157: Talking All about Jobs with Chelsea Maude Averitt, Founder, Skip

Holly Owens (00:01.43)
Hi everyone. Welcome to another episode. We got Chelsea here of EdUp L L&D. We are so excited for this LinkedIn Live and looking forward to chatting with you. This is all about jobs. We're talking about L &D jobs, L &D adjacent jobs. We thought this would be a great thing. People have been asking kind of me and the messages and probably Chelsea too to get on the mic and start sharing some of this information again. So.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (00:03.758)
Hello.

Holly Owens (00:30.152)
I'm going allow Chelsea to introduce herself. You may know her very well from Skip. Her say she's the founder and the owner and all the jobs she shares and how much she helps the learning and development community and beyond. Chelsea, welcome back.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (00:42.938)
thank you. I'm always delighted to come chat with Holly. And we also talk offline and so forth. It's always a delight because she's such a great resource as well for the community, because not only do you have the L &D experience, but you now have marketing experience, teaching experience. And I think that's what both of our audiences, we do so many things and we have so many skills. I think it's really wonderful to see the different ways that we can put those into practice. And that's really my story as well.

I've an educator, I've been a writer, I've been an entrepreneur now with Skip. And it's really thrilling to be able to say, what are the problems I want to approach? How do I want to develop my personal career path and not rely on what somebody else wants me to do? It's really a great way to learn and develop in our careers and do that. Even if a company isn't supporting us, we can move to another company. So I run, as Holly mentioned, Skip's job board. It's a job board.

for current and former educators and also people who have education backgrounds. So those of you who are in learning and development and training, those of you who work in ed tech, it's a very large umbrella because we all are passionate about helping people improve and helping people develop their skills, whether that's little people or adults. I was gonna say big people, but adults is probably a better term, older people, older people. And it's such a large tent because

Holly Owens (02:04.564)
Yeah. Yeah.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (02:11.502)
Ideally, we want to lifelong learning. We don't want to stop. We don't want to kind of say, oh yeah, we do that when we before we hit 22 and then then we know everything. So.

Holly Owens (02:16.021)
Yeah.

Holly Owens (02:21.138)
Yeah, God, no, we don't. No, we don't. No, we don't. Yeah, absolutely. And I think one of the reasons that we connected is because I started posting jobs at L &D and L &D adjacent for the transitioning teachers community, but I was doing salary transparency. I don't post any jobs that don't list a salary. And I think that's how we started talking with each other. And then I found Skip and I'm like, my God, this is such an amazing concept. And I can't believe

You know, I don't have time to sit down and do it, but I'm so glad that you did so that I can share out those those jobs with the community. So talk to us a little bit about like before we jump into some of the questions, talk to us a little bit about how you like started skip what you were envisioning because it has evolved. I think we've been connected for almost three years now. I don't know. It goes by so fast and it's like evolve. Like you had like a lot of L and D jobs and now it's evolving into other positions. So

Talk to us a little bit about that revolution and evolution.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (03:23.214)
Yeah. When I started, I started it because I was in a lot of teacher groups and this was during the pandemic. And I was thinking about teaching remotely because I've been doing some of that locally. And as I was seeing all of these jobs that people were talking about, I realized they were really paying 10 to $12 an hour and that people were working all day teaching and then coming home and working for like 10 to 12 hours a week.

on teaching again and pulling in about $100, $150. And at the same time, I was seeing jobs that were paying quite a bit more, like $30 to $50 an hour. And so I started off actually with part-time jobs. And then people were like, wait, I'd like to do this full-time. And I was like, wait, we could do this full-time. Why are we trying to cram 60 hours a week in when we could actually do something like this full-time and have a work-life balance?

Holly Owens (04:06.409)
Right.

Yeah.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (04:17.804)
So that's when I started sharing full-time jobs. And at the time I was really focused on educators, but then I started noticing that a lot of higher ed admin were like, these jobs work for us too. And then learning and development, they're like, and it just, I kept realizing that the jobs, because so many people have moved, particularly with the pandemic, they're former teachers, they've now moved into these fields, that we really do have a lot of people who have in-depth knowledge of K-12 or college.

