№1 Question to ask at L&D Job Interview from Experts of EdTalks
As we wrap up the first season of EdTalks, we’ve gathered invaluable insights from industry experts on the key question to ask when interviewing L&D specialists. The questions our Speakers have suggested are designed to uncover a candidate’s mindset, approach, and commitment to continuous learning and development.
Trent Draper
How do you measure the effectiveness of L&D initiatives? I think this is a big one for me. Metrics is such a big topic, but I think a lot of people focus on the wrong things. I think the most valuable advice is being curious.
Olga Filipova
I think if I would hire an L&D specialist, the first thing I would ask, like, what was the last book, last podcast, or last course that you’ve done, listened to, or read regarding L&D? Yeah, if I see that they say, oh, I didn’t read anything or I didn’t listen to anything, then… then it’s very suspicious, right? Because the person who is supposed to create a learning culture for your team, and if this person doesn’t learn herself, or himself, it’s strange.
Valeriia Forostianova
Honestly, I think… There are many questions that can be asked to open up the candidate, but the first that comes to my mind is how would you deal with the skepticism or resistance of learners in their adoption, in their learning journey, because that’s what we see everywhere, especially when the company is not ready to change.
Christian Bjerre Nielsen
Can you please tell me a little about how important time to market is for learning content versus doing it optimal from a learning perspective about didactic and everything?
Anna Liashenko
This is such a great question. I think we should ask every specialist, how do you measure impact of the learning that you create? And not only on a job interview, really, I think we should ask ourselves this question in our day-to-day job, like when I’m creating something or designing something or planning something, how am I going to measure impact even before I’ve created it?
Ross Stevenson
So my main one always was, and people that have interviewed with me would know this, because when I was head of an NDA at a tech company, I’d always ask people, how are you practicing what you preach? So what I mean by that is, what are you learning now and how are you doing that? Now, the reason why I ask those questions is because we are all so focused on helping other people learn and reach their goals that we often forget about ourselves and the things that we want to do and work on. So what I always said to my team is that I want to have people in there that are always working on themselves in some way. It doesn’t have to be huge or grandiose at all, but they’ve got that mindset of that they are practicing the things that they preach to others. So that’s number one for me when I’m speaking to people in interviews.
Jyotika Pruthi, Ph.D.
And honestly, I’m speaking from my experience because I was asked this question and I always felt that it’s a very relevant question. I think it’s really important to understand the process that a specialist follows when conducting learner interviews for needs analysis. it’s important to understand how do they ensure that they are capturing the, I would say, most relevant insights before designing. Because I think if the approach to understand the audience is well-structured, I feel there are high chances that the rest of the pieces related to design will automatically fall in place.
Bill Sodeman, Ph.D.
Let’s see. I was actually interviewing an instructional designer the other day, and I asked them what their personal vision is for learning and development. I like hearing the answers to that question because the word vision is aspirational, and it sort of takes people out of the operational pieces that they focus on towards the things that they want to do in L&D.
Rita Azevedo
I think for me asking what is the biggest challenge in L&D today will help me understand if I am interviewing someone if that person has the priorities in the right place.
Lavinia Mehedințu
When was the last time you did something for the first time? I think it tells a lot about someone’s desire and curiosity to learn something new, to experiment, to put themselves in the beginner’s shoe, which I think it’s so important for L&D professionals.
