In this episode of EdUp Learning and Development, Holly Owens and Chelsea Maude Avirett discuss the evolving landscape of learning and development (L&D), focusing on career transitions, job market saturation, the impact of AI, and strategies for standing out in job applications. They emphasize the importance of networking and community in L&D, as well as future trends in the industry.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:01):
Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of Ed up LND.
I'm Holly Owens and I'm your host, and I'm super excited
about the conversation that we had today because I'm joined by
one of my favorite people to totally nerd out with on all
things LND jobs, the amazing Chelsea Mod Averidge.
(00:23):
In this episode, Chelsea and I dive into the evolving landscape
of learning and development and the current state of the job
market. She shares her incredible
journey from classroom teacher to running a powerhouse job
board, and we get real about what it takes to make a
successful career transition. We cover it all.
(00:44):
Market saturation, LinkedIn bestpractices, the growing overlap
between instructional design andother roles, the power of
networking, and yes, even the impact of AI on L&D.
If you're job hunting, pivoting,or just trying to make sense of
what's happening in this space, this episode is packed with
(01:06):
insights, trends, and honest advice.
Let's get into it. Hi, we're Ice Spring, an
international team of e-learningenthusiasts who help more than
60,000 clients across the globe succeed with better online
learning. Our two flagship solutions are
ispring Suite and ispring Learn LMS.
(01:29):
Ispring Suite is an intuitive, all in one authoring tool for
creating engaging elearning content, and ispringlearn is an
innovative online training platform for onboarding,
upskilling, and certifying your teams.
We also provide tons of free resources for aspiring and
experienced e-learning professionals, conduct weekly
(01:49):
webinars with top industry experts, and organize annual
e-learning conferences, challenges, and championships.
We'd be happy to get to know youand pick a solution that fits
your needs best. Go to www.icepringsolutions.com
to learn more about us, downloadour resources, and connect.
(02:18):
Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of Add Up
Learning and Development. My name is Holly Owens and I'm
your host and I'm super excited and legit super excited because
Chelsea Maude Averick's here andshe's been on the show I think
four or five Times Now, but she's always coming back with
new stuff. So Chelsea, welcome back.
(02:39):
Thank you, I'm so excited. I always love having
conversations with you and the back and forth and learning from
you as well. Yeah, it's, it's our episodes
are always so much fun and they're always so engaging.
Like I learned something from you every time we talk about
like the job market and everything.
But before we go into all that fun stuff, I'm really trying to
(02:59):
resist. Why don't you tell the audience
about who you are, what you do in the L&D space, and just tell
us, give us the history. Sure.
So I'm a former teacher like most of us, and I also, and
someone who who really loves teaching and loves learning.
And I feel like I'm still able to do so many of those parts of
(03:20):
the job that I love to doing as a teacher.
I'm still doing now. And what I'm doing now is I run
a job board and I help people find hope that, you know, you
can continue to do what you loveto.
Even if you're leaving the classroom, even if you're moving
into a corporate job that may besomething that's really
unfamiliar to you, you can stillfind those same through lines
(03:44):
that you're passionate about. Now those jobs exist.
I know where they are and I share them with you.
But I also try to provide this context that you can really, you
can know what kinds of jobs are out there, you can know how to
position yourself and you can know the challenges that you're
going to face moving into it. Because whenever we move from a
(04:05):
new job to a new job, from a newcareer to a newer career, there
are challenges. And I think it's really
important to not just go to a job board and apply, but go to a
job board and really apply coming from a place of clarity
and coming from a place of I know what I want to do, I know
my strengths and I know why I amdoing this.
(04:26):
That's such an important part ofthe process.
That's great advice. Like that's just everything that
you said from you're like talking about Nishin and talking
about just coming from a place like, you know, where you want
to go. Like, you know, because all too
often in Chelsea and you and I talk about this all the time,
(04:47):
people come to us and they're like, well, I want to be an
instructional designer. I want to be, you know, a
marketer. I want to be this.
And we're like, well, what area do you want to be in?
Like it's such a vast landscape there.
So figuring out where you reallywant to be is important.
Having that play when you're applying to rules is important.
(05:07):
Yes. And it's also important because
as teachers we're used to juggling all the pieces.
So while we may only do curriculum development a couple
of times a year, we're still doing that differentiation
throughout the entire semester. We're doing that facilitation
and doing the assessment regularly.
(05:28):
And so a lot of times we don't realize that in the corporate
world, some of those jobs are also combined, which is a trend
we're seeing. And sometimes they're also, yes,
it's definitely a trend we're seeing.
And sometimes they're more discreet too.
I mean, if you're in a large corporation, you can still have
one of those jobs where you're doing one part of that entire
(05:48):
L&D life cycle, you're doing onepart of it.
So there's, there's a lot of opportunities.
And knowing, knowing what you thrive in and knowing what parts
of it you want to do is essential to really being able
to successfully transition because job titles aren't going
to help you. Lots of lots of endless
scrolling is just going to be exhausting.
Finding that clarity first meansthat you're going to go forward
(06:12):
with intention and you're going to be able to make a much more
efficient and avoid burnout as you.
Yeah. 100% people are saying thejob market's saturated.
And I think there's a couple different reasons people say
that probably #1 is because theydon't want other people.
They want to deter people from applying to the roles that they
(06:33):
want to apply for #2 they're making an observation that's
only from their personal experience and not a like an
overview like you have where youhave that 30,000 foot view, but
you also have that narrow view of what's happening in job
market. Chelsea is is a job saturated.
I think I'll go back to like there are those different,
(06:53):
different ways of looking at what saturation means.
So there have been a lot of layoffs.
And so yes, I think there's a lot of gatekeeping and teachers
are competitive in this market. And there's some concern,
particularly if you have a master's degree in instructional
design and a decade of teaching,which a lot of teachers do,
you're putting in a competitive portfolio compared to other
(07:17):
people. And that can be scary.
So I think, yes, some of this oversaturation narratives coming
from that. Some of it is coming though from
the reality that a remote job isgetting over 1000 applicants.
And many of those applicants aregoing to be well qualified.
Half of them will be not even worth looking at because they
(07:38):
won't match some of the basic criteria.
Yeah, the. Days of like hoping that some
sort of role, like in a mid level role where you're not
qualified for the middle level role, they're just hiring you on
a whim and then they'll train you.
Those days are. Yes, those days are disappearing
from so many industries. Like my professors when I was in
grad school were getting jobs inways that I couldn't even
(08:01):
imagine. Like someone picked up a phone
and said, hey, I've got somebodygraduated, would you like to
hire them? That doesn't exist anymore.
So, and, and also it's importantto think a lot of times I hear
this narrative of I want someoneto take a chance on me.
People take chances on entry level candidates.
When we get the skill level thatwe all have, people aren't
taking a chance. They need to know why you're
(08:22):
qualified and you are qualified.So I mean, it's an alignment
issue. But going back to the
saturation, I do think that whatI'm seeing is year over year.
I'm keeping, I'm posting about the same number of jobs, but I'm
having to broaden my sourcing. So we're seeing some companies,
we're seeing some pullback in certain types of roles and I'm
(08:44):
sure we'll talk about what that looks like later, but we're
seeing some of that. But overall, I think we are
seeing the, the industry is solid and learning and
development is such an essentialpart of maintaining a healthy
corporate environment. It helps with retention, it
helps with hiring particularly younger workers who really want
(09:07):
to be someplace they can grow. It's it's something that
companies that invest in learning and development get a
return on that investment. So overall it's a steady field.