Holly Owens (04:40.853)
Yep.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (04:47.726)
and they're in the industry as well. And we still have people who want to move into that industry. And the nice part is that we're starting to see a lot of mentorship happen so that people who have already been there are helping other people come in. But that's why I really started trying to share a few more jobs. But I was doing all of this manually and it was really, really hard to source more than 20 or 30 jobs a week. And so that's when I started building out my database.

Then I started talking to my husband who's a software engineer and I was like, honey.

Holly Owens (05:18.026)
You're so lucky to have that support there. That's like necessary for building this stuff.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (05:26.166)
It is, it really, it's a real privilege to be able to have said to my husband, I have this idea. I tested it out in a database. I know it's going to work. If you can build me a website, which took him to get the first draft. was, was about a hundred hours that he was working overtime to do. He sat there, he built it for me. And then now we have, now we have this business, which is really great. Although we were talking earlier about Maine, Maine has a wonderful climate and they do have.

opportunities for people who want to build a business and funding for that. So it would have been a much longer process. But if people are interested in doing this kind of thing, take a look at your state. Ours is, well, there's your state government, because a lot of times your state government will have programs. We approve bonds every couple of years that fund these programs. anyway, that was a side note. But so we built, he and I built it.

Holly Owens (06:16.852)
Yeah. No, but like, I think people don't talk about that enough when they're starting businesses, like where do get the funding? Like I have $50 in my bank account to start a business. What do I do? You know, that sort of thing. Like everything else is going to build or saving. So what do I do about that? So I think that's a good point is that there's a variety of different programs in many different states that can help support you in your business. You got to kind of dig a little bit.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (06:26.552)
Yes.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (06:43.81)
Yes, yeah, and I really do think it's so important for states to support small businesses because I really, particularly because I live in a rural area, so we don't have a lot of well-paying jobs that a lot of times they're 45, $50,000 for jobs that are looking for 10 to 15 years experience. So being able to is, is, and I'm looking at hybrid and in-person jobs because

Holly Owens (06:50.294)
Yeah.

Holly Owens (07:03.184)
Ugh, that's crazy!

Chelsea Maude Avirett (07:10.848)
Spoiler alert, we're gonna expand hybrid and in-person on skip. And I've been looking at these jobs and I'm like, wait a second, cost of living has to be higher. I'm not gonna share that job. It doesn't pay me. And I really thought that hybrid and in-person I'd see so many more jobs. And I'm like, wait a second, salary is really a problem for a lot of communities. We just aren't paying a lot of money, particularly if it's an education adjacent nonprofit that's not getting a lot of money from the schools and the local tax base.

Holly Owens (07:21.002)
Right.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (07:40.43)
So there are salary that, I mean, you mentioned that's how we got connected. That salary transparency is so important because people need to know that they can make more money in other. Yes.

Holly Owens (07:40.885)
Night.

Holly Owens (07:49.888)
They can live. mean, considering the pricing and those some things that you can actually live. And I like where you're going with this because this really gives us a chance to dive into, you know, talking about, talking about jobs and like some of the challenges that especially transition teachers experience. Oftentimes, and this is probably like a good tip. Number one, they will come to me and they will talk about like, I want to transition into instructional design or online learning or into higher education learning and development.

and they feel like they have to start over. They feel like they have to take a pay cut. They already don't make enough teaching. And then they got to take another pay cut to start at an entry level and then build it up again. And that takes years to do. So one of the things that I say all the time is you need to honor your teaching experience. So if you have 14 years teaching experience, you're looking for mid-level positions in learning and development. You have to work on those transferable skills. it's going to take some

time for you to upskill in the position, but don't think that you just have to take the first thing that comes to you or you have to take a pay cut. I feel like that is something that you should not be doing and that's very devastating to your mental health, obviously your wellbeing, your living situation. So anybody in that situation, you do not need to start over again. You're just going to have to be

be in a space where you're feeling uncomfortable for a little bit because you're upskilling and learning again.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (09:23.15)
Absolutely agree. having companies that are willing to put that time in is really important. And I think if you're at that interview stage, crafting some questions that really evaluate, are they going to support you in that process is important. Sometimes educators move into these fields and they move back into teaching because they haven't been supported. And there is that upskilling. But I think stepping back for a second, how do you really

Holly Owens (09:36.298)
Right.

