What Questions Should You Ask During an Instructional Design Interview as a Candidate?
Interviewing for any instructional design or eLearning development job can be nerve-wracking, regardless of your experience. And while the goal of the interview process is primarily about the hiring manager evaluating your skills, experience, and whether or not you’re a good fit for the role and team, you have to remember that it’s a two-way conversation. While you’re going be answering a ton of questions, the interview is also your opportunity to ask questions and evaluate how the team operates, what type of work they do, what their instructional design processes look like, and whether the position is one that you see yourself in.
The truth is, the only way you’ll be able to uncover this information is to ask a ton of questions. So, when it comes to the questions you should be asking during an eLearning or instructional design interview, I categorize them into three buckets:
The Team
The Work
The Strategy
And I want to be super clear about this: Asking questions of the hiring manager isn’t just a nice thing to do for you to gain some information. It’s a non-negotiable thing that you absolutely must do, especially if you’re hoping to make it through to the later stages of the interview process.
Well-crafted questions will help you demonstrate your interest and curiosity in the role and the work. They can provide you an opportunity to expand upon your experience as well as identify potential red flags. Questions also help move the interview from a one-way interrogation to a two-way conversation.
So, in this article, I’ll share what questions you should be asking the hiring manager during an instructional design and eLearning development interview.
Questions About the Team
The first set of questions you want to ask during the interview is about the team. Digging in and asking questions about the team, its structure, and size can help you uncover important information to help you understand the environment you’d be working in and who you’d be working with on a day-to-day basis.
So, this might be questions like:
Can you tell me how the team is structured?
Is the team centralized or decentralized within the organization?
Are the people working on the team generalists or specialists?
What you’re looking for from the hiring manager from these questions are specifics about how large the team is, how much of the organization it actually supports, and the organizational maturity of the team. And why the information matters to you as a candidate is that there can be stark differences between working on extremely small learning and development teams—where you’re essentially a team of one—versus larger teams that are more structured and mature.
If you’re someone who already has some experience in instructional design or eLearning development, you may find that you’re more comfortable working on a small, less structured team where you get to help shape the future. However, if you’re newer to the industry, you may find that you’re more likely to succeed on a team that offers more support and structure (where you’re not carrying the burden of the whole team on your shoulders).
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Questions About the Work
Alright! From there, ask questions about the work, which can help you understand the types of projects the team works on, their processes, and their priorities.
So, for example, I recommend asking questions like:
How do you prioritize projects and training requests from your stakeholders and SMEs?
What does your instructional design process look like?
How do you respond to requests from stakeholders that shouldn’t be training?
Can you describe or show me an example of your best and not-so-best training project?
These questions can help you gauge where your skills fall within the range of work the team is doing. They can also help you understand whether or not the team is viewed and acts as a strategic partner within the organization or whether they’re just order takers. For example, does the team conduct a needs analysis or kickoff meeting before starting a new training project?
And, of course, if they’re willing to show or describe examples of the type of work they’re currently doing, you may find that it’s way beyond what you’re capable of doing or that it’s not at all interesting and may not challenge you in a meaningful way.
Questions About the Strategy
And finally, I like to ask questions about the strategy. This can help you understand the hiring manager’s long-term vision for the team (if they have one) and what their priorities are in terms of supporting the organization.
So, these questions might include:
Where do you hope to take the team in the next 18 to 24 months?
How do you align training and learning initiatives to business outcomes?
What’s your process for evaluating the effectiveness of a training solution?
These questions will help you evaluate how well the team is aligned with the business (if at all), and they can demonstrate that you see the importance of connecting training initiatives back to the bottom line. Additionally, these questions can help you evaluate whether the hiring manager has a vision for the future. And if that doesn’t exist, you have to ask yourself if this particular job and this particular hiring manager is going to do any good for your career.
Put Your Instructional Design Interviewing Skills into Practice!
To truly feel prepared and do your best during an instructional design interview, you need to practice answering questions! A great way to do that is to use AI to conduct a mock instructional design interview! Check out this video, where @Tim Slade shows you how!
What’s Next?
There’s a lot more to explore when it comes to preparing for an instructional design interview. Keep learning by checking out these additional resources!
The Bottom Line
So, the next time you’re interviewing for an instructional design or eLearning development job, taking the time to ask these questions about the team, the work, and the strategy will help you quickly get a better sense or snapshot of where the team is at, how involved and strategic the hiring manager is with the work their team is doing, how you stack up against what they’re doing, and whether it seems like it’s a place you want to be. But, as I said before, it’ll also help demonstrate your interest not just in getting a job but in the actual work that you’d be doing in that job.
So, I want to know what you think. What other questions do you recommend asking during an eLearning or instructional design interview? Share your thoughts, questions, or tips by commenting down below!