This file contains a number of instructional design questions that you can use to practice for instructional design interviews of various types. While your particular interview opportunity may not use all of these questions, being prepared by having thought through your answers will help you to ask better questions and have more interesting conversations.
- Tell me about yourself/background in instructional design and e-learning development.
- Tell me about a recent project.
- What is motivating you to want to leave your current position?
- Why are you interested in this particular role and why this particular company/organization?
- What type of LMS systems and elearning tools are you most comfortable with?
- What video editing tools and graphic tools are you currently using?
- What sort of training deliverables have you produced?
- What instructional design methodologies have you used?
- What instructional design models/processes do you use to develop an instructional program?
- What is your philosophy of instructional design or multimedia development?
- Describe your ideal instructional design position.
- What was your most successful work accomplishment related to this position?
- How might you approach a situation with a client who simply gives you their face-to-face training presentations to be converted into a elearning?
- What experience do you have working with subject matter experts?
- What would you current supervisor say about you and your accomplishments?
- Have you ever worked remotely? How do you communicate with a remote team? How do you communicate with a remote supervisor?
- What experience do you have working in a collaborative environment?
- What are your career goals and how do you think this organization/company can help you accomplish them?
- What is your favorite part and least favorite part of instructional design work?
- We will interview several people for this position. What do you want us to know about you?
- Give us your definition of an “Instructional Designer.”
- Provide three examples of Instructional Design projects to which you added value and explain how you added that value?
- Explain how you have worked as a team member in the past. How would you establish yourself as a part of a team at this college?
- When working with faculty, do you see yourself as the expert product maker or the one expanding faculty expertise? What is the difference between these two roles?
- Describe a situation you’ve experienced where a faculty or client advocated an approach or standard you believed to be detrimental to the project? How did you handle it?
- How would you persuade a faculty member to try a new instructional design approach or activity?
- What is the most common instructional design flaw you have seen in courses you’ve reviewed?
- What quality evaluation models have you found to be most effective in Instructional Design?
- What educational theories do you subscribe to?
- How do you handle challenging your eLearning team members or subject matter experts?
- Do you have any experience creating learning experiences for highly technical subjects?
- Do you think that creativity or efficiency is more important?
- What kind of quantitative and qualitative data do you use in designing training?
- Are you comfortable teaching yourself enterprise software in order to create elearning?
This set of questions was contributed by user DontMakeMeClickNext on the instructional design subreddit. This set includes questions and expectations about what good answers would include.
- Describe a successful learning program you designed. At what point did you enter into the process, and how far did you carry it through the ADDIE process?
Expected answers would be request through evaluation. What would be a concern are individuals who have only worked part of the process – looking for experience in the full cycle. Bonus if they bring up ADDIE on their own. Double bonus if they talk about rapid development. If they don’t, ask what rapid development means to them or to describe what it looks like in action. I would expect to hear about prototyping and iterative development
- Describe what you feel is your most creative learning approach/solution?
Expected answers would be in current learning industry trends, and feature both hi and lo-fi solutions. Its not only about flashy graphics and such
- Describe your experience working with Subject Matter Experts/clients. Describe a time where you were faced with SMEs with compressed schedules and short attentions spans – how did you set the project up for success?
General question for the first, I would expect to see a lot of direct contact. For the second, I’m looking for basic PM skills, being able to work asynchronously with clients
- Describe your communication style with clients, how you document project decisions and progress, and keep track of time and budget?
Shows they can communicate well to clients and keep a good historical tracking of their progress
- Describe a time where a client was unhappy with your work or disagreed with your approach. How did you resolve the situation?
Will show the difference between an order taker and a consultant. Would expect to hear support for accepted, proven approaches, rather than only changing things to please the client where the product result might be less effective
- Do you have experience with 508 compliance?
If so, describe some successful applications
- What is your preferred design and development process?
Want to see people with autonomous skillset, but willing to collaborate for inspiration, overcoming creative blocks, and quality reviews early and often
- What do you do when the design and development phases are interrupted? Give an example of how you handle it • Tell me about how you worked effectively under pressure.
These are here to flesh out how they handle working with a high degree of ambiguity. Looking for people to make quality decisions with confidence, without hand-holding and to know when to ask for help