McDowall
And Gemma,
Gemma Wells
Hi, I'm Gemma, and based in the UK, I'm a digital program manager for an apprenticeship company called the opportunity group. I've been in l&d for nearly 12 years now. So I've hired instructional designers. I also have a marketing department where I am as well. So I've had quite a few different creative people in my time.
Tom McDowall
Yeah, awesome. So that is the panel. Thanks for everyone jumping in in the chat. As I say there will be a q&a at the end. So if you have got any really great questions, make sure you drop it into the q&a section. And we'll double back to that. But we'll remind you when the time comes up. So first question to the panel. And we'll kind of see who who wants to take it off who's feeling brave. But I feel that often that the first challenge and the whole the hiring process is how do you get that hiring manager that recruiters are to land on your CV, your cover letter or portfolio and think that that person is worth speaking to? So when you're in that situation? What are those magic things that you're looking for?
I can go if you like. I think for me, simple. It's a really simple thing just to make it as eye catching as possible. If you show your creative skills in your CV, straightaway, it's got somebody's eye. I know I've had some CVS quite recently, actually for a while I was recruiting for and the more creative they were, the more they caught my eye because I could see somebody had spent time to tailor their CV to the role that I was recruiting for. That's definitely a big one for me for a starting point.
Joseph Suarez
Yeah, I echo that. tailoring your resume to the actual job description or at least providing some kind of cover letter that addresses those. And I'd add following any direction specified in the job description as well. That's a quick way to rule yourself out is to You miss some specific directions that were given on how to apply or some specifics around that?
Heidi Kirby
Yeah, what both of them said, but also, you know, when I look at resumes I'm looking for is does it fit the role that you're applying for sometimes people who are transitioning from another field, don't really update their resume or CV with the language of the job that they're applying for. And it looks like, it looks like you're applying for a teaching position. And so if you haven't kind of highlighted those transferable skills, and it looks like it's to be applying to a school district, you know, I'm going to pass for the people who have all of the kind of here's what I can offer as an instructional designer role.
Tom McDowall
So I think there is sort of two points that I want to dig into a little bit more there. The first was that about making your CV eyecatching. So just digging in past that sort of surface level, what are we talking about? Do we you know, do we want to see crazy fonts ALL OVER THE SHOP Comic Sans headlines, things like that? Or do you want to see a picture of the person on a CV? Does that help? Does that hinder? And I mean, I think date things like data visualization stuff has become quite popular. Do you find that helpful? Or does that? Is that what you're looking for in those sort of more eye catching CVS? Or is there something more specific that you're looking for?
Joseph Suarez
For me, specifically, I recognize that with a background in graphic design, I'm biased towards the better looking resumes. So I actually have to stop myself from over judging in that category. But at the same time, you know, if I'm hiring for an instructional design position, I'm probably hiring for a role that's going to be needing to present information in a digestible way. And if I'm not seeing that somebody can chunk content on their own resume, then that gives me a good indicator that they're not going to be able to do that on the job.
Tom McDowall
Yeah, I agree with with that job, definitely. And as soon as you said Comic Sans font, Tom, I got a little shut down my spine, it made me feel quite full. So no, nothing like that. I wouldn't want somebody to go over the top and literally throw every creative design technique or anything on their CV, because that is a big part, I think. But I think just as long as they it goes back to tailoring it, again to that that role that they're applying for, as long as they're showing that they've got that design technique. And like Joe said, not putting, not putting a ton of information in TCV, as well, you don't want to sort of give everything up front, you just want to address the details that for the job that you're applying for, because then that's where the interview will come into the soft pull on those examples a little bit more of I've seen CVS where people just put everything on there. And it kind of doesn't leave much room for conversation when you actually do want to meet that person. But yeah, and just keeping it as relevant as possible is just massively key.
Heidi Kirby
Yeah, and I think one of the ways to keep it relevant is to make sure that you put your portfolio link somewhere on there, so that it's easy to find, to everyone's point about not putting everything in the resume itself, at least link out to where everything lives, right.
