Expert Advice for Beginners in L&D
Starting a career in Learning & Development opens doors to growth and innovation. We asked seasoned professionals for their top advice: “If you had to give just one piece of advice for someone starting their L&D career, what would it be?”
Their rapid-fire responses highlight the importance of continuous learning, embracing curiosity, leveraging AI thoughtfully, and challenging traditional norms. Whether you’re in instructional design, organizational development, or corporate training, their insights will guide your journey.
Trent Draper
Stay curious and continuously evolve. I think things are changing quickly, quicker than I’ve ever seen in my entire life. And I think it is important to stay on top of things or at least as much as you can. And that’s where the curiosity comes into play.
Olga Filipova
And as Brian Tracy says, always learn, keep learning. And yeah, there is nothing bad in not knowing something. The bad is when you are not willing to learn.
Valeriia Forostianova
It’s a slogan of a brand, just do it. From my experience, I started with small steps. I didn’t know back then where it would lead me, but the moment you show up, the moment you decide to take the ownership of your career, then a miracle happens, and then one step leads to another, and… people starts attracting to your life. So I would say the miracle of small steps and just do it.
Christian Bjerre Nielsen
Embrace AI in every aspect of what you do around learning. But remember that we are teaching people and not machines.
Anna Liashenko
But probably to learn as much as you can, like learn all the time, just keep learning, even when you feel like, you know, instructional design and, you know, L&D and it’s all clear. Still keep going because learning, especially from the scientific point of view, there’s so much still to discover and explore and new. evidence pops up every now and then and new research from companies but also from academic institutions and there is always something new to learn and to use so my advice would be just keep learning.
Ross Stevenson
Don’t lose your curiosity and I say that because I think after 15 years of doing this you at times will waver in different corporate politics and different things that you have to do. And sometimes people lose that curiosity that may have first brought them into the world of L&D and particularly the role. So I’d say continue to be curious and don’t be afraid to explore and experiment because again, it’s very easy to find yourself in the rut and following very robotic processes. But I think the beauty and joy of all of this role in industry is that continuing to explore and continuing to experiment to help other people do that as well so yeah it sounds corny but that would be my best advice i continue to go back to you.
Jyotika Pruthi, Ph.D.
I would simply say become a data storyteller because we are, you know, living in the age of big data. So leverage data analytics as much as you can to narrate your story and also to, you know, iterate on your designs. Especially if you are new in the space, people will give you too much of advice, but it’s important to follow data-driven insights before you make any decisions.
Bill Sodeman, Ph.D.
Keep an open mind. That is so important in L&D because there are so many different perspectives. And it’s not just from L&D experts. It’s from the people who are learning. They’ve got great insights and we need to listen to them, take their advice. Even if they don’t know our jargon and vocabulary, they know what they want.
Rita Azevedo
I would say don’t accept blindly what you hear out there L&Dwise i think there are a lot of mental models that are predominantly old for example the idea that when you’re designing a learning experience you should follow the ad car model for example or that you should go into maybe a toolkit that has been used for ages. So I would say my one piece of advice is think by yourself, you know, think for yourself and don’t get stuck into mental models just because, you know, an L&D person has told you. Challenge that.
Lavinia Mehedințu
It’ll be very counterintuitive, but I would say explore the world outside of L&D. Learn about behavioral science, about neuroscience, about systems thinking, product marketing. Just go ahead and explore as much as you can things that are not necessarily related to L&D because they will help you tremendously.
