How to Get e-Learning Instructional Design Jobs Without Paying a Single Dollar

‍You’ve got your new e-Learning program written and ready for launch. You’re excited about the possibilities of this new platform, but also nervous that you may not be able to pay your bills if it doesn’t earn money right away. With no prior experience designing e-Learning programs, you don’t know where to start or how to get experience—and get paid—for your ideas. Instructional Design is a great career path for those who enjoy writing and presenting information in organized, logical ways. It’s also one of the most difficult fields to break into if you don’t have experience with it before. To get the job you want and earn a living wage, you need specific skills and opportunities that may not come as easily as others. However, this doesn’t mean that there isn’t hope for anyone who wants to learn how to design instructional e-Learning programs on their own time or through free resources available online. Read on for more details about what an instructional designer does, how much they make per year, and some strategies for getting paid for your work without having to spend any money or time outside of your regular routine.

 

What is Instructional Design?

Instructional Design is the process of planning and creating digital training for both learners and instructors. It’s about creating engaging, easy-to-follow, and effective learning experiences. This can include designing materials such as in-person sessions, online courses, visual simulations, or simulations using computer-generated visuals. The instructional designer creates the structure and flow of information to help users understand the material in a way that’s easy and fun to absorb. They also help the instructor or content creator create a plan to get the information across in a way that’s engaging, thorough, and memorable.

 

Career path for an instructional designer

As a career path in instructional design, you’ll need to have a bachelor’s degree in a field that relates to education, such as communications, computer science, or psychology. You’ll also need to have experience with course design and some portfolio pieces of your own. It’s likely that you’ll start as an entry-level creative or instructional designer, with pay that’s close to minimum wage. However, as your experience grows and you get more specialized, you’ll move into management roles and have the opportunity to earn a higher salary.

 

How to Get e Learning Instructional Design Jobs Without Paying a Dime

While the pay can be high for those with experience designing e Learning programs, it’s not impossible to get a job without paying a dime. To do this, you’ll first need to find an educational institution or company that needs an instructional design or course creation for an existing program. Then, you’ll need to volunteer to help create the program, building your portfolio as you go. As you get the hang of it, start trying to get experience on your own time and through online tools such as Coursera, Udacity, or Treehouse.

 

Steps to take to get from no job to paid job as an e Learning

Now that you know what you’re looking for, here are a few strategies to help you identify opportunities as an instructional designer. - Get involved in your local design community. Meetups, conferences, and online communities are great ways to meet people who share your interests and find collaborative projects to get involved with. You can also find jobs posted by your local design community on sites like Meetup.com — or you can create one of your own. - Search for educational institutions that need help creating courses. You can find these on LinkedIn, Facebook Groups, and on sites like Education Job Search. - Attend design and development conferences where you can meet people in your industry and find panels that cover topics you’d like to learn more about. - Find online resources that offer free educational materials or help you get a lay of the land when it comes to learning a new programming language. - Try to get involved with open source projects where you can contribute code and make yourself known in the programming community. - Keep in mind that you’re better off looking for jobs that are related to your skills as opposed to looking for job titles that sound like they’d be a good fit.

 

Tips for Finding Instructional Design Jobs Without Paying a Dime

- Consider volunteering as a means of obtaining experience while also getting some valuable free experience. - Keep your resume up to date and keep your cover letter short and simple. A cover letter can help you stand out from the competition when applying for jobs. - Make sure you have all of your qualifications and skills listed on your resume and cover letter. This will help you to get noticed by hiring managers. - Make sure you have all the proper certifications and licenses listed on your resume and highlighted on your resume cover letter. - Create a portfolio of your projects while you’re looking for jobs to show hiring managers what you can do. This can be as simple as a collection of links to your best projects on your website or as simple as a Google Drive folder that you update when projects are completed. - Try to get into the mindset that you’re interviewing with your future self, so make sure to dress professionally and have a thoughtful elevator pitch prepared for when an opportunity comes your way. - Don’t be discouraged when you don’t get your first few job offers. Instead, try to identify why you didn’t get the job and what you can do to improve that aspect for the next job offer. - Consider acquiring some professional certification, such as the Project Management Institute’s (PMI) Project Management Professional (PMP) certification, which can help you to gain a higher profile in the hiring process.

 

Bottom line

Now that you know a bit more about what an instructional designer does and where you can find work, it’s time to get started. Remember, it’s important to approach this as a side hustle while you’re building your main career, not as something that you’ll have to do full-time to support yourself. Although the pay isn’t great, it’s a lot less stressful than working full-time in a 9-5 job, and it can help you build a skillset you can use in other fields. With patience and perseverance, anyone can learn how to design e Learning programs on their own time and get paid for it.