Tom McDowall
Yeah, helpful. info if that was kind of in the the the follow up in terms of making that tailoring and that relevance and that right language piece, there is obviously a fine line between tailoring for the job that you're applying for, and making your skill seem relevant, and ever so slightly twisting the truth. And, you know, we've probably all seen examples of both sides of that really, really good sort of alignment to what you want, as opposed to bear this isn't entirely true, but it's close enough. So what what cut, what level of alignment Do you want to see? So for instance, should people be adjusting job titles? Or should they just be explaining how it's relevant to the role that they're applying for now? Should people be renaming skills and tasks they've completed? Or giving the skills and tasks that they've done in the language they would already use? But then explaining how they align? What What do each of you prefer for that kind of thing?
Heidi Kirby
I think anywhere where you're misrepresenting your actual job title is a huge risk. I always tell people not to do that. If you were a teacher and I educator and adjunct faculty member, do not put instructional designer on your resume. Because if my company does a background check on you, and they call your previous employer and they ask them, was this person an instructional designer at x school, your previous employer is going to say no, and you're going to lose out on that job opportunity, right? Because it wasn't your title, right. So definitely don't lie about your title or you know about things that you did. But to your point, explain how what you did on the job relates to the job that you're applying for. And remember that recruiters and hiring managers outside of K through 12 outside know the acronyms. We don't know the language, we don't know the standardized tests, all of those things. So anytime you're talking about metrics, or things that you did, you have to really just spell it out.
Tom McDowall
Yeah, I agree with with what Heidi said, there, it's definitely not a good idea to sort of embellish the roles that you've done are worded in a different way, I think you could just need to look at the job spec and look at the the pieces that have sort of part of the role. And just think about how the activities you've done in a previous role would match up to that not necessarily 100% match up to it. But how you can sort of say, well, I have done this in this sort of way, it doesn't have to be 100%. Yes, I've done that. But if you can sort of explain it in a good enough way that shows that you've got some of those skills, you're never 100% going to find somebody that's got all of the skills in a job spec that human you are recruiting for anyway. But if somebody cuz I've explained those skills would show that they have at least some, and that's the best way to do it, I would never embellish what you've done or change job titles to see a job spec, it's just like Heidi said is not worth the risk.
Joseph Suarez
Yeah, in the Heidi said, the exact point that I was thinking about, you need to be careful because people can call and verify your previous employment. So you, the last thing I would say you want to change is your actual job title. And present yourself as something that you weren't. The only thing I'll add is that I think when I'm looking at resumes, I'm recognizing that no resume is really a historical document, it's portrayed to be presenting that person in the best light, and every resume does some degree of embellishment. So when I'm looking at resumes, I'm trying to get a sense of okay, how much are they exaggerating their accomplishments? And you can kind of get a sense from from something's other other times, it's harder, and you need to parse that out in the interview.
Tom McDowall
Awesome. So yeah, I think that's quite easy. I have always kind of always thought of CVS as almost like a sales document. In some ways. It's your kind of your brochure that you might try and handouts. So you've got you've got a CV, you've got your cover letter, you've caught the eye. Let's talk about portfolios. So there's obviously 1,000,001 different ways you could go about creating a portfolio. And it's it to an extent it's quite a personal personal approach is going to be a representation of you to everyone that looks at it. But as specifically when you're looking at from a recruitment perspective, what are you looking to see there absolutely should be in a great portfolio.
Joseph Suarez
of Cary north were here I know, she would say, anything that you claim you can do on your resume, you should be backing up in your portfolio. I've heard her say that several times.
Tom McDowall
Yeah, I've heard that as well. And I think that with the things that you put in your portfolio, it's key that they yours. So even if you've worked on them as a group, if you haven't actually designed an element of that that piece of work, you shouldn't be included in your personal portfolio. I think that's a big thing. It has to be things that you've designed, that you're responsible for that you could replicate almost different, you know, if you needed to, to show that you've got those skills, and you're able to do the design in that way.
Joseph Suarez
Yeah. There you go. All right, I was just gonna add along with that. You're, I wouldn't put something in your portfolio that uses some type of visual template that was created by someone else for that exact reason. Because it unintentionally unintentionally, perhaps portrays you as being more competent in visual design than you might be.