I don't think you should have concerns about going into it,
but there it's not necessarily going to be.
Every company is continuing to hire at the same pace and you
(09:27):
really do. I'm having to change my
sourcing. And I'm sure you know this too,
because you you source jobs as well.
And we're seeing also this trendtowards specialization.
So a lot of these companies wantyou to be an expert in
instructional design or learningand development.
And oh, by the way, you should have a nursing degree or one of
these other industry credentials, which is why edtech
(09:50):
is really helpful because we already have that subject matter
expertise, not vertical, vertical being the industry
jargon there, but the vertical expertise.
But it does become harder when you're competing with somebody
who has both of those factors. And you've got to think about,
well, am I, am I competitive in this role or do I need to look
for verticals where I have volunteer experience, personal
(10:13):
experience with it, professionalexperience, things like that.
So there are a lot of things to think about with saturation.
And I think overall, we often come from a place of I'm not
getting interviews, therefore it's over saturated when
sometimes what we need to do is change our strategies, applying
to jobs that, you know, we're more closely aligned to.
And maybe we need to do a littlebit of upskilling.
(10:36):
Maybe we need to figure out whatour niche is so that we can
pitch ourselves differently. I think that's definitely
becomes a blocker. When we hear industry experts
saying that it's saturated, we just like, well, I give up.
That's it becomes a mental blocker.
And you're not trying to figure out like what you're saying, how
to re strategize, how to do things a little bit differently,
(10:57):
like where, how are you approaching the application
process? How are you approaching things
when it comes to your resume, your portfolio?
You know what, what makes you a little bit different than the
next applicant? Because everybody's submitting
these things like is your LinkedIn updated?
Is it or is it old? Like, you know, people, that's
(11:17):
one thing I keep mentioning to you and I'm like, it's, it's
almost like I'm going to say it's required.
Now you have to have a LinkedIn.If you're applying for a job,
you have to have a LinkedIn. Like there's no avoiding it
anymore. They're gonna ask for your
LinkedIn page. Right.
And often it's there's this red asterisk that's required,
required now. So we're gonna say that that's
(11:37):
required. So if you're not doing that and
or if you have one and you just did the bare minimum, you're
probably not going to stand out there.
Yeah. LinkedIn is like your resume.
Everybody knows you're tailoringyour resume, so you're leaving
certain things off. So they go to LinkedIn for two
reasons. One is to say, well, what other
experience do they have? And if they're finding out about
(11:59):
new relevant experience, that's a little weird for them.
But sometimes, you know, people do have like part time jobs and
things like that. So it's important that they can
see your full work history. But the other thing is they want
to see how you show up professionally.
I see a lot of people who are treating LinkedIn more like a
social media than like a professional social media
(12:20):
environment. And that doesn't necessarily
mean they're posting like pictures of their vacation or
they're, they're animals, which I do support posting pictures of
animals on LinkedIn, right? But sometimes it's just like a
comment I've been getting. And now every time I post, I get
four or five comments that say I'm interested.
And it's like, what does that mean?
(12:43):
And I, I really struggle to reply because I'm just not sure
what to say. And it's, it's that ability to
carry on a professional conversation that people are
looking for. And if you don't have that, if
you, if you don't have like you don't have to be active on
LinkedIn, but I think you've gotto be thoughtful about what's
going into your profile. It needs to be updated.
(13:05):
And I, I, I mean people look at it I, every time I interview
someone. So the first thing I do is I
look at their LinkedIn, I Googlethat and I check out their
Facebook. So locked on your Facebook page.
But I think, I think people figure that out.
Locking you on all media, socialmedia platforms.
Exactly, which is why I'm enjoying Reddit.
People can slide under the radaron Reddit because you don't
(13:26):
necessarily have. That question me and like we
don't we won't say the dark web,but you want to be under
definitely under the radar. Reddit is where it's at, not.
Reddit's a lot of fun lately. I think it's, I mean you get
this the same kind of mix of professional engagement and
professional conversation, but there's less posturing because
(13:47):
it's not as much of A marketing platform.
Yeah, absolutely. So what are you seeing in the
data? You're you're saying that you
have to go to different sources now and you post great data and
Chelsea sends out an e-mail every single Saturday, Every
single Saturday, same time. I wish I had that kind of focus.
But everything will matter. Yeah, I know.
(14:08):
It's good. Like building the content takes
takes a little bit of work, but like, what are you seeing?
What should people be aware of at this point?
And, well, we can say that we'rein summer 2025, yeah.
Yeah, we're definitely in. It's 80°.
We're in summer 2025. So what this has been a really
(14:29):
interesting year. So I've been doing jobs on some
scale for the last four to five years, but I've only been doing
it for like 16 months at this scale of like 500 to 1000 jobs a
month. And so I have year over year
data. And one of the things that I'm
noticing is that overall we're moving a lot more into customer
(14:53):
facing roles in general. So we're seeing a little bit of
contraction in part time learning development jobs that
are in schools. So I call them school based
learning and development jobs where a company is coming into
the school and doing professional learning.
Those part time jobs are disappearing.
The curriculum jobs, which can sometimes be a good pair with
(15:15):
instructional design because so much curriculum is digital these
days. Those jobs are disappearing and
we're seeing that focus shift tosales and marketing, learning
and development, program projectmanagement.
I love it that I'm ahead of the game.
Exactly. Yeah, Yeah, Yeah.
Well, and I think that's so interesting is that I'm also
seeing some, you've talked aboutit recently too, some customer
(15:37):
education roles where you are using an LMS and you're creating
courses for customers. And I mean, we've always had
this sales force has had a really robust certification
program for years now. But customer education I think
is starting to become a little bit more mainstream.
And it's a great opportunity foreducators because it's harder to
(15:59):
find. It's not quite so saturated, but
but it also, you know, again, itgoes back to this larger focus
on revenue generation because inthe tighter economy, we really
have to make sure that the employees were getting a return
on investment for hiring them. So learning and development in
(16:19):
companies where it thrives, they're demonstrating that
impact. They're saying, you know, we're,
we're retaining employees, we'respeeding up the onboarding
process so they can do what theydo best and learn more faster.
So if you're looking at these jobs, you want to make sure
you're, you're asking companies,are you doing these things?
So learning and development, when it has that strong focus is
(16:41):
doing well marketing sales, which also brings up the issue
that some learning development jobs are actually in sales and
marketing where you're doing customer education, but also
training the enablement function, sales enablement jobs,
customer success enablement, customer support enablement, all
of these jobs where you're training people in the
(17:04):
department how to do that job better.
These are great opportunities, particularly if you've done part
time customer support work, which a lot of educators have
done. If you've done any kind of
customer facing work, a lot of times these can be good
transitions. So again, broadening the scope
of what you think about. And I think really focusing less
on job titles and more on like what is this job actually doing?
(17:27):
Because a customer education is doing the same task, different
audience enablement, similar tasks, different audience, and
really trying to say how can I bring in all of the skill sets
that I have and leverage different skill sets.
And it also means you can sometimes take a bridge job.
If you're having trouble gettinginto L&D, you can take a
customer support job for two years and move into the training
(17:49):
role and for sales or things like that.
So it gives you more, more opportunities, which is great
because if you're looking at that overall job market trend,
really being able to be flexibleand being able to respond, it's
a teacher superpower and it's something that I think is
important in the current climatethat we have.
