The Most Common Instructional Design Take-Home Project (+ tips to get started)
Being an Instructional Designer (ID) is a great career choice for anyone who loves to create tutorials, blog posts, or other teaching content. ID’s can work as freelance creators, or full-time at tech companies such as Google, Amazon, Microsoft, etc. The role of an ID is to work with a company and see what training/teaching needs they have. Then, the ID will create instructional content about that topic for a specific audience.
If this sounds interesting to you, then it’s time to apply! Once you’ve built your portfolio and gotten past your phone screen, you will probably be asked to complete a take-home project. After five years in the industry and conducting many candidate interviews for my teams, here is the most common take-home project an ID will get. Let’s take a look at what it is and how to crush it!
Interview take-home project overview
The most common interview take-home project is to create a course or piece of instructional content based on a scenario/topic that the company provides. And then they will probably give you a few days to a week to complete it. Let’s break this down.
Take-home project breakdown
First, when they tell you to create a course or piece of instructional content, they first want to see what form your course will take. Will it be a slide deck? Will it be a video? Will it be a course in Rise 360? It doesn’t really matter which form you choose as long as you can explain why you chose what you did.
Some forms your course can take:
Slide deck
Video
A course built in Storyline/Rise 360 (you can request a free trial)
Second, they will want to see your course building skills. We will cover how to go about building your course in the next section, but a few general things they’ll be looking for when they see your final product are:
Is your content organized?
Does it flow in the right order for a learner?
Is your writing clear?
Do you use graphics appropriately?
Third, the scenario/topic you receive will probably be something generic and unrelated to the actual product of the company. This is because as an ID you will be working with all different types of content (technical and non-technical), so they want to see your course building skills.
Some example topics might be:
Create a course about how to send an email with CCs and BCCs
Design a training about how to install/set up this piece of software
Build a tutorial about how to design engaging advertising graphics
How to get started:
Now that you have an overview of what the take home project will probably look like, let’s' talk about how to get started on it. With any take-home project, you will want to make sure you do the following:
Read the full assignment more than once
List out everything the assignment asks you to do (this will be your check-list)
Read through the scenario/topic (if they provide it) to learn more about what you’re building your course about
ORDo your research (maybe 30min - 1hr) to get inspired and learn a bit more about the topic you will be building the course about
Create a detailed outline of the course you’re going to build (make sure it covers all of the asks of the assignment)
Determine a course outcome, learning objectives, and intended audience
List out your intro, course outline, and summary
Optional: list out an assessment, quiz, break time, etc.
Take a 1hr break and come back to review your outline with fresh eyes
Build out a clean, easy-to-follow course with whichever format(s) you choose - slide decks, videos, graphics, etc. (make sure to follow your outline!)
If you have design skills, use them to create a slide deck or graphics for your project
If you’re still working on design skills, find a clean, simple slide deck or video template that you can fill in
Bonus tip: Look through the job listing to see what tools the team uses (Camtasia, Storyline, Adobe Illustrator, etc.)
Watch a tutorial on the tool, see if you’re willing to try it, and then request a free trial of it to use for your project
As you present/interview:
Now that you’ve built your take-home project, you will probably have to send it in and present it to a few people. Here’s a few tips for you to think about as you present:
Explain your thought/creative process in planning and creating your project
“First I did X, because Y. Then I did Z…”
Talk about why you made certain instruction/design choices
This is where you can share your knowledge of best instructional design practices
Common mistakes to avoid:
And finally, here are a few mistakes that I’ve seen during the interview process. Try to avoid them if you can!
When presenting your take-home project, avoid reading through your entire presentation. The team wants to know more about your process and why you made the design choices you did, not so much the generic topic you created content about.
Not being prepared to present. It is important that you test out however you’re going to present (either virtually or in-person). And have your project up and loaded and ready to present!
Conclusion
The best part about being an Instructional Designer is that I always get to spend time learning about and creating content for the company I work at. This is why most Instructional Design interviews will have some sort of take-home project that will help teams to see your course design/content creating skills.
As you work on your take-home project, make sure to read through the asks of the assignment fully. This will ensure you are following all of the directions. Spend time researching, planning, and organizing a strong outline so that building out your actual project takes less time! And finally, practice presenting your project. Be ready to explain why and how you made certain design/instructional choices.