Heidi Kirby
To good point. Yeah. And I was gonna say to explain your process, right. include something with the project right in a bunch of finish projects, doesn't give me a lot of sense of what's going to happen before you turn in a finished project on the job, right? What did you do for needs analysis? What did you determine? How did you? How did you determine the audience? What steps did you take? How did you know, one of the best portfolios I've seen, the person put how much time they spent on each project even. And like really told a detailed story about this is how I did this is how much time I spent. So it really gave you a full picture of their whole process. And then something that I know Kara agrees with me on is like, who are you as a person to, and that's not always common, it depends on the hiring manager. But like, I would love an extra just little tab on your portfolio that just tells me about you as a human being and what you're like and what you value. So.
Tom McDowall
So that's really, I think it's really interesting when we talk about this, because so often portfolios is kind of seen as they're almost hosting sites for pieces of elearning you've created. So if you were hiring someone, and they said, so I've got this, I can either give you completed work, but with very limited understanding of how I got there, or a really detailed explanation of how I got there, but not a link to a working piece of elearning. And maybe just some screenshots, which would you prefer to see? What are you going to get out of each that you wouldn't get from the other? side? Go ahead. No, you go ahead.
Okay, well, I was gonna say it's, I think I prefer to see, if I was pushed up to shop, I would like to see hat, like how they got to those pieces of work that the detail because I think that says more about a person that they could talk you through their design journey. And you can almost get an idea from from the visual, just as long as they're explaining to you how they got to that design process, because I think that showcases what we're a can actually deliver if they can explain that process clearly.
Joseph Suarez
Yeah, what I was gonna say is, if the role is more elearning, development centric, then I want to see more things in authoring tools, essentially, screenshots, things like that. I'm not as concerned about walking me through the process, because I can see from the end result, how well the process went from the development perspective. If it's instructional design, I definitely want to, I would rather see the process and a screenshot or maybe even no screenshot from the opposite perspective.
Heidi Kirby
Yeah, I totally agree, I if I would rather have like a hand sketch storyboard, and the whole design process, if you're applying for instructional design, then just finished products, because one of the biggest skills that isn't talked about on LinkedIn, as much as you know, like the development and the tools, and the sexy stuff, is just like communication and collaboration, and how important that is, in the entirety of the instructional design roles. So, you know, knowing that you know, how to communicate your ideas, and your process is absolutely key.
Joseph Suarez
Yep. And build a case if you need to, for a certain project.
Heidi Kirby
Totally.
Tom McDowall
So kind of alongside that, I think there is a fairly, you know, we had talked to people, there's a lot of maybe concerned about that the you must have something storyline in there, you must have something from X, Y and Zed authoring tool in there to you know, to stand a chance or that's what people are looking for. So, you know, when you're when you're looking at portfolios, are you focusing on? Is it x, y and Zed authoring tool? Is that something that that concerns you at that stage?
Joseph Suarez
think so because in the in the times, I've interviewed people, those people would be joining a team. And they would be using the tools that were used on our team, which was usually storyline along with some other things like perhaps demonstra, demonstrating competency with the Adobe Creative Suite, things like that. So depending on what role I was trying to fill, I think I would be looking for specific tools, but just to not not go on too much of a tangent, but I think kind of an elephant in the room is in the past 10 to 15 years, there's been this combination of expectation for roles like it used to be an elearning developer was one specific skill set that you would find in one person and an instructional designer would be completely different. And then you might even have separate like, graphic design multimedia people, somewhere along the way, those two roles merge, and those expectations merged. And now we expect everyone to do everything and it just kind of happened and we don't talk about it.
Tom McDowall
Yeah, I get where you're coming from with that job. Because there is an expectation, everybody can do everything at the moment. But I think if you put in if you put it into the job specification, that there's a specific tool that you get, you know, that you use when you work. And the expectation is that you'd want somebody that can almost hit the ground running and be able to use those tools. So it'd be good for them to demonstrate that they can use those tools, if that's what you're looking for.
Heidi Kirby
I think there's also some crossover in tools, right? Like if you if you don't Captivate storylines, not going to be that huge of a hurdle, depending on, you know, but or if you use like some sort of, you know, Adobe video editor, you can probably figure out Camtasia. So there is some crossover. But I think like having, like an authoring tool, having something where you're creating a video, like using different tools that produce different deliverables is also important.