Yeah, I 100 in person last night.
(18:10):
I'll tell you a little story. Last night my fiance and I, we
went to like a local restaurant,right?
And like, we were sitting at thebar because it was packed and it
this restaurant is really open 4:00 to 9:00.
That's it every day, 4:00 to 9:00.
So five whole hours. But anyways, we we were talking
to some people who have recentlymoved to Wilmington.
(18:32):
They were from Southport, ME. And, you know, they asked me
what my role was. And I'm always hesitant.
Now, I'm not saying I'm hesitant.
I love my role. But I want to say I'm an
instructional designer because that's what I've always been.
Yeah. And now that I'm a director of
growth marketing, I have like this little challenge like
saying like I'm a director with marketing because I don't want
to take away from what I've donein instructional design, like
(18:55):
kind of discredit my reputation.So that was interesting to me to
think about like the role I'm using instructional design every
single day in marketing. Every single day.
You have to know your customers,you know, you have to know how
to design things for webinars. I'm still doing trainings and
things like that and developing courses that we, you know,
yellow dig puts out for people to take.
(19:17):
Like we have a certification. So there's so much instructional
design that's on that job. It's not like it's, it's another
position where it's like there is not a thing that doesn't
overlap with instructional design, just like teaching
instructional design overlap or customer success and
instructional design overlap. Like I'm finding so much overlap
that like the things that I needed to be trained on were
(19:39):
more or less the technologies that were being used in
marketing that I wasn't aware of.
Not just. So I feel weird.
I was like, you know, and my fiance, I told this lady I was a
director of marketing. I'm like, but I'm not, I'm an
instructional designer. So just a little story, you
know, kind of getting that like,yeah, these things overlap and
you're not just you're not just pigeonholed into these things
(20:02):
and this is all you're going to do for the rest of your life or
this is all you're going to do in this role.
It's like. It's very open.
Yes, and that's one thing like Ido break jobs into job
categories, but so frequently I'm like this role fits into
this job category. Like program management is a
great example, but 50% of the job is training.
So maybe that should be in learning and development.
(20:23):
You know it's. It's.
One right. And I again, I think if you're
interested in this, learn what your skill set is and then look
broadly because you're gonna seeso many of the elements of what
you do on a regular basis show up in a lot of different job
categories exactly like what you're talking about.
(20:44):
We we think of marketing as social media, but marketing?
Is also way more customers. And teaching and coaching those
customers, particularly growth marketing because how do you
keep customers around? Well, you engage them, you help
them learn and feel excited about the product.
So absolutely don't rely on job categories, job titles.
(21:06):
Really find what you do well andthen find the jobs that fit and.
Like we continue to preach it's different everywhere, like what
growth marketing looks like yellow, like a yellow Dick
doesn't look the same at anotherEd tech company or like a big
like a Google or Amazon, it doesn't look the same.
But it should. It should in the.
Future 100% should, but it doesn't, not at this point.
(21:28):
I'm wondering if, and I want to ask you another question before
I jump into all this stuff. I'm wondering if like things
like AI are going to make thingsmore uniform for us again, like
like how it's just going to bring together some of the, the
main components of the role and how we're using that tool.
(21:48):
And that's just going to be like, this is the same
everywhere. Like you have to use AI to, you
know, generate scripts or generate job descriptions or
whatever. You have to do generate
trainings, that kind of stuff. I'm just, I've, I've been
wondering like, is that gonna change?
Maybe it makes things more uniform across the different
industries. Well, in many ways too.
(22:09):
Some of those things are alreadystandardized, like job
descriptions. I mean, how many?
There's a boiler plate job description for all of these job
titles. You can tell.
You can tell when somebody actually wrote a job description
for the first time. You're like, oh, this is new.
I like it. It tells you what the job is
actually and they thought about what the job is.
(22:29):
And so I, I think we already have some of that, which is
where AI feels appealing becauseif we're just sort of doing the
same thing over and over again, why not automate that so that we
can put our time into doing something different, improving
our candidate process. You know, that that can be
something where, you know, if wespend more time interviewing
(22:50):
people or finding some better ways to actually assess their
skills and not doing the boring stuff, that's a plus.
That's an absolute plus. I don't it's interesting to see
how fast AI is going because I've we've gone from AI never
showing up in job descriptions. So now it's starting to show up
in preferred preferred skills quite frequently required.
(23:13):
Yep, it's so that's the next step is when it's required and I
don't see that super frequently,but I am starting to see it and
not enough that I would actuallybe like in my summaries.
You need to have AI for this but.
Definitely you have an awareness100%.
You need to have an awareness. You need to know how it's being
used in your field. You need to know what its
(23:35):
strengths are. You know, what is it actually
good for? What is it not good for?
And the ability to leverage that.
Because yeah, the people who know how to prompt AI to do the
things they need to do are goingto be the people who are getting
employed faster and who are getting promoted and not getting
laid off because their job couldbe done by AI.
(23:56):
Yeah, yeah, Question of the day.And I know you get this in your
inbox a million times like I do,or when you're talking to
people. What do I do to stand out?
Yeah. What do I do?
What is the magic formula? What do we do?
Yes. So that's that's tricky.
(24:17):
I think there are a couple of different ways we can answer
this. So let's start off just thinking
about like the resume and the cover letter.
And we, we talked a little bit about how L&D is consolidating.
And so rules that used to be distinct are now being collapsed
for various reasons, some of them honestly very good reasons,
some of them bottom line issues.So one of the things I think
(24:42):
you've got to do is show the breadth of your experience.
As teachers, we're so used to doing that.
We, we do that whole life cycle.So really making sure your
resume demonstrates each sectionof that.
I also see a lot of teachers whoare still focused on their
classroom and a lot of times we're doing the same work
outside of our classroom. So think about that needs
(25:03):
assessment. You were talking about how you
do needs assessment and evaluating even in in your role
on and we do it in every role, but in as we're teaching, one of
the things that we often say is,oh, I assess the needs of my
students. I'm pulling data, but we also
almost every single teacher is working in a department or
(25:24):
you're doing that with your department colleagues and then
you're making, what are these larger scale department changes
we need to make. So whenever you have a choice
between describing something that you do in your classroom or
describing something you do withor for adults, choose the second
piece because that's going to becloser to what you do in an
(25:45):
instructional design environment.
You're having to suddenly evaluate students that you don't
know and see every day. So you're having to ask
different questions. And that process is really
important because we forget thateven though we're doing the same
process, we're doing it in a different way and we have to
think about what that changes. I mean, it is a lot harder to
(26:06):
gather data from adults that yousee or if you're working in a
remote environment that you might be emailing.
So thinking a little bit about how can you show that you're
doing that part of the job as well?
So not just the functional skill, but who you're doing it
with. So that's one thing I would say.
Then the other thing is the opposite is I would also show
(26:27):
some of your where you're niching down.
So we just talked about AI. What are the other preferred
skills you're seeing in job descriptions that you're like,
that sounds like fun. Go and learn that and then use
it and show how you're actually demonstrating that skill on a
regular basis and make sure those are in your resume in your
bullet points. Don't worry about trying to say
(26:50):
this is my job description. Say what you're doing that's
relevant for the job. So that's that's kind of like
the basic stuff. I would also, we haven't talked
about portfolios yet and I thinkthere's a lot of portfolios are
becoming very, very similar. There's, there's the style and
everybody is doing the same style.
