Hello. I have been trying (unsucessfully) to enter into the corporate or business environment training and development field. I have over 15 years of experience in training and development for public safety organizations and have developed and instructed a wide range of courses for various educational programs, colleges, and universities. I hold a MA in Human Resources Development and a BA in Business Administration. I have developed and instructed courses internationally.

I would like to know what advice you could offer to help improve my ability to secure a position in HRD. Having limited e-learning experience, what advice could you provide on obtaining the skills necessary to enter the e-learning environment? Which specific programs should I focus on? Is experience with the software products enough or is formal education in e-learning necessary?

I look forward to your responses and greatly appreciate your time and expertise!!!!

Mike

If you want to get into e-learning, with your background I would look first into becoming a SME (Subject Matter Expert). With your background in public safety, you may want to search the web for government contractors. E-Learning is technology-intensive, and if you do not understand the ins and outs of creating engaging, interactive online content, you're going to be starting late, relatively speaking. That said, you can learn a lot by working on projects with vendors that have a solid instructional design background and a good hand on the technology.

Hope that helps.

Sheldon Murphy
Solid State Learning
www.sslearn.com

Hi, Mike.

I would think you would be very well-suited for a position in a company that does a lot of regulatory safety training (e.g., OSHA training). I know they do a lot of this type of training in the airline industry, and I'm sure in construction and other industries as well.

My point of view differs from Sheldon's in that I think eLearning development is becoming more and more accessible to non-programmers. A lot of the tools being used now to develop eLearning at major corporations are designed specifically for people with an instructional, but not necessarily a technical, background. If you really want to get into eLearning, I would focus on Adobe Captivate (it seems to be what everyone is using) and research best practices for developing engaging, interactive, instructional content online.