Holly Owens (09:43.582)
Right.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (09:49.75)
evaluate your skills because I hear the same thing you're talking about. hear it from educators. I hear it from administrators and I like K-12 administrators, principals, and I even hear it from people who've been working in the field. They'll be like, I have a master's degree. And then you start talking and they're like, yeah, I've done contact work for a few years. Yes.

Holly Owens (10:07.262)
student loan debt on top of that there's my wall of student loan debt right behind me.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (10:12.558)
I can point to the house next to us for a while it was for sale for the same amount of my student loan debt. That was a long time ago. The market has changed. And luckily the student loan debt has gone down while the market is coming up. But I hear this from people who have contact experience and they're like, yeah, my contact experience doesn't matter. One of the things that is so important is to really start with saying,

Holly Owens (10:17.972)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, exactly, exactly.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (10:40.09)
Ignore how many years you have experienced doing anything start and say what are my accomplishments? What are the things that I can say? I have done this and I can do it in another Context so I have trained educators because I've done professional learning. Well, that's training experience So what have I accomplished in doing that? I've been able to increase Utilization of this product I've helped people be less scared of the new technology that we're implementing

Those kinds of things are real accomplishments. And if you start there, you'll be able to start to say, yeah, this job is exactly a good fit for me because I can say I've done this before. Not that I couldn't do it, but I have done it. And I think that that can be a really great way to distinguish whether or not it's a reach job, whether or not it's a direct from teaching or direct from your current career job. And it helps you not underestimate yourself because we do have a lot of skills.

Holly Owens (11:23.051)
Right.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (11:37.999)
And it's one thing to like try to apply for the 12 plus year. But if you're looking at those three to five, three to six year jobs, definitely your experience matters.

Holly Owens (11:50.134)
It does. It really does. I get so like, I get not upset, but I'm like, I'm so empathetic to people that are trying to transition into different careers and the challenges of that. Cause initially, especially teaching, you you come out with some trauma and you kind of miss the classroom and things like that. So there's like a, there's like a time there where you're just like, you're kind of grieving what you thought was going to be a forever job and it's not a forever job. So, you know,

coming out of those things. But I think also too, like teaching every day, you do something instructional design related. Like I talk a lot about unit planning or lesson planning and project management and how that transitions over into the corporate and the higher education space even. I think that if, you know, the imposter syndrome syndrome runs rampant and in your head at certain points, I think it's a good idea to do like an exercise where you sit down, like pretty much you take like

divide the paper in half, like fold it in half, put all your teaching skills or all your responsibilities on that side. And then on the other side, put like how that translates into whatever field you're going into marketing and instructional design, you know, and have AI help you if you don't know exactly what that would translate to or, you know, ask an expert, but really it helps. It helps you like that helps you build your resume. That helps you build your portfolio and what you need to share about, you know,

I helped X number of people. did some trainings at the Board of Education with my district and I helped this many people incorporate a technology tool in their classroom. Like that all translates into corporate and higher ed very well.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (13:29.358)
Yes. And I think too, as you're making that list, when you start to align it, really thinking about buckets of experience. things like project management, that's a bucket of experience. I call them functional skills because they're job functions in the corporate world. But data analysis, I see so many people, we do data all the time, particularly in the K-12 level. I think that's something that if you're a K-12 teacher versus higher ed, a lot of times higher ed doesn't realize how much...

Holly Owens (13:43.582)
Yeah.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (13:58.574)
K-12 is doing needs analysis and, differentiation based on data and so forth. Those are all like, yeah. so data analysis, the training skills you were talking about earlier, take a look at your committee work, like all those things you have, you're, you're made to do. This is where they become really relevant because you might've piloted a program and that gives you a lot of data to show, you know, this is where we started. This is where we went. That data exists and is usually

Holly Owens (14:03.83)
Pre-assessments, right.

Holly Owens (14:25.578)
I'm definitely going to ask you to share some of your very cool and interesting data in this episode. you have a lot. Yeah. So I want to I know we posted the event and I think we had one question on your post and one question on my post. So I think the first question we go to the event and LinkedIn Live is working just in case you're wondering. I've been checking it. So everything's live. We're seeing. Hi everybody.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (14:30.286)
Yes, we can talk about data.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (14:47.566)
you

Holly Owens (14:53.778)
Let me go into the post. Let's see. So we had a question that was from Tyler Bowers. She said, it popular right now for talent and hiring managers to see if applicants are interacting with the company's social media platforms? Is this a viable way to be seen, stand out to recruiters? Are they tapped into their social media in this way? I'm going let you answer that question.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (15:21.494)
Yeah, I have a couple of thoughts on that. For starters, I'll answer it on the very basic level, and that is yes. People, when I go to my page, actually, I went to Holly's page because I was going to Messenger, so I went to the page to Messenger, and it shows up right underneath. Holly follows your business. So that is something that a recruiter will see when they're looking at LinkedIn's recruiter light or the more expensive recruiter version.