(27:11):
They look great, they look great, but they are really one
note. There's so much emphasis on
training and specifically training through an articulate
program or rise. And one of the things that I
think teachers are so good at isassessing what the right
(27:32):
learning intervention is. We don't always go to a
classroom training so to speak. You know, sometimes we break
kids up into groups, sometimes we have them do our project,
sometimes we do 20 different. We usually have a toolbox of
like 20 different things we do. And so thinking about how can
you show that in your portfolio?And I think one thing that is a
(27:54):
bit underrated and L&D are job aids.
I think professionals who are working in instructional design
are using these all the time. But we're talking so much about
articulate courses that we don'treally talk about how often
we're doing something like building a job aid.
And so I would really encourage people to think about that
portfolio more broadly than justthe training piece of it.
(28:17):
What are other ways that you help somebody solve a problem
and show that? And I think it really shows your
flexibility and it shows your understanding of adult learning
methodologies and that you can really navigate a lot of
different environments and not just let me build a training for
(28:39):
you because that's a lot of timeand money for the company.
And I mean, I've got a couple ofothers.
I think networking is its own isits own topic, but I think
networking, networking is such apiece of this.
So yeah, I'll talk about networking.
I actually had a great experience.
I'm sitting here listening because I love listening to you
(29:01):
talk because I always learn something.
Yeah, I'm going to agree with you on network like people.
I think I was just, you know, like saying that the LinkedIn is
required, but the networking is right behind it.
Like even though we're in this digital space, it's still very
old school. Who you know, who you know that
could maybe introduce you to somebody within the position or
(29:21):
the industry or the company you're going to look for, who
knows who. That's the whole thing.
Right. And so going to conferences, you
do conferences a lot of times there's some major learning and
development conferences. You've got a great handout that
lists a lot of them. Conferences are great.
I think also looking at your local learning and development.
(29:43):
I'm being very broad there chapters.
So it could be ATD, but it couldalso be I I spoke recently at
packed Minnesota and it's a training, it's a local training
organization and they were fabulous.
They're they're actually welcoming teachers.
They have a special teacher membership for some of the
remote opportunities, but it wasjust such a warm and welcoming
(30:07):
environment and they were sitting there giving people
advice and it was just really collegial.
And I think that's what learningdevelopment does so well is
build those learning communitiesand professional development
spaces. And so I would say find what
that is locally. Sometimes you're gonna see it
online. If you're in a community like me
(30:27):
where it's a 90 minute drive to get to all the professional
networking events, you won't. Believe it, but it's like mines
in Raleigh. I think it's that's two hours.
It's just even worth. Yeah.
Flemington's a major city. Yeah, no, we don't have in the
local ATD. It's in, it's in, it's in the
center of the state. So, yeah, I definitely agree
with you too on those. Those ATD things I I enjoyed,
(30:49):
like when I lived in South Carolina, attending those events
and working with that group, they had a really great group.
That's nice and I know it. I don't know how it works in
every state, but here in Maine they do a lot of remote events
just because we're Maine, we where a million people spread
out very, very far. But so there, it may be that way
in other states, but yeah, find,find your tribe locally because
(31:11):
it means that you're going to betalking to people who are doing
the profession on a daily basis.And that's just going to give
you so much knowledge of the field.
And it's going to give you such an ability to translate your
skills more effectively. And also networking.
That's how a lot of people find jobs.
You know, they they say, oh, by the way, did you hear about that
(31:33):
job? No, I didn't hear about that
job. Or did you hear about that job
board? I mean, a lot of people come to
my job board because somebody else told them about it.
So, so these these communities that we build and the resources
that we share within them are really valuable.
So you need to find what that resource is in your, your neck
of the woods. And you want to do it locally
too, because a lot of people transition to hybrid and in
(31:57):
person local jobs people. Prefer that, yeah, I prefer
remote, but there's lots of people who prefer to go into the
office one or two days a week ormore and just be with
colleagues. And so I totally get that and.
Right. Yeah.
So I think there are a lot of a lot of opportunities for people
to think locally even even for remote jobs because again, the
(32:18):
L&D community is a small tight network.
So yeah, you know about the local jobs, you know about the
remote jobs too, so. Yeah, absolutely.
Oh my goodness. It's gone by too fast, OK?
Oh my goodness, I just looked atthe clock too.
I was like, oh, we're about 15 minutes and no, we're about 30
(32:39):
minutes and already, well, what I'll say is that obviously you
need to continue to come back and people need to follow you
out of LinkedIn World and all the data you're sharing and sign
up for Skip, do all those thingsand every, everything will be in
the show notes. But like any final thoughts
about what's going to be happening in the next few
months, like in the next quarteras we you know, Q3 and Q4 as we
(33:02):
begin to move towards the end ofthe year?
Yeah. So in Edtech we do see a shift
away from those school based jobs because obviously the
school, school year has started.So those are really quarter one,
quarter 2, they trail off by theend of the summer, but in the
non Ed tech, well, so in Ed tech, when they're internal
(33:23):
departments, those are going to continue to be consistent
throughout the year. And I'm also doing a lot more
sourcing outside of Ed tech as well because so many people have
been like, you know, so long as it doesn't require me to have a
nursing degree, I'm interested. Nursing degree is a stretch.
So what I would say is I'm really expecting to continue to
(33:45):
see a similar number of these non school based learning and
development jobs. I think again there there are
larger questions about the economy.
I think that there is a lot of uncertainty.
We saw particularly in March andApril of last year a pullback
and I think quarter two people picked back up.
They're like OK, I'm feeling a little more comfortable.
(34:05):
So I think that's my only concern is that we don't know
where the overall economy is going.
I think if things stay the way they're they're going, we're
going to be fine. But it's that uncertainty.
That happens. Yeah.
But I do think again, if if you're applying to jobs, look
for those companies that are really, they understand the
(34:27):
value that they're getting out. If they're learning a
development job, it's going to make it a little bit more future
proof. Take a look at those marketing
jobs that are customer educationfocused and really think about
that give you. Advice, too, about jumping into
marketing. Excellent, we should do a
webinar on that. Yes, we should.
Yes, we should. Oh, well.
Well, Chelsea, it's always a pleasure having you on.
(34:48):
I could talk to you all day. I'm like, you know, last episode
I learned about the knockout questions.
This one I'm learning about, like how you're sourcing on
outside and how people are starting to see these different
roles that may or may not fit into the little box of L&D as
actual roles that they can they can jump into.
And you know, it's all about just figuring out where you want
(35:11):
to go. And.
Simple terms, where do you want to go?
So thanks so much for coming on again.
Thank you again for having me, Ialways love love seeing you
there. Though.
Hi, we're I Spring, an international team of e-learning
enthusiasts who help more than 60,000 clients across the globe
succeed with better online learning.
(35:32):
Our two flagship solutions are ISpring Suite and I Spring Learn
LMS Ispring Suite is an intuitive, all in
Go to www.ispringsolutions.com to learn more about us and
(35:56):
connect. Thanks for spending a few
minutes with Holly. She knows your podcast queue is
packed. If today's episode sparked an
idea or gave you that extra nudge of confidence, tap, follow
or subscribe in your favorite app so you never miss an episode
of Ed Up L&D. Dropping a quick rating or
review helps more educators and learning pros discover the show,
(36:18):
too. Want to keep the conversation
going? Connect with Holly on LinkedIn
and share your biggest take away.