Tom McDowall
So I guess that's really the example of you may perhaps don't want and correct me if I'm sort of misunderstanding, but you don't want a portfolio where everything is built in, say, let's say you storyline as an example, because everyone knows storyline, if you've got three or four things, and all of them are just I built this in Storyline. I built this in storyline, I built this in Storyline. Would that maybe be less appealing than say someone who said, Oh, well, I built this in Storyline. But then I built this in evolve. And I built this and adapt. And I built this in Premiere Pro.
It's so nice to see a cross section of tools, I think, because I think you never use just one tool in a design role. So I think it's good to be able to see a cross section of abilities when when you share showcasing the portfolio and the work that you've done.
Awesome. And I guess, yeah, we've kind of talked about the tools. The last thing I want to touch on portfolio is, it's not always easy to find, work to put in there. And, you know, therefore, there's lots of advice around if you have to create something from scratch, choose something you love, or do still talk about your hobby or your passion, or there's the Choose a real business problem that you know exists in the world and address that or explore how you would address that. What kind of things maybe Are you more or less happy to see in a portfolio? What demonstrates, I guess more more more relevant skills to you, when people are doing stuff about hobbies or things or whether it's business issues? Or does it not make much of a difference?
I don't think it makes much of a difference to me personally, I think just as long as you could showcase your skill set, and you you know, you could show different ways of designing an adult out ticket particularly would matter to me, I don't think I think of that when I was looking at a portfolio perhaps.
Joseph Suarez
Yeah, the main thing is demonstrating a competency with the tool. And so if I was interviewing for a healthcare company, it would be great to see some actual examples from healthcare, but it wouldn't be necessary for me to see that. Okay, this person has a grasp of storyline.
Heidi Kirby
Yeah, the what has never been a deal breaker. And in fact, I usually encourage people to find something that's kind of broadly, broadly corporate or broadly higher ed, or whatever industry you're going for, because there's a lot of things like soft skills and, and things that everyone can do that are applicable, and someone can see you doing it, their organization, but then I always encourage people to do something that they like and are passionate about as well. Because then that also gives hiring managers a way to remember you, right, like, oh, that's the person that had that elearning on, you know, like taking care of German shepherds or you know, something really unique and different that helps you stand out.
Tom McDowall
Awesome. So, there was a third topic outside of CVS and portfolios that I thought it would be good to look at from our from our perspective, and that is social media. So I know right, scary stuff. So really, the kind of question I want to ask here is, how much of a role in your experiences because I guess everyone's different on this? Does it play does you know, does a really active LinkedIn account actually translate to you as someone you're more likely to get to an interview or to hire Do you know really clever l&d related tweets? You know, secure a role or or bid, we often talk about like building a profile, right? Social media is all about building your profile. Do you find that does translate to increased hire ability? Or more likely to get an interview? No.
No. And to be fair, I know some amazing, creative people like some really top notch designers, and they have very limited social media presence. And I don't think that that I don't think that hinders your ability. Not everybody is into social media and meeting their profiles. So I don't, to me personally, it wouldn't put me off hiring somebody at all. I think it's just a personal preference social media.
Heidi Kirby
Yeah, Bella mentioned in her last session, that part of the reason she feels that she was hired onto my team was because of her social media presence, and, you know, being active on LinkedIn. And that's true, but also her counterpart. The other idea on my team has barely any social media footprint, right. So I think it can be helpful for networking, and like finding out opportunities exist. And like all of the things that come before the actual hiring process. And unfortunately, I think on the other hand, it can also hinder the hiring process, because I've seen a lot of jobs, job seekers in general complain about the recruiting and hiring process in a way that's really negative towards recruiters and hiring managers on social media. And if I was looking at job candidates, and I saw that pattern on their social media, I would be less likely to hire that person. If they're so willing to complain publicly and openly about your company. That's a business risk, right? And so I always just tell people, like it's okay to be frustrated with the job search, it's okay to be, you know, at your wit's end, we've all been there like you've you've, it's Friday, and you're getting all the rejection emails, right? And because that's when they always go out. And it's okay to be upset about that. But when you're like, attacking recruiters and hiring managers, that's people see that.
