Instructional Designers out there..

Question

Do you enjoy your job?

What skills do you need to succeed in this job?

Do you need to be a very technical-oriented person?

Do you need to be adept at creating software?

What do you dislike about your job?

What does your job consist of?

Anything else you can tell me?

Answer 1

I have been an instructional designer for 12 years. Yes, I enjoy the work. I would recommend looking at ASTD website (American Society of Training and Development). You need good skills with Word, Excel and PowerPoint. If developing online courses, you will need skills with Captivate, Flash Dreamweaver and other software to create online courses. Most of these software packages are easy to learn and will help you create online courses. I work with SME (Subject Matter Experts) who help me with the content. Then, I take this information and make it easy and fun for people to learn. I write online courses in Captivate and create instructor-led training in Word and PowerPoint. Training departments are always the first to be cut and in my experience are underappreciated in the workplace, but without training, people could not do their job. It can be frustrating and rewarding at the same time.