9 Career Tips You Absolutely Cannot Ignore When Applying for Your Next L&D Job

The L&D field changed forever

If you are a job seeker aspiring to find your next job in the Learning and Development (L&D) field, this article is for you.

The career tips you will read here are not the typical generic ones you will find in Google such as polishing your CV or brushing up your interviewing skills.

The tips outlined below are specific to the L&D discipline and were gathered through my 10+ years of experience as well as my conversations with some of the field veterans.

Here is what I learned.

Cast a Wider Net

The L&D?market is moving away from hosting learning events to creating a wider learning experience that combines both formal components (such as training workshops) and informal learning components (such as learning on the job, mentoring, and professional communities).

The move is based on the wide adoption of the 70–20–10 model among many Fortune 500 companies.

If you haven’t heard about this model before?CHECK IT HERE.

In a nutshell, this model holds that 70% of learning in the workplace happens on the job, 20% happens through others, and ONLY 10% happens through formal training.

Can you see how this model can lead to a new learning paradigm?

Training, which used to represent the majority of learning interventions, is on its way to occupying only 10% of all learning initiatives.

What does this mean to you?

It means that if you have been up to this point branding yourself as a “trainer”, it is high time to reposition yourself and broaden your skill-set. You need to acquire skills that you can promote to organizations as useful and relevant across a wider range of learning solutions, not only training.

In other words, your new skill set needs to tie up closely with the 70–20–10 model.

Unlearn Outdated Models

“Unlearning is how you keep up as the world evolves.”

Adam Grant

The?ADDIE?and?Kirkpatrick?models have been used for a long time in the design and evaluation of courses. These learning models are becoming outdated. While they can be applied differently, in most cases they are only used to support traditional training.

The faster you are to unlearn these models, the quicker you are to move forward and reinvent yourself.

Modern frameworks such as design thinking, learning agility, and the Ebbinghaus curve are getting more attention now and are worth checking out because they influence modern L&D practices.

Learn about mentoring, social learning, micro-learning, and performance support in the workplace. These are all very useful skills that are currently in high demand and are all aligned with the 70–20–10 model.

A good place to start is to read?Design Thinking for Training & Development,?Managers as mentors, and?The New Social Learning.

Go Beyond L&D

The L&D function can not be isolated and cannot operate in a vacuum. The new focus on creating a holistic learning experience will involve dealing with the whole life cycle of an employee from onboarding until exiting the company.

This means that as an L&D professional you need to educate yourself about wider HR functions that intersect with your work such as recruitment, culture, performance management, and promotions.

The better informed you are about these functions, the easier it will be to convince employers of your added value, and the faster you can position yourself for a transition to a new role in the future.

Keep an Eye on the Big Players

Do you want me to let you in on a little secret?

Two of the biggest L&D professional bodies, the ATD in the US and the CIPD in the UK, have already updated their competency framework to include a wider range of skills that defines the L&D profession.

The older list of skills was limited and was focused mainly on the learning function. The new one includes far more business and technology skills.

What does this mean to you?

This signals the shift that is happening already, and the new direction companies are heading toward. What you need to do is familiarize yourself with the new framework and assess yourself against each skill.

The ATD has an?online free self-assessment?on the skills included in its new talent capability model that you need to check yourself against. Once you knew where you stand, prepare a personalized plan to build the areas where you score least.

Stay Away from Transaction Roles

I don’t think you need anyone to tell you that technology is turning everything upside down.

In the L&D field, PP training is already dead, and we have seen a massive shift from instructor-led training to e-learning. The shift was accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Most recently, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is slowly transforming the way people learn. Your most fierce competitor is going to be a machine, not a human. The McKinsey Global Institute predicts that AI will replace about 73 million jobs in the US alone by 2030.

AI gets every one of us asking : Will my job be replaced?

The irony is that employees in HR and L&D who are expected to map future jobs and skills in an organization are themselves busy debating their future relevance.

I have found that technology is a big intimidating factor for adults in general and L&D professionals in particular. If you have an edge in the use of technology, this could easily differentiate you from other job seekers.

If you are not a technology geek like me, then you need to educate yourself.

David Clark’s book on?AI for learning?is a very good place to start. The most important step to take now is to widen your skills repertoire and stay away from transaction roles such as L&D administrator, coordinator, assessor, and tracker.

These will be the first to be replaced by technology. Lean toward roles that are strategic and more forward-thinking.

Promote your numeracy

If you have had any kind of experience in finance, data, analysis, statistics, graphing, number interpretation, this could be your gate to distinguishing yourself. This is the best time to highlight these skills.

For years the L&D and HR fields had not required a candidate experience with numbers. In fact, many of my friends who work in HR chose this field because they hate math and wanted to escape numbers. Well, that is no longer the case.