Joseph Suarez
Absolutely. Yeah. So for me, I think it can help. And I agree with Gemma that no social media presence doesn't indicate to me anything negative, if anything that might tell me that this person just likes to get their work done and doesn't like to goof off on social media. But, you know, when I'm looking at interview candidates, I'm looking for a few things obviously, at the foundation, I'm making sure that they can do the job, right. And then after that's established, I want to know two more things I want to know their about their professionalism, like their ability to turn and work on time and all that kind of stuff, be professional, good communicator. And then are they going to be a good fit on the team. And if they do have a social media presence, it can help me to go out and look at their LinkedIn profiles, see what kind of posts they're doing, what their activity is, to get a sense of those two things.
Tom McDowall
Yeah, I think that's really interesting. So I think we're coming up pretty hard on the half an hour actually, but we have covered all the topics and I want to leave this leave the time for the q&a As promised at the start. But I think there's been some really really interesting ones there. And wow, the q&a is quite full. So we may not get to all of these in 15 minutes but I will I will endeavor to work gather keep the questions anyway gather them together get answers for any that we don't cover and and share them share them via maybe the the TLD C Slack channel. So let's get started on some of these so I'm gonna have to move close to the screen and go all blurry, I'm afraid. So. Lisa has asked Is is it worth it to have two resumes to make it past the ATS? And a more creative looking what Oh, I see. So like one like plain text one for the automated ATS screenings and a more creative one for the interviewer. Interesting. I have absolutely no experience with ATS systems. I don't think they're that common in the UK if I'm honest. So anything from anyone on the panel about what you think about that?
Joseph Suarez
I actually that's what I was doing when I was applying for full time jobs was I had it tech space resume and a visual resume. And I put a link to the visual resume at the bottom of the tech space one in case a live person happened to actually view the tech space one just to get past the ATS systems.
Heidi Kirby
I do have a couple of big opinions about this. Getting past the ATS is a bit of a misnomer. And I have some really great friends in recruiting on my LinkedIn who are like vigilantes trying to dispel this myth myth that like an ATS is not just like, I don't know who the famous basketball player is. But he's the one that always just smacks the ball out of people's hands on commercials and stuff. Like that's not the ATS. It's not like a robot that just like, throws away your resume. It's just a repository. And recruiters are still like, mostly required to go in and look at all of the resumes that come in. And what the problem becomes is if you put like a PDF in there, and it gets all broken, and they can't read it, but it's not like an automated system that is filtering out people. Thank you, Luis matumbo, that's the basketball player, ATS it's not my tumbo people are looking at your resume. But that said, Joe's right that like a text based one is going to be more easily readable by a recruiter than some, like some of them PDFs, I've seen it in our ATS, like the formatting is wonky, and you can't really put it put all the things together. So I think it is worth it to have to but just remember that like the ATS is not a robot and it's not hiding your resume from anyone, people are still looking at your resume.
Joseph Suarez
And a quick tip is if you upload your resume to like a, a job posting site, like Twilio or something, and it doesn't auto populate the fields. Like if you're if you upload your resume, and then you're having to go in and type things in, that's a good indicator that your resume isn't formatted well for ATS.
Tom McDowall
Good stuff. So just do asks what drives your hiring decision between people who have l&d experience mostly totals to backup their duties versus someone who has never held the title?
And I think for me, it depends on the role itself that you're hiring for. So in my experience, I've hated the internals. So I've got a guy on my team who took came around with very little design background, he hadn't had any experience in design, you've only done it sort of bit of a bit of a side project. So I took him on because he showed potential in his design skills. And when we interviewed him, and when the little tasks that we set for him, he showed potential with this design skills. So in that instance, I have taken on people that haven't held l&d experience. But again, I think it just depends on the actual role you're hiring for if you wanted to take somebody on the way and to hit the ground running and be quite quick at picking up projects and things like that, then you would need somebody that's got that l&d experience, I think that's just the way I'd I'd hire for those roles.
