My personal experience with The Learning Agency, reviewing opinions on if internships lead to employment, and exploring the 2024 job market for instructional designers and the learning & development community.
The Learning Agency
Projects
I worked for The Learning Agency for roughly a year from spring 2020 to spring 2021, during which, some of the larger projects I worked on included:
1) Multiple, asynchronous mental health courses in the Thinkific, learning management system (LMS).
2) A large series of online course creations with the Colorado Office of Employment First.
3) Designing marketing materials for and assisting the ThinqStudio unconference as staff.
All these roles required working with subject matter experts in fields outside my area of expertise, advising on Thinkific and other LMS options, advising on accessibility, best practices for design, and instructional methodologies.
Employment: Personal Experience
When I was halfway through the Learning, Design, & Technology Master's program, I began reviewing instructional design postings and skills that I would need to get an entry level position. Although I already had years of professional experience, I was pivoting careers by going into instructional design. I was seeing an increase of job competition as a result of the pandemic creating an influx of transitioning teachers, as well as a greater need for remote learning. Unfortunately, a lot of "entry level" positions request that applicants have three to five years of experience minimum as an instructional designer, plus an advanced level degree. So, how does one gain entry level experience without actually being able to get accepted for entry level positions? Internships!
In the few months before I graduated from my Master's program, I applied to a myriad of positions. However, I think the items that set me apart were a detailed online portfolio and my experience at The Learning Agency. I've now been working as an instructional designer in medical education for almost three years.
Current Conditions
When reviewing instructional design jobs now, I see a few trends:
Reduced numbers of fully remote positions in favor of hybrid or on-site roles.
Hundreds of applicants for a single role due to the current economy of layoffs, reduced organizational budgets, and increased interest in instructional design roles from applicants.
Similar minimum requirements of several years of instructional design experience for entry level roles.
Internships to Jobs: Articles
Personal Thoughts
I believe that my time working with The Learning Agency helped put me a step ahead of other applicants with a similar background to mine. Part of being an instructional designer is continuously keeping up on digital tools and learning trends, and thus, getting as much real world experience as possible is a benefit to transitioning to instructional design.
Opinion Articles
A handful of online articles discuss the benefits of internships to gaining employment:
Summary
Take some time to review current job listings online that interest you to identify any skill gaps that you may have. Then, keep learning new digital tools to you and in the learning and development field to stay current. If any internship, freelance, or employment opportunities come along, take anything that interests you to help add experience to your toolkit and resume. Keep learning!
Instructional Design Employment Data
Devlin Peck Instructional Designer Salary Report
Reviewing Devlin Peck's instructional designer salary report for 2024, some trends with instructional designers from the previous year include the following:
1) The average instructional designer salary in the United States is currently $83,347 annually across all industries and employment types.
2) A majority (79.4%) of instructional designers work for an organization instead of freelance and contract workers.
3) The highest paying employment type is not surprisingly corporate, in front of government, healthcare, non-profit, and higher education roles.
4) The majority of Devlin Peck respondents hold a Master's degree with an average of $83,812/annually as a salary.
5) Also not surprisingly, salary typically has increased for instructional designers as their years of experience in the field increases.
Salaries differ drastically when concerning corporate roles versus higher education, for example. However, work/life balance and work pace are major differences. Is your total compensation package (i.e., benefits) more important than salary? Are you interested in getting experience while making the most money possible? What kind of work flexibility (i.e., remote/hybrid/in-person format, time off, project expectations, etc.) are you looking for? What else is a priority to you in employment?
Instructional Designers in Medical Education
A colleague recently shared an article on instructional designers in my current field of medical education, Looking Beyond the Physician Education: the Evolving Roles of Instructional Designers in Medical Education by Max C. Anderson, Lina M. Love, and Faye L. Haggar. In my experience, medical education is behind other industries in implementing instructional designers most likely due to budget constraints in conjunction with fast-paced curriculum and large demographics of faculty and staff.
However, it's interesting to see instructional designers wearing multi-faceted hats in medical education, as well as growing in numbers. In my personal experience, most instructional designers, regardless of industry, are jill/jack-of-all-trades with skills spanning from program management to graphic design to development to analysis.
Are you interested in a particular field of instructional design such as corporate, non-profit, high education, or freelancing? Talk to current and former instructional designers in the field, when possible, to determine if that path is a good fit for your life-work balance and career advancement.
Final Thoughts
The field of instructional design is competitive and the more real world experience you can get, the better prepared you will be for gaining employment. Salaries across different organizations vary greatly though. So, explore what you personally are wanting for a work/life balance, as well as salary and tasks when exploring whether to pursue jobs in corporate, higher education, non-profit, freelancing, etc.. Do you think that internships help to gain employment? Check out some of the articles I listed and explore online. Instructional design is a fun, ever-changing field of learning and its complexity is part of the employment journey. Best of luck!