From classroom to the corporate world
If you asked me 10 years ago “where do you see yourself in 5 years?” I would have probably told you that very likely I’ll be a college professor somewhere and hopefully I will have received my tenure. Then things happened, plans changed, I decided to leave academia into the unknown corporate world where I had no contacts, no direct skills to job descriptions and with a doctoral degree above the bachelor’s degree that most corporate jobs require. I was used to write a CV where I listed all my conference presentations, journal publications and research projects, but I had absolutely no idea what to put on my resume. I had no idea how to get started.
Fast forward 10 years. I’m now a Sr. Learning Experience Architect at Contentful, a content platform company that helps companies create digital experiences faster. 2020, the year unemployment hit record high from the pandemic and distance learning became the new norm, I also had many more educators or PhDs reaching out asking for advice to make a transition to the instructional design field or the tech industry. As I noticed myself starting to repeat my stories, I thought, “maybe I should just write it down so more people may find my advice helpful.” And those who know me well know how much I strive to make everything scalable, so here it comes. :)
How did you land your first job?
Making a transition from academia to corporate is challenging. It’s very likely your research isn’t really applicable to the corporate world. While you may be satisfied with an entry-level position, those positions do not require an advanced degree, so your resume probably would be screened out by those Application Tracking Systems before you can prove yourself to a human being. After blindly submitting resumes to companies and getting tons of auto-rejections, I decided to try small startups. Why? My number one priority was to have a human read my resume, and hopefully give me a chance to talk to them to show my transferable skills. Small startups don’t have that many candidates, and will more likely read every resume that comes in. My strategy worked. I landed a job at a small EdTech company and it was the co-founder that interviewed me and eventually offered me the job.
Is it hard to land a full-time position without a real experience in the industry?
I won’t lie to you. Yes it’s harder. Even if you’re lucky enough to get an interview, you’ll find yourself struggling to find a relevant response from your classroom or academic experience to those “Tell me about a time when…” questions. I know many people prefer a full-time position because it looks like a better career trajectory. But most people don’t reach their goals right away. Start as a freelancer or pick up some volunteering projects, these can all help you learn the industry language and build a portfolio that you could use to land the permanent role you want. Remember the EdTech job that I first landed? It was only a 5-month part-time gig but I got to learn how a mobile learning app was developed and launched from end to end and that experience eventually helped me land my first full-time position.
I’ve been a teacher for many years and wonder how to make a transition to an instructional design role.
As a teacher, you’ve developed your lesson plans, you know those learning theories of how people learn and how to engage learners already. These skills do bring value to be an instructional designer. But does your resume stress the skills that the position is looking for? If your goal is to land a job as a learning experience designer, find a job description for the position and compare how much your current resume matches the job (use tools such as jobscan to compare your resume with the job description). Then make a plan to fill the gap of those missing skills. For example, most companies require sample work for instructional design/learning experience positions, if you don’t have your portfolio ready, take some Linkedin Learning courses to learn how to use tools such as Camtasia, Captivate, Articulate Storyline or Rise and put together some sample courses. As an educator, you may find it easier to transition to the EdTech industry than other industries. Edsurge is a great site to look for EdTech opportunities.
What has helped you most to transition to the corporate world?
I’d say it is to get input from those who’ve been there. It annoys me when a new Linkedin contact starts selling me their services right after we are connected, but I’m always happy to talk to those who reach out for advice. The most useful professional advice I’ve received is actually from an industry expert that I reached out to a few years ago. He didn’t know me, but he took the time to respond to several of my LinkedIn messages. I can’t speak for other industries, but people in the learning field like to help others. Just ask.
As more educators consider moving to the corporate world during the pandemic, I hope this article is helpful. If you have more specific questions, you can find me on LinkedIn.