Heidi Kirby
Yeah, I agree with that. i A lot of times, for me, it's been about the business need. And so I think that's important to remember is that sometimes as hiring managers, like, I think that all of us here would say that we'd prefer, you know, somebody with a willingness to learn who maybe has less experience over a very experienced jerk, at least I would think great. Sometimes the business need is that we've got this queue of 125 courses that we need to make for whatever, right. And sometimes the time and the business need is just not there to be able to upskill people. So I've been able to hire people that are new to the role and new to ID. But then I've also had to hire people that have a little bit more experience because of like the backlog or the expectations from the business side of things. So I think it just depends, but I think it's important to really look at the job description and have that conversation with the hiring manager when you get to the interview stage.
Joseph Suarez
Yeah, I'll just add that everyone gets their first big break somewhere, someone had to take a chance on him. So my advice would be gives give the hiring manager a reason to take a chance on you
Tom McDowall
Great advice there. So Romina as I asked do certifications from LinkedIn Coursera, or the many learning academies and my goodness, there are many of us, you know, are they of value are some better than others? What would you recommend? Let's let we want each person to one minute of answering on this one.
Heidi Kirby
We're waiting for Kara to Kara two way. Have you seen Kara's unfiltered ID YouTube channel?
Tom McDowall
Um, that would be a great place to start actually
Heidi Kirby
a great place to start. If somebody could link to Karis YouTube channel. I personally don't think that any one certification is better than the other. What I'm more looking for is, whatever your previous role was, did you look at that role? Did you look at the role you're applying for? Did you look at the gaps? And did you upskill? And how did you do that? So whatever you use to do that, some people just watch YouTube videos, right? Like some people are just some people just hanging out in places like this at events like this, and they learn from, you know, some people in the chat, we're talking about being self taught on the tools, there's nothing wrong with that. You know, what I do get concerned about is when people post a bunch of like, LinkedIn learning certificates with like, no context, like, they're just like, I got this certificate, I got this certificate. I'm like, okay, but you posted it. So tell us what you learned, like, tell us what you what you got out of it. Right. And that's more what I'm concerned with.
Tom McDowall
Yeah, I agree with Heidi on that. Definitely. If you've done the certifications, it's good to back it up with what you've actually gained from it, rather than just listing a load of things that you've done, which is great. But yeah, definitely back it up. But again, like how you said, there's not one particular one that I would recommend above others. I think, everybody, as we all know, everybody learns in a different way. So I'm self taught, I can, I'm happy to say that. And I think just as long as you can backup your skills, it doesn't really matter.
Think we go away quite lightly on that one. Let's move on. So killing said, I've been, I've been advising teachers to change teacher to instructor or educator, would you say that's okay, or is that problematic, too?
Heidi Kirby
I answered this in the chat when calian asked it. I think as long as your supervisor would say like, oh, yeah, this person's an educator here. Oh, yeah. They're an instructor. You know, as long as the person that we're calling to verify your employment would say yes to that. I think that's fine.
Tom McDowall
Anyone else on that one? Or are we happy with that one?
I'm happy with David. Hi, Deanna.
Cool. So Christina, is are some entry level jobs, have kitchen sink ads? Do we tailor our CV in that case? And how do we determine what to focus on? We've certainly all seen these job adverts where you must learn every authoring tool that's ever been created and have 10 years experience in software that was launched last month. So yeah, it's certainly tricky. Any initial thoughts from anyone?
I think for me, I think you can only focus on what you know, I think it's, I think with those Kitchen Sink ads, I love that phrase. I think that's that's a beautiful phrase. And I don't think you can tell you see, because nobody has got every skill under the sun. Because otherwise, we just would have came in all the time. If that was the case. I think as long as you can demonstrate what you can do, and some of those tick boxes on that job advert? I think it's personally I think that's enough. Also, I would add, though, if somebody is putting that amount of skills on a entry level job, I wouldn't apply for it, because I think their expectations are far too high.
Joseph Suarez
Yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking that those are just red flags on so many levels. It could be that the role isn't very well defined. It could be that they're consolidating multiple roles into one. It could be that there's a high expectation of workload. I like to say, you know, I actually do have multiple skill sets, but I can only do one job at a time. So you can expect me to do multiple roles, but I can still only do one role at a time.