She reads every message. Until next time, keep learning,
keep leading, and keep believingin your own story.
Talk soon.
Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of Ed up LND.
I'm Holly Owens and I'm your host, and I'm super excited
about the conversation that we had today because I'm joined by
one of my favorite people to totally nerd out with on all
things LND jobs, the amazing Chelsea Mod Averidge.
(00:23):
In this episode, Chelsea and I dive into the evolving landscape
of learning and development and the current state of the job
market. She shares her incredible
journey from classroom teacher to running a powerhouse job
board, and we get real about what it takes to make a
successful career transition. We cover it all.
(00:44):
Market saturation, LinkedIn bestpractices, the growing overlap
between instructional design andother roles, the power of
networking, and yes, even the impact of AI on L&D.
If you're job hunting, pivoting,or just trying to make sense of
what's happening in this space, this episode is packed with
(01:06):
insights, trends, and honest advice.
Let's get into it. Hi, we're Ice Spring, an
international team of e-learningenthusiasts who help more than
60,000 clients across the globe succeed with better online
learning. Our two flagship solutions are
ispring Suite and ispring Learn LMS.
(01:29):
Ispring Suite is an intuitive, all in one authoring tool for
creating engaging elearning content, and ispringlearn is an
innovative online training platform for onboarding,
upskilling, and certifying your teams.
We also provide tons of free resources for aspiring and
experienced e-learning professionals, conduct weekly
(01:49):
webinars with top industry experts, and organize annual
e-learning conferences, challenges, and championships.
We'd be happy to get to know youand pick a solution that fits
your needs best. Go to www.icepringsolutions.com
to learn more about us, downloadour resources, and connect.
(02:18):
Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of Add Up
Learning and Development. My name is Holly Owens and I'm
your host and I'm super excited and legit super excited because
Chelsea Maude Averick's here andshe's been on the show I think
four or five Times Now, but she's always coming back with
new stuff. So Chelsea, welcome back.
(02:39):
Thank you, I'm so excited. I always love having
conversations with you and the back and forth and learning from
you as well. Yeah, it's, it's our episodes
are always so much fun and they're always so engaging.
Like I learned something from you every time we talk about
like the job market and everything.
But before we go into all that fun stuff, I'm really trying to
(02:59):
resist. Why don't you tell the audience
about who you are, what you do in the L&D space, and just tell
us, give us the history. Sure.
So I'm a former teacher like most of us, and I also, and
someone who who really loves teaching and loves learning.
And I feel like I'm still able to do so many of those parts of
(03:20):
the job that I love to doing as a teacher.
I'm still doing now. And what I'm doing now is I run
a job board and I help people find hope that, you know, you
can continue to do what you loveto.
Even if you're leaving the classroom, even if you're moving
into a corporate job that may besomething that's really
unfamiliar to you, you can stillfind those same through lines
(03:44):
that you're passionate about. Now those jobs exist.
I know where they are and I share them with you.
But I also try to provide this context that you can really, you
can know what kinds of jobs are out there, you can know how to
position yourself and you can know the challenges that you're
going to face moving into it. Because whenever we move from a
(04:05):
new job to a new job, from a newcareer to a newer career, there
are challenges. And I think it's really
important to not just go to a job board and apply, but go to a
job board and really apply coming from a place of clarity
and coming from a place of I know what I want to do, I know
my strengths and I know why I amdoing this.
(04:26):
That's such an important part ofthe process.
That's great advice. Like that's just everything that
you said from you're like talking about Nishin and talking
about just coming from a place like, you know, where you want
to go. Like, you know, because all too
often in Chelsea and you and I talk about this all the time,
(04:47):
people come to us and they're like, well, I want to be an
instructional designer. I want to be, you know, a
marketer. I want to be this.
And we're like, well, what area do you want to be in?
Like it's such a vast landscape there.
So figuring out where you reallywant to be is important.
Having that play when you're applying to rules is important.
(05:07):
Yes. And it's also important because
as teachers we're used to juggling all the pieces.
So while we may only do curriculum development a couple
of times a year, we're still doing that differentiation
throughout the entire semester. We're doing that facilitation
and doing the assessment regularly.
(05:28):
And so a lot of times we don't realize that in the corporate
world, some of those jobs are also combined, which is a trend
we're seeing. And sometimes they're also, yes,
it's definitely a trend we're seeing.
And sometimes they're more discreet too.
I mean, if you're in a large corporation, you can still have
one of those jobs where you're doing one part of that entire
(05:48):
L&D life cycle, you're doing onepart of it.
So there's, there's a lot of opportunities.
And knowing, knowing what you thrive in and knowing what parts
of it you want to do is essential to really being able
to successfully transition because job titles aren't going
to help you. Lots of lots of endless
scrolling is just going to be exhausting.
Finding that clarity first meansthat you're going to go forward
(06:12):
with intention and you're going to be able to make a much more
efficient and avoid burnout as you.
Yeah. 100% people are saying thejob market's saturated.
And I think there's a couple different reasons people say
that probably #1 is because theydon't want other people.
They want to deter people from applying to the roles that they
(06:33):
want to apply for #2 they're making an observation that's
only from their personal experience and not a like an
overview like you have where youhave that 30,000 foot view, but
you also have that narrow view of what's happening in job
market. Chelsea is is a job saturated.
I think I'll go back to like there are those different,
(06:53):
different ways of looking at what saturation means.
So there have been a lot of layoffs.
And so yes, I think there's a lot of gatekeeping and teachers
are competitive in this market. And there's some concern,
particularly if you have a master's degree in instructional
design and a decade of teaching,which a lot of teachers do,
you're putting in a competitive portfolio compared to other
(07:17):
people. And that can be scary.
So I think, yes, some of this oversaturation narratives coming
from that. Some of it is coming though from
the reality that a remote job isgetting over 1000 applicants.
And many of those applicants aregoing to be well qualified.
Half of them will be not even worth looking at because they
(07:38):
won't match some of the basic criteria.
Yeah, the. Days of like hoping that some
sort of role, like in a mid level role where you're not
qualified for the middle level role, they're just hiring you on
a whim and then they'll train you.
Those days are. Yes, those days are disappearing
from so many industries. Like my professors when I was in
grad school were getting jobs inways that I couldn't even
(08:01):
imagine. Like someone picked up a phone
and said, hey, I've got somebodygraduated, would you like to
hire them? That doesn't exist anymore.
So, and, and also it's importantto think a lot of times I hear
this narrative of I want someoneto take a chance on me.
People take chances on entry level candidates.
When we get the skill level thatwe all have, people aren't
taking a chance. They need to know why you're
(08:22):
qualified and you are qualified.So I mean, it's an alignment
issue. But going back to the
saturation, I do think that whatI'm seeing is year over year.
I'm keeping, I'm posting about the same number of jobs, but I'm
having to broaden my sourcing. So we're seeing some companies,
we're seeing some pullback in certain types of roles and I'm
(08:44):
sure we'll talk about what that looks like later, but we're
seeing some of that. But overall, I think we are
seeing the, the industry is solid and learning and
development is such an essentialpart of maintaining a healthy
corporate environment. It helps with retention, it
helps with hiring particularly younger workers who really want
(09:07):
to be someplace they can grow. It's it's something that
companies that invest in learning and development get a
return on that investment. So overall it's a steady field.