Holly Owens (15:43.222)
Okay.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (15:50.442)
And that is something they will see. When you're interacting with a company though, it's an interesting question. I think for smaller companies, definitely they are gonna notice because who's managing their social media? The CEO or the three or four employees that they have. But if you have a larger company with like hundreds of employees, the person who's managing their social media is probably not even gonna know who the people in the hiring department are. in that...

Holly Owens (16:16.287)
Yeah

Chelsea Maude Avirett (16:16.974)
it's not as useful of a strategy. So one of the things I think with a lot of these sort of outbound marketing that people are being encouraged to do as part of your job search, you definitely want to think about who your audience is and tailor what you're doing to those audiences. I don't think it works as well for larger companies, but I do think it can be a smart strategy if you're engaging with a startup and you're sharing, for instance, like how you've used

their platform or suggestions or things like that, it can definitely be something that stands out to them. So it's something that whether they see it or not, it's going to depend entirely on how large the company is and how closely the people who doing the hiring are to actually being on that marketing platform.

Holly Owens (16:53.536)
Right.

Holly Owens (17:06.706)
Absolutely. I think too, it's, you know, don't engage with like go out and follow everything and or LinkedIn and, you know, do do all those things. But I think that like what you're saying here, there's some added value to understanding their product, understanding their mission. I always say go into like the interview, especially the committee interview with knowledge of those things. And if you're interviewing and say like a higher education space, I would always go look at their strategic plan.

because then I would ask them poignant questions about that plan. Like in the next five years, you're planning to do this. And that shows that I've done some research, generated some interest around what they're doing and then adding in like where I could provide that sort of support. So you're kind of solving a problem for them and you're doing it in the interview. So I think that's a really good strategy. Also too, we always talk about connecting with people who are currently on the role.

And I can say that there are a lot of people, including myself and Chelsea, who will chat with you, have a coffee chat, or just send some messages or resources over. But there are some times when people just won't, they won't have that coffee chat. So I think it's worth it to kind of actually reach out to people that work there and see how they feel about the company. And also too, I'm just gonna say this, the interview process.

tells you a lot about the culture of the organization or the company. If you're going through a million interviews, that means they don't have their S together. They are crazy, they're disorganized, they don't know what they're doing. They're just like, it's like everything is everywhere. You feel chaotic in the interview process and then it's like, so pay attention to how the interview process goes, how organized it is, how supported you feel, the communication.

And also too, like, I love it and job postings where they share how the interview process works for them. The law with salary transparency, can everybody do that too? Please, please.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (19:15.178)
Yes. Right. one of the things that I've been going back and forth about with that, Bonnie Doeble recently posted about knockout questions and how they do knockout questions. And she said 85 % of people did not completely fill them out, which was fascinating to me because it seems to me like that just rules you out. But apparently people were doing that. So knockout questions can be a great way to...

Can you get your foot in the door? But then when we think about that interview process, sometimes they'll have the application and then they do that. They invite a certain number of people to submit something and then they'll invite those people to interview. And I have such mixed feelings about that. And I'll be curious to hear what you think. Cause I feel like,

Holly Owens (20:02.992)
I hate standardized tests. So that's going to be a no for me. I hate anything that's trying to knock people out or exclude people based off of answers to certain questions. I really feel like the resume is so static, right? It's just a static document. It's dynamic, but it's very static. That doesn't show who you are and what you can do. So how do you prove in the time from

getting the initial screening to the end of the process and landing the role that you're a good fit for the role. And I don't know if knockout questions are the answer. I mean, they kind of help a little bit. I might be in the middle like you about that. I don't know how to feel about that.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (20:45.784)
Yeah, I don't know either. I just keep going back and forth because it's more work. But on the other hand, if you can explain why they should hire you in that little paragraph, that actually might give you a bit of an edge that other people don't have. But then, of course, sometimes you've got those people who are like, here's an hour long task we want you to do. I'm like, it might be less than preparing for an interview. So maybe it is actually better to do.