Heidi Kirby
Yeah, and sometimes you can take that job posting and copy and paste it into Google and find that it's on like five to seven different entry level ID job ads. And so you know, it's just something where people don't actually know what they're looking for. So if you're going for your first role as an ID, you want to have that support. You want to have somebody who's going to be able to mentor you and help you to grow. And if you've got somebody who's copying and pasting job postings off of Google, it's probably not going to be a very good, helpful first experience for you anyway.
Tom McDowall
Awesome, hopefully, we got just enough time for maybe two more questions. We've got two really good ones here. So I only have Amanda's asked, I only have one. You have experience, struggling to read. Now, with one authoring tool right now, I spring. Like iceberg ice cream is a great tool. I haven't seen it mentioned too often in pursuing job postings, how applicable, our skills learned in one tool to others. Tricky.
Joseph Suarez
I don't know. Maybe you can answer this better. Maybe you've used ice spring a little bit more than me. But I don't think it's that big of a leap to go from ice spring to storyline. There's probably some gotchas in storyline that you have to learn the hard way. But I would say if I was a hiring manager, and I only saw ice spring, I would, what I wouldn't be disappointed, I would just be looking for some indication that this person can pick up the other authoring tools, or other tools quickly. And that's a willingness to
Tom McDowall
learn. Yeah, if I wasn't sure as well, like, I've never used a spring, either. I'm aware of it, but I haven't used it. And I think for me, if I was the hiring manager, I saw that I'd probably look into a spring myself and see the difference between the tools that we're advertising for. And that because like, like Joe said, there is a lot of crossover with these tools a lot of the time. And so yeah, that that would be the way I look at
Heidi Kirby
it. Yeah, same here.
Tom McDowall
Yeah, definitely. And especially with our spring, there's a lot of crossover to storyline, Captivate, it's the same kind of slide based PowerPoint, kind of based interface. So you'd probably find you could step over, I would never say with ease, because it's storyline. And they go out of their way to make sure it's not easy. But you know, you'll manage, and there's loads of people out there who will happily sort of give you a hand and help you along the way as well. So definitely, don't be afraid to branch out you've got a solid set of skills, if you can use a spring. And possibly the last question, then cuz I know we're really up against time. Are there certain questions you always ask in an interview? Could I just get one from each of you, because we're a little bit short on time. And I know, we probably all got loads that we normally ask, but it'd be a good one to finish up.
And I'll go there. So that's okay. And I guess my main question is just is about the willingness to change gear, because wherever I especially my work is very fast paced. So I was looking for somebody that can adapt to change quite well, as well, because it's such a fast paced environment that we work in in l&d, especially in design. So that's, that's my question.
Joseph Suarez
So I don't know if they mean from the perspective of the hiring manager asking questions, or from the interview, ie asking questions. But I, the power question I use when I'm actually being interviewed is at the final question I ask is based on everything you've seen from my resume, my portfolio and the time we've had here in the interview, do you have any concerns about me coming into this role. And the response is always very telling. And it kind of gives me an indication of where I am in the process if I'm going to be moving forward or not. And also, if there are any concerns, it gives me an opportunity to address them, maybe there was some mis communication or interpretation of some things that I can clear up. Awesome.
Heidi Kirby
As a hiring manager, I always ask what their design process was for the last learning experience they created. So if they're not in the field, yet, that's, you know, something for their portfolio or something for their their current role. But it does a couple of things. It gives me an insight into their process and how they work. But it also gives me insight into how they communicate about their process and how they're able to explain how they work with others.
Tom McDowall
Awesome. Well, we are we've gone one minute over, but don't tell anyone. Thank you so much for your questions. I'm going to work before they disappear between sessions. I'm going to try and note them all down. And we'll come up some answers and share them in the In the slack group, thank you for sharing thank you to Heidi Joe and Gemma for joining the panel. I really appreciate it. Really really great insights shared there. And yeah on with the on with the rest of the day. I know there's a whole day ahead whilst I go off to bed, because it's Friday, so it's time for now, but do get in touch with anyone who on the panel in the slack group if you'd like to continue the chat or have any more questions, we're eager to help you out.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