I don't think you should have concerns about going into it,
but there it's not necessarily going to be.
Every company is continuing to hire at the same pace and you
(09:27):
really do. I'm having to change my
sourcing. And I'm sure you know this too,
because you you source jobs as well.
And we're seeing also this trendtowards specialization.
So a lot of these companies wantyou to be an expert in
instructional design or learningand development.
And oh, by the way, you should have a nursing degree or one of
these other industry credentials, which is why edtech
(09:50):
is really helpful because we already have that subject matter
expertise, not vertical, vertical being the industry
jargon there, but the vertical expertise.
But it does become harder when you're competing with somebody
who has both of those factors. And you've got to think about,
well, am I, am I competitive in this role or do I need to look
for verticals where I have volunteer experience, personal
(10:13):
experience with it, professionalexperience, things like that.
So there are a lot of things to think about with saturation.
And I think overall, we often come from a place of I'm not
getting interviews, therefore it's over saturated when
sometimes what we need to do is change our strategies, applying
to jobs that, you know, we're more closely aligned to.
And maybe we need to do a littlebit of upskilling.
(10:36):
Maybe we need to figure out whatour niche is so that we can
pitch ourselves differently. I think that's definitely
becomes a blocker. When we hear industry experts
saying that it's saturated, we just like, well, I give up.
That's it becomes a mental blocker.
And you're not trying to figure out like what you're saying, how
to re strategize, how to do things a little bit differently,
(10:57):
like where, how are you approaching the application
process? How are you approaching things
when it comes to your resume, your portfolio?
You know what, what makes you a little bit different than the
next applicant? Because everybody's submitting
these things like is your LinkedIn updated?
Is it or is it old? Like, you know, people, that's
(11:17):
one thing I keep mentioning to you and I'm like, it's, it's
almost like I'm going to say it's required.
Now you have to have a LinkedIn.If you're applying for a job,
you have to have a LinkedIn. Like there's no avoiding it
anymore. They're gonna ask for your
LinkedIn page. Right.
And often it's there's this red asterisk that's required,
required now. So we're gonna say that that's
(11:37):
required. So if you're not doing that and
or if you have one and you just did the bare minimum, you're
probably not going to stand out there.
Yeah. LinkedIn is like your resume.
Everybody knows you're tailoringyour resume, so you're leaving
certain things off. So they go to LinkedIn for two
reasons. One is to say, well, what other
experience do they have? And if they're finding out about
(11:59):
new relevant experience, that's a little weird for them.
But sometimes, you know, people do have like part time jobs and
things like that. So it's important that they can
see your full work history. But the other thing is they want
to see how you show up professionally.
I see a lot of people who are treating LinkedIn more like a
social media than like a professional social media
(12:20):
environment. And that doesn't necessarily
mean they're posting like pictures of their vacation or
they're, they're animals, which I do support posting pictures of
animals on LinkedIn, right? But sometimes it's just like a
comment I've been getting. And now every time I post, I get
four or five comments that say I'm interested.
And it's like, what does that mean?
(12:43):
And I, I really struggle to reply because I'm just not sure
what to say. And it's, it's that ability to
carry on a professional conversation that people are
looking for. And if you don't have that, if
you, if you don't have like you don't have to be active on
LinkedIn, but I think you've gotto be thoughtful about what's
going into your profile. It needs to be updated.
(13:05):
And I, I, I mean people look at it I, every time I interview
someone. So the first thing I do is I
look at their LinkedIn, I Googlethat and I check out their
Facebook. So locked on your Facebook page.
But I think, I think people figure that out.
Locking you on all media, socialmedia platforms.
Exactly, which is why I'm enjoying Reddit.
People can slide under the radaron Reddit because you don't
(13:26):
necessarily have. That question me and like we
don't we won't say the dark web,but you want to be under
definitely under the radar. Reddit is where it's at, not.
Reddit's a lot of fun lately. I think it's, I mean you get
this the same kind of mix of professional engagement and
professional conversation, but there's less posturing because
(13:47):
it's not as much of A marketing platform.
Yeah, absolutely. So what are you seeing in the
data? You're you're saying that you
have to go to different sources now and you post great data and
Chelsea sends out an e-mail every single Saturday, Every
single Saturday, same time. I wish I had that kind of focus.
But everything will matter. Yeah, I know.
(14:08):
It's good. Like building the content takes
takes a little bit of work, but like, what are you seeing?
What should people be aware of at this point?
And, well, we can say that we'rein summer 2025, yeah.
Yeah, we're definitely in. It's 80°.
We're in summer 2025. So what this has been a really
(14:29):
interesting year. So I've been doing jobs on some
scale for the last four to five years, but I've only been doing
it for like 16 months at this scale of like 500 to 1000 jobs a
month. And so I have year over year
data. And one of the things that I'm
noticing is that overall we're moving a lot more into customer
(14:53):
facing roles in general. So we're seeing a little bit of
contraction in part time learning development jobs that
are in schools. So I call them school based
learning and development jobs where a company is coming into
the school and doing professional learning.
Those part time jobs are disappearing.
The curriculum jobs, which can sometimes be a good pair with
(15:15):
instructional design because so much curriculum is digital these
days. Those jobs are disappearing and
we're seeing that focus shift tosales and marketing, learning
and development, program projectmanagement.
I love it that I'm ahead of the game.
Exactly. Yeah, Yeah, Yeah.
Well, and I think that's so interesting is that I'm also
seeing some, you've talked aboutit recently too, some customer
(15:37):
education roles where you are using an LMS and you're creating
courses for customers. And I mean, we've always had
this sales force has had a really robust certification
program for years now. But customer education I think
is starting to become a little bit more mainstream.
And it's a great opportunity foreducators because it's harder to
(15:59):
find. It's not quite so saturated, but
but it also, you know, again, itgoes back to this larger focus
on revenue generation because inthe tighter economy, we really
have to make sure that the employees were getting a return
on investment for hiring them. So learning and development in
(16:19):
companies where it thrives, they're demonstrating that
impact. They're saying, you know, we're,
we're retaining employees, we'respeeding up the onboarding
process so they can do what theydo best and learn more faster.
So if you're looking at these jobs, you want to make sure
you're, you're asking companies,are you doing these things?
So learning and development, when it has that strong focus is
(16:41):
doing well marketing sales, which also brings up the issue
that some learning development jobs are actually in sales and
marketing where you're doing customer education, but also
training the enablement function, sales enablement jobs,
customer success enablement, customer support enablement, all
of these jobs where you're training people in the
(17:04):
department how to do that job better.
These are great opportunities, particularly if you've done part
time customer support work, which a lot of educators have
done. If you've done any kind of
customer facing work, a lot of times these can be good
transitions. So again, broadening the scope
of what you think about. And I think really focusing less
on job titles and more on like what is this job actually doing?
(17:27):
Because a customer education is doing the same task, different
audience enablement, similar tasks, different audience, and
really trying to say how can I bring in all of the skill sets
that I have and leverage different skill sets.
And it also means you can sometimes take a bridge job.
If you're having trouble gettinginto L&D, you can take a
customer support job for two years and move into the training
(17:49):
role and for sales or things like that.
So it gives you more, more opportunities, which is great
because if you're looking at that overall job market trend,
really being able to be flexibleand being able to respond, it's
a teacher superpower and it's something that I think is
important in the current climatethat we have.
Yeah, I 100 in person last night.
