- What should your instructional designer resume include?
- Why use this instructional designer resume example?
- Which key skills are relevant to an instructional designer resume?
Interested in working as an instructional designer? You’ll need a well-made resume that shows recruiters you know how to design useful course materials. If you’re not sure what this resume should look like, read this guide and study these examples to learn more about how to build a useful instructional designer resume document.
What should your instructional designer resume include?
Instructional designers are almost always hired to design course materials teachers can use to run lessons for their students. Because of that, your instructional designer resume should describe the kinds of course materials you specialize in, such as digital resources, virtual labs, etc. Your resume document should also list the types of clients you’ve worked with (schools, corporations, nonprofits, etc) and the academic fields you know how to teach.
Why use this instructional designer resume example?
Even if you’re writing your resume from scratch, the sample resume below is a great example of how to describe your instructional design experience and show recruiters that you’re right for their job. The text of this sample resume, for instance, is full of useful keywords that’ll grab the attention of the hiring manager while achieving a high score in the company’s applicant tracking system.
The three main sections of this sample resume are carefully designed so recruiters can easily find the information they need. The summary section has a space below the job title where you can list your specialities as an instructional designer. Additionally, the sample’s professional summary and areas of expertise sections both have a bullet-point list structure that divides your information into short, easy-to-read chunks for the recruiter’s convenience.
The experience and accomplishments section of this resume also has a layout that makes your background information more accessible. In the italicized sentence below each job entry’s header, you can summarize your past job’s primary responsibility. In the paragraph below that, you describe your job’s secondary responsibility. The selected accomplishments sub-section for each job entry lets you list stand-out achievements such as promotions or completing complex projects. The education and credentials sections at the end of this resume takes a similar approach with its layout, giving you specific subsections where you can list university degrees, certificates from private institutions, and software proficiencies.
Which key skills are relevant to an instructional designer resume?
Since instructional design is a field of education, instructional designer resumes should always contain skills that show you understand the educational process (proficiency with modern learning methodologies, experience with professional mentorship, etc). Many instructional designers are called on to create digital learning resources, so your resume should list any skills you have related to programming and/or software development.
Recruiters especially love to see these skills on instructional designer resumes:
Course content development
Virtual lab environment design
Virtual lab storyboarding
Development process standards
Courseware / training delivery
SDLC methodologies
Training partner management
Platform / infrastructure administration
Team leadership & mentoring
Data analysis
Graphic designer software proficiency
Adult learning theory proficiency
Summary example
Highly accomplished in developing instructional / educational solutions for diverse technology products.
Adept in course content, virtual lab design, courseware development, and global delivery.
Leverage best-practice SDLC methodologies to establish standardized development processes and frameworks.
Able to build, train, coach, and mentor top-performing development, delivery, and support teams.
Employment history example
Senior Technical Courseware Developer at VMware, Inc., remote / telework 2018 - Present
Initiated development of instructor-led training for global delivery and creation of virtual lab environments for leading virtualization solution provider.
Designed and developed instructor-led, scalable training solutions to meet complex, product-specific educational and global delivery requirements for diverse audiences. Partnered with instructional teams to identify opportunities for quality improvements in training and delivery methods. Defined virtual lab development standards for all VMware developers. Administered VMware education development cloud, VMware.com education product download and licensing site, and training partner (VATC) site.
Senior Principal Learning Consultant at Symantec, Inc., Springfield, Oregon 2015 - 2018
Played instrumental role in transformation from support-only to support and customer-facing education model following merger of Symantec and Veritas.
Served as Team Lead, managing effort to develop a robust suite of security product training courseware and distributable virtual lab environments. Led end-to-end solution development and project management. Collaborated on defining software product training courseware standards, routinely served in Instructor role, and oversaw training, coaching, and mentoring for new hires and existing developers.
Education example
Bachelor of Science in Information Technology (IT) at the University of Phoenix.
Associate of Science in Network Operations & Administration at Lane Community College.
Instructional Design Certified – Friesen, Kaye & Associates (FKA)
Skills example
Virtual Lab Environment Design
Course Content Development
Virtual Lab Storyboarding
Development Process Standards
Courseware / Training Delivery
SDLC Methodologies
Training Partner Management
Team Leadership & Mentoring