Holly Owens (20:56.608)
and

Holly Owens (21:10.378)
Right.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (21:14.422)
On the other hand, you don't know how many people they've asked to do that. And so your odds may not be very good. So I don't know. It's very tricky.

Holly Owens (21:21.694)
Yeah, that's true. Yeah. Well, we have a couple things coming through the chat. This is like taking up the screen, but yeah, yeah, music and read it. We can look at it. I got my glasses on and Jackie Jackie was asking me put it back out. I only put let me put it up for 20 seconds. You go back. OK, I've adjusted my resume higher education base to mirror the skills of

Chelsea Maude Avirett (21:28.734)
Ooh, but it's nice. It means we can read it.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (21:37.175)
it's good-a-way!

Holly Owens (21:48.596)
the L &D roles, but I'm not hearing back. It's extremely defeating. Absolutely. Any advice for getting beyond the initial screening.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (21:57.738)
Yeah. Well, I would first of all say that in the past, I would say if you're not getting past the initial screening, you need to adjust your resume. So that would, in the past, that was my advice. But we're in a market right now that is so saturated. I don't think that the, necessarily means anything. Where I'm hearing regularly, people are getting like 800 to a thousand applicants for a role. So sometimes applying faster. If you've applied and it's a week old.

Holly Owens (21:57.824)
What do you think?

Holly Owens (22:21.579)
Mm-hmm.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (22:27.374)
they may never look at your resume.

Holly Owens (22:28.084)
Yeah, I feel like you have to be on it. Like you have to like daily in the morning or take a couple times a day.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (22:35.052)
Yeah, and I'm seeing like a lot of jobs are closing within three to five days because they have enough applicants. Now sometimes they then reopen those jobs because I track that as well.

Holly Owens (22:42.998)
Because they think they got qualified people, but they didn't because they didn't look or an ATS spinning out, but not a qualified person. Yeah.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (22:50.494)
Or it's a job located, and this is a real example, job located in Utah and 97 % of the people didn't live in Utah. Or I mentioned that they'd be willing to move. Yeah, sometimes people just apply. that's a challenge that I think in the past there were fewer people. So you could reasonably assume someone was looking at your resume. Now I'm not sure that's really the case. So it's harder to evaluate, yes, this is my resume.

Holly Owens (23:03.808)
Yeah.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (23:17.826)
versus I need to apply more, I need to apply earlier. And I know that's really not very applicable advice, because then you're like, well, how do I evaluate my resume if I don't know? But I do think it is a reality of the market we're in right now, is that you can have a really strong resume and still not be getting into the interview tier just because no one's seen your resume or because they interviewed the first 100 qualified people who applied or something like that.

Holly Owens (23:46.538)
Yeah.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (23:46.798)
There are, we could definitely talk about some strategies, but I do want to make sure that people, think a lot of times people focus on what they can control, which is the resume and they revise the resume over and over again. When it might be better just to take a break or to focus on knockout questions. Cause that is actually a place where a knockout question might be helpful if you can write a paragraph, really pitching your skills effectively. I think. Right.

Holly Owens (23:56.564)
Yes.

Holly Owens (24:01.941)
Yeah.

Holly Owens (24:10.676)
Yeah, like an elevator pitch.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (24:13.484)
So I think that there may be some different activities that you want to focus on. And again, it's hard to say without actually looking at the resume. definitely, like, share your resume with people who know you, but they don't know what you do for a living, because how many of us know what our friends do for a living? then, yeah, exactly. And then ask them, like, what do I do? What are my accomplishments? And just see what they're getting back from it. And that can help you tell whether or not your resume

Holly Owens (24:28.308)
Yeah, yeah, my whole family.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (24:42.082)
would be landing with people or whether there's some other things you should be adding to it.