(18:10):
I'll tell you a little story. Last night my fiance and I, we
went to like a local restaurant,right?
And like, we were sitting at thebar because it was packed and it
this restaurant is really open 4:00 to 9:00.
That's it every day, 4:00 to 9:00.
So five whole hours. But anyways, we we were talking
to some people who have recentlymoved to Wilmington.
(18:32):
They were from Southport, ME. And, you know, they asked me
what my role was. And I'm always hesitant.
Now, I'm not saying I'm hesitant.
I love my role. But I want to say I'm an
instructional designer because that's what I've always been.
Yeah. And now that I'm a director of
growth marketing, I have like this little challenge like
saying like I'm a director with marketing because I don't want
to take away from what I've donein instructional design, like
(18:55):
kind of discredit my reputation.So that was interesting to me to
think about like the role I'm using instructional design every
single day in marketing. Every single day.
You have to know your customers,you know, you have to know how
to design things for webinars. I'm still doing trainings and
things like that and developing courses that we, you know,
yellow dig puts out for people to take.
(19:17):
Like we have a certification. So there's so much instructional
design that's on that job. It's not like it's, it's another
position where it's like there is not a thing that doesn't
overlap with instructional design, just like teaching
instructional design overlap or customer success and
instructional design overlap. Like I'm finding so much overlap
that like the things that I needed to be trained on were
(19:39):
more or less the technologies that were being used in
marketing that I wasn't aware of.
Not just. So I feel weird.
I was like, you know, and my fiance, I told this lady I was a
director of marketing. I'm like, but I'm not, I'm an
instructional designer. So just a little story, you
know, kind of getting that like,yeah, these things overlap and
you're not just you're not just pigeonholed into these things
(20:02):
and this is all you're going to do for the rest of your life or
this is all you're going to do in this role.
It's like. It's very open.
Yes, and that's one thing like Ido break jobs into job
categories, but so frequently I'm like this role fits into
this job category. Like program management is a
great example, but 50% of the job is training.
So maybe that should be in learning and development.
(20:23):
You know it's. It's.
One right. And I again, I think if you're
interested in this, learn what your skill set is and then look
broadly because you're gonna seeso many of the elements of what
you do on a regular basis show up in a lot of different job
categories exactly like what you're talking about.
(20:44):
We we think of marketing as social media, but marketing?
Is also way more customers. And teaching and coaching those
customers, particularly growth marketing because how do you
keep customers around? Well, you engage them, you help
them learn and feel excited about the product.
So absolutely don't rely on job categories, job titles.
(21:06):
Really find what you do well andthen find the jobs that fit and.
Like we continue to preach it's different everywhere, like what
growth marketing looks like yellow, like a yellow Dick
doesn't look the same at anotherEd tech company or like a big
like a Google or Amazon, it doesn't look the same.
But it should. It should in the.
Future 100% should, but it doesn't, not at this point.
(21:28):
I'm wondering if, and I want to ask you another question before
I jump into all this stuff. I'm wondering if like things
like AI are going to make thingsmore uniform for us again, like
like how it's just going to bring together some of the, the
main components of the role and how we're using that tool.
(21:48):
And that's just going to be like, this is the same
everywhere. Like you have to use AI to, you
know, generate scripts or generate job descriptions or
whatever. You have to do generate
trainings, that kind of stuff. I'm just, I've, I've been
wondering like, is that gonna change?
Maybe it makes things more uniform across the different
industries. Well, in many ways too.
(22:09):
Some of those things are alreadystandardized, like job
descriptions. I mean, how many?
There's a boiler plate job description for all of these job
titles. You can tell.
You can tell when somebody actually wrote a job description
for the first time. You're like, oh, this is new.
I like it. It tells you what the job is
actually and they thought about what the job is.
(22:29):
And so I, I think we already have some of that, which is
where AI feels appealing becauseif we're just sort of doing the
same thing over and over again, why not automate that so that we
can put our time into doing something different, improving
our candidate process. You know, that that can be
something where, you know, if wespend more time interviewing
(22:50):
people or finding some better ways to actually assess their
skills and not doing the boring stuff, that's a plus.
That's an absolute plus. I don't it's interesting to see
how fast AI is going because I've we've gone from AI never
showing up in job descriptions. So now it's starting to show up
in preferred preferred skills quite frequently required.
(23:13):
Yep, it's so that's the next step is when it's required and I
don't see that super frequently,but I am starting to see it and
not enough that I would actuallybe like in my summaries.
You need to have AI for this but.
Definitely you have an awareness100%.
You need to have an awareness. You need to know how it's being
used in your field. You need to know what its
(23:35):
strengths are. You know, what is it actually
good for? What is it not good for?
And the ability to leverage that.
Because yeah, the people who know how to prompt AI to do the
things they need to do are goingto be the people who are getting
employed faster and who are getting promoted and not getting
laid off because their job couldbe done by AI.
(23:56):
Yeah, yeah, Question of the day.And I know you get this in your
inbox a million times like I do,or when you're talking to
people. What do I do to stand out?
Yeah. What do I do?
What is the magic formula? What do we do?
Yes. So that's that's tricky.
(24:17):
I think there are a couple of different ways we can answer
this. So let's start off just thinking
about like the resume and the cover letter.
And we, we talked a little bit about how L&D is consolidating.
And so rules that used to be distinct are now being collapsed
for various reasons, some of them honestly very good reasons,
some of them bottom line issues.So one of the things I think
(24:42):
you've got to do is show the breadth of your experience.
As teachers, we're so used to doing that.
We, we do that whole life cycle.So really making sure your
resume demonstrates each sectionof that.
I also see a lot of teachers whoare still focused on their
classroom and a lot of times we're doing the same work
outside of our classroom. So think about that needs
(25:03):
assessment. You were talking about how you
do needs assessment and evaluating even in in your role
on and we do it in every role, but in as we're teaching, one of
the things that we often say is,oh, I assess the needs of my
students. I'm pulling data, but we also
almost every single teacher is working in a department or
(25:24):
you're doing that with your department colleagues and then
you're making, what are these larger scale department changes
we need to make. So whenever you have a choice
between describing something that you do in your classroom or
describing something you do withor for adults, choose the second
piece because that's going to becloser to what you do in an
(25:45):
instructional design environment.
You're having to suddenly evaluate students that you don't
know and see every day. So you're having to ask
different questions. And that process is really
important because we forget thateven though we're doing the same
process, we're doing it in a different way and we have to
think about what that changes. I mean, it is a lot harder to
(26:06):
gather data from adults that yousee or if you're working in a
remote environment that you might be emailing.
So thinking a little bit about how can you show that you're
doing that part of the job as well?
So not just the functional skill, but who you're doing it
with. So that's one thing I would say.
Then the other thing is the opposite is I would also show
(26:27):
some of your where you're niching down.
So we just talked about AI. What are the other preferred
skills you're seeing in job descriptions that you're like,
that sounds like fun. Go and learn that and then use
it and show how you're actually demonstrating that skill on a
regular basis and make sure those are in your resume in your
bullet points. Don't worry about trying to say
(26:50):
this is my job description. Say what you're doing that's
relevant for the job. So that's that's kind of like
the basic stuff. I would also, we haven't talked
about portfolios yet and I thinkthere's a lot of portfolios are
becoming very, very similar. There's, there's the style and
everybody is doing the same style.
