Leaving the Classroom: A Transitioning Teacher Podcast

How to Interview for an Instructional Design Position 

In this episode, I talk about what you need to expect when entering into the instructional design interview process. When I began interviewing for ID positions, I was so naïve. I literally had never interviewed for a position that I did not get. So when I started putting my resume out there, I never really knew what I was getting myself into. I went on at least 10 interviews in the beginning, and many of them I never even made it past the first round. I had no clue what I was doing wrong.

Listen to the episode here:

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Enjoy the podcast transcription:

Hello, everyone. Welcome to leaving the classroom. I'm Kristi Oliva, and I'm so glad you are here. Today I'm talking about the interview process for instructional design. It is so different than interviewing to be a teacher.  

Honestly, this doesn't surprise me. And I bet those numbers have even gone down more in the past couple years. When I went to teacher interviews, they seem to be more like a box to check than anything else. I never went on a teaching interview that I didn't get honestly, I worked in low income schools nearly my entire teaching career. So this may have something to do with it. But besides failing the background check, there was really not much else they were looking for. They just needed a but in the seat so to say, I know many of you can relate, which makes the transition to the corporate instructional design interview process even harder.

When I began interviewing for ID positions, I was so naive, I literally had never interviewed for a position that I did not get. So when I started putting my resume out there, I never really knew what I was getting myself into. I went on at least 10 interviews in the beginning and many of them I never even made it past the first round. I had no clue what I was doing wrong. So let's talk about what you need to expect when entering into the instructional design interview process.

First of all, the timeline is very different than for a teaching position. Each interview process takes weeks, usually, and consists of several rounds of interviews. Usually there are three or four rounds. The recruiter, interview a screener, which is usually with a hiring manager or another person from the team, a panel interview with a larger part of the team, and then possibly an assignment.

Now, as I mentioned before, many of the interviews I received, I didn't get the position. In the end, I was not used to that at all, coming from teaching and basically having walk on job offers. What I discovered is that the questioning process left me feeling like I didn't know what I was doing. And struggling to not scream that I was a teacher. I wanted the interview panel to not just see a teacher sitting in front of them but a real asset to their team, which I am. I found that most of the questions they were asking me were requiring me to tell about a time where I exhibited a certain skill. And I was really struggling with those questions. I found out these are called behavioral questions. And they are difficult. The reason they are so difficult is because they require you to access a different part of your brain. Instead of giving a hypothetical situation, it asks you to access a real story from your memory. So for example, a hypothetical question would say something like, tell me how you would handle a difficult coworker? Of course, you're gonna say all the right things, give all the right answers, of course, you're going to communicate in a kind and professional manner. Of course, are we going to become best friends with that coworker after it all. Well, maybe not that, but you get the idea, you're going to give them the best part of you and that answer, you're going to answer that question where you come out smelling like roses. But if you turn this into a behavioral question like this, tell me about a time when you had a situation with a difficult co worker, and how you handled it. All of a sudden, your brain goes to when you had to deal with that real Karen at work and there was a corrupt boss and the situation was far from perfect, right? Well, you need to practice how you're going to answer that question to make sure you don't let the emotions or the drama of that situation leak into your answer. You want to talk about the parts you handled well, and the parts you learned from but you have to do this the right way. So in order to do this, I have another formula for you. To hear about my resume formula, go back to Episode 13. But here is my formula for answering an interview question. First of all, use the storm method, Star stands for Situation, Task, Action and Result. This is a well known structure to answer interview questions, and use that as the format for your answer. But now for my formula, use that star structure. But there are three main things you should focus on. When you answer behavioral interview questions, communication, resourcing, and lessons learned. Communication is how did you communicate and to whom did you communicate during the situation. Resourcing is who or what did you consult to come up with the best course of action in this situation. Then, lessons learned is obviously when you will talk about anything you would do different, or what you learned, so that you can use that next time.

So now let's look at an example question. Here's a behavioral question that is really common. Describe a time when you sacrifice short term goals for long term success. Now this question I chose, because not only is it a common question asked in instructional design, and probably other interviews, but it is an easy one for teachers to use their teaching experiences to answer describe a time when you sacrifice short term goals for long term success. So an immediate example that comes to mind for a teacher to answer is using state standards and standardized tests as your situation, I bet you have not gone a year that you have been able to teach every single state standard that you're supposed to. It's just impossible. So I bet you made some sacrifices to teach as much as you could, and make the latter end goal of preparing for the standardized test at the end of the year. Now, I know you didn't teach the test, but you need hard data here. And the number of standards and the amount of time provide you with some hard numbers you can discuss in your interview. So now comes my formula. While you were talking about how many standards there were and how you had to decide which ones were key to the larger goals, and which ones were secondary, you need to talk about communication, resourcing, and lessons learned. For this situation, communication will probably look something like how you documented which standards you were covering, and in which weeks, maybe you sent a weekly email to parents, or recall them stakeholders communicating which standards would be covered that week or it could just be that you had a documented in your lesson plans but hopefully you can say both. Resourcing for this example is how you made the decision about which standards to focus on over others. Was there research you or someone else did that you use to make that decision? Did you meet up with your grade level are subject matter team and make those decisions as a collaborative group? Either way, resourcing tells the interviewers how you come to your decisions, you shouldn't just be making single minded decisions without research and consulting with peers. Then, at the end of your answer, after you get to the R and star and share the results, you will share the lessons learned. This can be something you would do differently, or something that you learned that changed how you do something moving forward. Either way, it is good to show that you realize that you aren't perfect and can grow from each experience you go through.

Okay. Remember this for each of your interview questions. But more importantly, you should be practicing interviews. Find someone who can help you for another list of questions or just pull them up on your computer, but practice with someone so you can get your jitters out with someone besides the one making the hiring decision. You will learn what works and make changes before you get to the interviews. Practice with your dog, your husband, your wife, your partner, your roommate, your friend, your mom, better yet. Join adult courses Academy where we have mock interview sessions led by instructional designers who have been right where you are. But it's very important to practice those interview questions get feedback, what should you change? Sign up for IDOL courses Academy using my code CLASSROOM100 and get $100 off enrollment today. It's time to take control and make the career change that will change your life. It changed mine. See you next time.

Send your stories or your questions to [email protected] or share them with me on Instagram  @leavingtheclassroom.