Thanks to technology, we now have a huge amount of data generated about practically every facet of HR including L&D. People analytics is a very hot topic. The problem is that there are not enough qualified L&D professionals to analyze and interpret this data.

Because I started my career as a financial analyst, I was trained to read numbers and not fear them. When I shifted from a financial job to an L&D job to follow my passion for people development, I thought my financial skills were now squandered and became irrelevant.

I was wrong.

I discovered that employers appreciate candidates with financial backgrounds.

Do you know the popular interview question of why should I hire you and not others?

The answer to this question can very well be because I am not your typical L&D professional who avoids numbers. I am capable of making sense of numbers and interpreting them in meaningful ways. That could be one effective way to differentiate yourself.

Develop your Business Acumen

You need to understand the business model you work with.

L&D professionals are notorious for isolating themselves from the big picture of the business. That is exactly why the field has been struggling for a long while to prove its strategic impact and earn an executive seat.

If you look closely around you, you will find that many learning providers now added to their offerings courses such as business acumen for learning professionals or financial analysis for learning professionals.

These courses are added to fill a real gap in the knowledge of learning professionals who tend to be siloed in their departments.

Spend some time gathering information about the industry you work in and understand its main drivers. To me, this is a key differentiator for us all.

If L&D professionals stopped thinking about how their learning solutions are connected to the big picture, they are doing themselves a big disservice. It is like voluntarily opting out of playing a bigger game and choosing to remain forever in the margins.

Be selective when choosing an employer

“You can aspire to change the culture of a group, but don’t overlook how the culture will change you. Few of us are immune to the values of the people around us.”- Adam Grant

The interview is an opportunity for you to choose the employer who best fits you. The truth is when it comes to the L&D functions, organizations are not equal.

Some are very forthcoming when it comes to their learning function and some have not paid attention to employees learning except after being nudged by the COVID 19 pandemic.

The good news is, according to LinkedIn Learning — Workplace Learning Report 2021, 65% of L&D pros agree that they are now focused on reshaping their organizations through upskilling the workforce. If you look forward to re-inventing your L&D career, that is the kind of organization you need to join.

That is why it is very important to pay attention to the values of your potential employers. During the interview, look for clues on how far the organization had come along the L&D development path.

• Is technology adoption commonplace or are they still entertaining PP decks?
• Do they define workplace learning in terms of an array of experiences on and off the job or in terms of the number of workshops delivered in a year?
• Most importantly, what is the status of L&D in the organization? Is it elevated, respected, and impactful or is it an order-taking department that is mostly sidelined?
• Does the L&D department have a seat in the executive suite or is it the first to experience layoffs during budget-cutting periods?

Whether the leaders are encouraging learning or hoarding learning tells a lot about the culture and is important to find out early on. You may think that it is still good to join an outdated company with the view of participating in changing it.

That’s a good intention.

However, be warned that the top management has to be willing to lead the change. If the top management does not have a vision for change, then no matter how sincere your intentions are, your efforts will be futile.

Ditch These Popular Learning Myths

For years the learning field adopted a number of learning concepts that were dismissed by research or at least weakened.

You probably heard the concept of learning styles which holds that a trainer should adapt his teaching to the learner’s style. This concept has probably survived for so long because it sounds logical.

However, research by Pashler et al. (2008) suggests that there is no sufficient evidence to support adapting to learners’ styles. Learners indeed differ but the difference is not consistent across contexts.

Another popular concept is that millennials learn differently than baby boomers. Again, this claim did not stand up to scrutiny.

Research conducted by Bluath et al., (2011) concluded that there are only four scientifically validated differences among generations (e.g. differences in work centralization, work ethics, preference for leisure, and workplace individuality). Other than that, there is no scientific basis for any other claims.

The message is now clear.

Nothing is cast in stone; even the long-held concepts that we believed in for years and took for granted. As you evolve in your career, don’t fall in love with any learning concepts and be ready to unlearn or dismiss some of them.

Parting Thought

Overall, the modern L&D function is no longer looking for trainers and course designers. They are looking for people with holistic experiences who understand the business and can prove their added value to the strategic vision.

You have to be adaptable enough to learn and unlearn new concepts and modify your branding as you go.

What was the best L&D career advice you received?

References

Blauth, C., McDaniel, J., Perrin, C., & Perrin, P. B. (2011).?Age-based stereotypes: Silent killer of collaboration and productivity.?(No. M01360). Tampa: Achieve Global.

Pashler, McDaniel, M., Rohrer, D., & Bjork, R. (2008). Learning Styles: Concepts and Evidence.?Psychological Science in the Public Interest,?9(3), 105–119.?https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1539-6053.2009.01038.x

McKinsey Global Institute Report

https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/future-of-work/jobs-lost-jobs-gained-what-the-future-of-work-will-mean-for-jobs-skills-and-wages

LinkedIn Learning — Workplace Learning Report 2021

https://learning.linkedin.com/resources/workplace-learning-report