(27:11):
They look great, they look great, but they are really one
note. There's so much emphasis on
training and specifically training through an articulate
program or rise. And one of the things that I
think teachers are so good at isassessing what the right
(27:32):
learning intervention is. We don't always go to a
classroom training so to speak. You know, sometimes we break
kids up into groups, sometimes we have them do our project,
sometimes we do 20 different. We usually have a toolbox of
like 20 different things we do. And so thinking about how can
you show that in your portfolio?And I think one thing that is a
(27:54):
bit underrated and L&D are job aids.
I think professionals who are working in instructional design
are using these all the time. But we're talking so much about
articulate courses that we don'treally talk about how often
we're doing something like building a job aid.
And so I would really encourage people to think about that
portfolio more broadly than justthe training piece of it.
(28:17):
What are other ways that you help somebody solve a problem
and show that? And I think it really shows your
flexibility and it shows your understanding of adult learning
methodologies and that you can really navigate a lot of
different environments and not just let me build a training for
(28:39):
you because that's a lot of timeand money for the company.
And I mean, I've got a couple ofothers.
I think networking is its own isits own topic, but I think
networking, networking is such apiece of this.
So yeah, I'll talk about networking.
I actually had a great experience.
I'm sitting here listening because I love listening to you
(29:01):
talk because I always learn something.
Yeah, I'm going to agree with you on network like people.
I think I was just, you know, like saying that the LinkedIn is
required, but the networking is right behind it.
Like even though we're in this digital space, it's still very
old school. Who you know, who you know that
could maybe introduce you to somebody within the position or
(29:21):
the industry or the company you're going to look for, who
knows who. That's the whole thing.
Right. And so going to conferences, you
do conferences a lot of times there's some major learning and
development conferences. You've got a great handout that
lists a lot of them. Conferences are great.
I think also looking at your local learning and development.
(29:43):
I'm being very broad there chapters.
So it could be ATD, but it couldalso be I I spoke recently at
packed Minnesota and it's a training, it's a local training
organization and they were fabulous.
They're they're actually welcoming teachers.
They have a special teacher membership for some of the
remote opportunities, but it wasjust such a warm and welcoming
(30:07):
environment and they were sitting there giving people
advice and it was just really collegial.
And I think that's what learningdevelopment does so well is
build those learning communitiesand professional development
spaces. And so I would say find what
that is locally. Sometimes you're gonna see it
online. If you're in a community like me
(30:27):
where it's a 90 minute drive to get to all the professional
networking events, you won't. Believe it, but it's like mines
in Raleigh. I think it's that's two hours.
It's just even worth. Yeah.
Flemington's a major city. Yeah, no, we don't have in the
local ATD. It's in, it's in, it's in the
center of the state. So, yeah, I definitely agree
with you too on those. Those ATD things I I enjoyed,
(30:49):
like when I lived in South Carolina, attending those events
and working with that group, they had a really great group.
That's nice and I know it. I don't know how it works in
every state, but here in Maine they do a lot of remote events
just because we're Maine, we where a million people spread
out very, very far. But so there, it may be that way
in other states, but yeah, find,find your tribe locally because
(31:11):
it means that you're going to betalking to people who are doing
the profession on a daily basis.And that's just going to give
you so much knowledge of the field.
And it's going to give you such an ability to translate your
skills more effectively. And also networking.
That's how a lot of people find jobs.
You know, they they say, oh, by the way, did you hear about that
(31:33):
job? No, I didn't hear about that
job. Or did you hear about that job
board? I mean, a lot of people come to
my job board because somebody else told them about it.
So, so these these communities that we build and the resources
that we share within them are really valuable.
So you need to find what that resource is in your, your neck
of the woods. And you want to do it locally
too, because a lot of people transition to hybrid and in
(31:57):
person local jobs people. Prefer that, yeah, I prefer
remote, but there's lots of people who prefer to go into the
office one or two days a week ormore and just be with
colleagues. And so I totally get that and.
Right. Yeah.
So I think there are a lot of a lot of opportunities for people
to think locally even even for remote jobs because again, the
(32:18):
L&D community is a small tight network.
So yeah, you know about the local jobs, you know about the
remote jobs too, so. Yeah, absolutely.
Oh my goodness. It's gone by too fast, OK?
Oh my goodness, I just looked atthe clock too.
I was like, oh, we're about 15 minutes and no, we're about 30
(32:39):
minutes and already, well, what I'll say is that obviously you
need to continue to come back and people need to follow you
out of LinkedIn World and all the data you're sharing and sign
up for Skip, do all those thingsand every, everything will be in
the show notes. But like any final thoughts
about what's going to be happening in the next few
months, like in the next quarteras we you know, Q3 and Q4 as we
(33:02):
begin to move towards the end ofthe year?
Yeah. So in Edtech we do see a shift
away from those school based jobs because obviously the
school, school year has started.So those are really quarter one,
quarter 2, they trail off by theend of the summer, but in the
non Ed tech, well, so in Ed tech, when they're internal
(33:23):
departments, those are going to continue to be consistent
throughout the year. And I'm also doing a lot more
sourcing outside of Ed tech as well because so many people have
been like, you know, so long as it doesn't require me to have a
nursing degree, I'm interested. Nursing degree is a stretch.
So what I would say is I'm really expecting to continue to
(33:45):
see a similar number of these non school based learning and
development jobs. I think again there there are
larger questions about the economy.
I think that there is a lot of uncertainty.
We saw particularly in March andApril of last year a pullback
and I think quarter two people picked back up.
They're like OK, I'm feeling a little more comfortable.
(34:05):
So I think that's my only concern is that we don't know
where the overall economy is going.
I think if things stay the way they're they're going, we're
going to be fine. But it's that uncertainty.
That happens. Yeah.
But I do think again, if if you're applying to jobs, look
for those companies that are really, they understand the
(34:27):
value that they're getting out. If they're learning a
development job, it's going to make it a little bit more future
proof. Take a look at those marketing
jobs that are customer educationfocused and really think about
that give you. Advice, too, about jumping into
marketing. Excellent, we should do a
webinar on that. Yes, we should.
Yes, we should. Oh, well.
Well, Chelsea, it's always a pleasure having you on.
(34:48):
I could talk to you all day. I'm like, you know, last episode
I learned about the knockout questions.
This one I'm learning about, like how you're sourcing on
outside and how people are starting to see these different
roles that may or may not fit into the little box of L&D as
actual roles that they can they can jump into.
And you know, it's all about just figuring out where you want
(35:11):
to go. And.
Simple terms, where do you want to go?
So thanks so much for coming on again.
Thank you again for having me, Ialways love love seeing you
there. Though.
Hi, we're I Spring, an international team of e-learning
enthusiasts who help more than 60,000 clients across the globe
succeed with better online learning.
(35:32):
Our two flagship solutions are ISpring Suite and I Spring Learn
LMS Ispring Suite is an intuitive, all in
Go to www.ispringsolutions.com to learn more about us and
(35:56):
connect. Thanks for spending a few
minutes with Holly. She knows your podcast queue is
packed. If today's episode sparked an
idea or gave you that extra nudge of confidence, tap, follow
or subscribe in your favorite app so you never miss an episode
of Ed Up L&D. Dropping a quick rating or
review helps more educators and learning pros discover the show,
(36:18):
too. Want to keep the conversation
going? Connect with Holly on LinkedIn
and share your biggest take away.
She reads every message. Until next time, keep learning,
keep leading, and keep believingin your own story.
Talk soon.
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