Hi everyone,

My company is looking to hire a new instructional designer. This person may be someone with little to no experience, perhaps someone right out of college.

I've heard that many trainer interviews involve giving a short presentation so the interviewers can get an idea of the candidate's facilitation skills. Has anyone done something similar when hiring an instructional designer? Perhaps a short writing test or something?

The reason I ask is we've been asking to see examples of the candidate's work, but we have serious concerns that we won't be able to see their true writing ability. Especially if it is an example of writing from college, the material may have been heavily edited by a professor. Hard to believe, but we've been encountering people with four year degrees in communication with little to no writing ability.

Any experience/insight you are able to share is greatly appreciated.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: flashfly,

I wonder whether or not a "short presentation" will help with demonstrating ID skills. Facilitation skills maybe, delivery skills possibly, but I doubt ID skills.

When I first started teaching, I knew little about ID. My presenting was, IMHO, fantastic, but I did not know much ID.

Maybe you could have the candidates critique some pre-prepared course materials. You could do this "live" and get a feeling for their ability to evaluate course materials, think on their feet and so forth. You could also
ask them each to bring with them a short paper on their ID philosophy. That might let you know if they were traditional ID-oriented or if they had a RID preference, preferred one style over another and so forth. It would also let you examine their writing skills.

Just some ideas...

quote:

Originally posted by flashfly:
Hi everyone,

My company is looking to hire a new instructional designer. This person may be someone with little to no experience, perhaps someone right out of college.

Why on earth is your company so willing to hire someone to do ID who knows nothing about it????? This is precisely the reason that IDs have a bad reputation in the training industry, and precisely the reason this discussion board is so filled with questions that reflect no reasoning whatsoever from people who want others to do their work for them!

No wonder training departments are the first to be let go in tough times and are not considered valued staff. And it should be this way as long as companies are content to hire people who are bound to be problems once hired since they can produce nothing and take up an inordinate amount of someone else's time to "show them the ropes."

I saw on another forum a post from a woman whose husband thought he could easily do his wife's job - ID. The truth is - he CAN! There are obviously no prerequisite skills or knowledge required.

Writing skills are the least of it. What about critical thinking skills. Again, this is obviously lacking in the "profession."

Writing skills are extremely important but what you need is someone who can write quickly and not be slowed down by a lot of technical jargon. You really don't learn business writing skills in school. You should be looking for someone who has produced at least a thousand pages on the job.

Writing is also different than editing and proofing. You can hire someone cheaply to do those tasks. If someone can't write a minimum of ten original pages in a day, you're going to be paying a lot for slow speed.

Designers who lack writing skills often do a good job of design but can't implement their designs very well.

Also, if they don't know Word and PowerPoint inside and out, you're wasting your time.

LPC, I think you and I agree that the OP needs someone with writing skills -- that's why I proposed a sample. I also think a good IDer needs to be able to review/update/edit/redesign/etc. existing courseware. It has been a big part of my ID work.

While knowing office tools is essential, the OP may need a person for web-based delivery where tools such as PowerPoint may play a small role compared to, say, Flash. I must also say that the organization may have a department where that kind of work is done by specialists. I have a large client where IDers create very rough PPTs send it to a department of artists, graphic designers and PPT wizards who do all the "real work" in those areas. I also know folks who outsource all that to third-parties with the expertise. In fact, I would venture to say that the ability to do the final edits is much harder to outsource/"hire someone cheaply for" than PPT design is.