Week #13 Blog – More Career and PD Discussion

One of the articles was about how companies advertise job openings in the educational technology or instructional design field. The article highlighted how these fields can be described in numerous ways in job openings and what some of the current responsibilities are for those positions. It was interesting to see how job descriptions pull pieces from the different fields making it unclear which field it is referring to and what skills are truly needed.  Do HR departments really understand the difference? The authors believed that there will be many new positions that will be created as a result of online learning. There were some key skills that were discussed such as project management, design, graphic design, multimedia, and technology management that were identified as wording that is frequently used in these job descriptions. A chart was used to show the types of jobs based on the title compared to the duties and responsibilities for that title. I think this shows how much overlap there is and difficult it is to write a description based on a field name. Instructional design jobs selection, for example, relied heavily on responsibilities, requirements, and qualifications. While other positions focused on abilities and skills or preferences for a specific product experience when choosing a candidate. (Basdogan & Bonk, 2020)

Gabrielli and Branson’s (2012) article on “Getting a Job in Business and Industry”, described some principles that would have been great to know when I was in high school getting ready to venture in the adult world. I don’t remember my guidance counselor telling me anything about gaining experience by looking into the field that I think I want to study. Of course, the technology at the that time was primitive compared to today. It is unbelievable that there was no internet or other technologies to reach anyone in the country without a hefty long-distance phone bill or writing a letter. I think some of the advice would have been for a person to make sure his or her passion could generate income if that person planned to do it as a career.

Obviously, technology advances such as social media aid in the search for jobs and suitable candidates. It was funny to see that some of the selection process asked if the potential employee would be a problem to manage. In this age, image is everything. It seems that you can be qualified on paper but not qualified if your social media page had outrageous information or pictures that could damage a potential employer reputation or image. I believe the rest of the article addressed the job search, resume and interview tips to increase opportunities for interviews and job offers. (Gabrielli & Branson, 2012) There are things that are easily forgotten when a person is in a position for a long time or with organizations that move people up internally within the section or department. In my years with the military, I had to interview only a few times for a position and even then I had to be completely unmotivated to be turned down since there was a shortage of people for those positions. 

Overall, this week’s readings revealed some potential positions and levels of responsibilities required in the fields of instructional design, educational technology to name a few. I also see how these positions end up in HR. Many of these positions have management of projects and some type of training development. I would like to see more of these positions incorporated into departments that could use training to develop the workforce and increase shared understanding of company processes and procedures.

Basdogan, M., Ozdogan, Z., & Bonk, C. J. (2020). Understanding the diverse field of “educational technology” as revealed in Twitter job postings: Encoding/decoding approach. The Qualitative Report, 25(8), 2044-2066. Available: https://nsuworks.nova.edu/tqr/vol25/iss8/3

Gabrielli, G. K., & Branson, R. K. (2012). Getting a job in business and industry. In R. A. Reiser & J. V. Dempsey (Eds.), Trends and issues in instructional design and technology (3^rd ed.) (pp. 263-272). Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.