Holly Owens (24:47.806)
Yeah, I think one of the things too is to figure out how you stand out and people all in my inbox, how do I stand out? One of the things I would say in that I've had, you know, when I work with coaching clients that I've done in the past is create a video about yourself that's linked in your resume. One of my friends did this and she landed interviews beyond the screening with this. So she created like a beyond video, like

And you need to put in not just like your professional stuff, you need to add a little bit of that personal touch because yes, we're trying to land a role, but like how does your, my personal life, like I love podcasting and you know, I love ed tech and all that stuff. Like it bleeds into what I do for a living. So kind of mixing those two things together in a really good video helps you stand out. I think also too, having some really good follow up questions.

You know, like the initial interview is probably with a recruiter and or like you're saying somebody who doesn't know the committee or something like that. But I think it's also important to like one of the things I would do is I would send electronic thank you cards. So after I would set it up to send and how much I appreciate it to a time because their time is valuable. I do that from initial interview all the way through the process.

And I think that's something that's severely lacking. Like a thank you email, okay. But like I did a little card, it opened up, there's free stuff. It's called Punch Bowl. Like it opens up. It's just like you took the time and especially if it's an instructional design job, they're like, wow, this is really cool. Like something we could use. So it kind of makes them remember who you are. You you have to figure out what the strategy is to make that lasting impression.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (26:17.326)
Bye.

Holly Owens (26:37.652)
And it's not just one thing. It really isn't. Like everybody just wants the one little, you know, the one little thing that's just one thing that's going to work for everything. And it's not, it really just takes some trying. And Jackie, I want to say to you, I know how defeating and deflating they can feel to not get jobs. I actually interviewed for a role with the company and I did a six rounds of interviews. I didn't take my own advice.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (27:03.413)
Thank

Holly Owens (27:03.584)
They had me on the hook and they had me as the second one in case the first person, which I'm assuming was internal, didn't accept the position. It was very deflating and I felt absolutely defeated. So all I can say to you is don't give up and keep trying and just try some different strategies each time and then figure out what works and then use that. Whether that's creating that video, whether that's sitting down for coffee chats, somebody at the company, whether that's connecting with the CEO and just saying, hey, I love what you're doing.

just to kind of figure out what that is. Also too, one more thing to add, if you can get follow-up advice or feedback from why they didn't pick you, keep bothering that recruiter and tell them you want the feedback, because that's going to help you. take it or leave it, honestly, but the feedback is definitely going to help you.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (27:54.03)
Yeah, I have two things. One, immediately. I once knew somebody who he got feedback and within a week he had had a new job because he applied that feedback. And the feedback was interesting. The feedback was actually every example you give comes from teaching. And so he was like, wait, I have examples from my entire career. I didn't realize I was so focused on that, but it's because, you know, we focus on what comes to mind first. He switched that up. And so that feedback can be really valuable.

Holly Owens (28:04.245)
Yeah.

Holly Owens (28:23.21)
Yeah.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (28:23.282)
definitely recommend that. But I'll also say what Holly is saying about that unique selling power position or whatever you want to call it is so important because it means that you don't have to do some kind of job application activity that's recommended. Somebody recommends them because we have 20 million different ways that you can get a job. If you look at somebody's advice and say, I don't like that advice at all, you don't have to do it.

If it doesn't work for you, if it doesn't feel authentic for you, then you can just go and find what does feel authentic. And that's going to help you differentiate yourself and stand out in the market because we all have things that make us unique. So really just saying, what is my personality? How do I actually interact with people best and leveraging that in your job search is important. So don't worry about what other people say to do. Right. Sounds good.

Holly Owens (29:05.045)
Yeah.

Holly Owens (29:14.998)
Soft skills. Yeah, soft skills. Probably soft skills. We have some... Yeah. Yeah. Yes, absolutely. Once you get into the role, those definitely do help. Well, let's take one more question and we're gonna take a little ad break. And here is... It might go away real quick. Let me make sure, let me hide it and just make sure it's up to 20. Okay.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (29:20.396)
Soft skills might get you promoted. I don't think they get you hired. They get you promoted.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (29:39.852)
Holly Owens (29:42.762)
So this is from, I don't want to say, Naid. I don't know if I said that right. I'm really sorry. Hello, everyone. My question has to do with professional online presence. Besides your own resume, what's the best and efficient way to promote our professional skill when one's aim is to in an L, it's all not up here? Aim is to pivot careers. And then there's some follow-up questions. Where do we find support?

groups or recruiters where we can find support and mentorship spaces to guide our search. So basically two questions. The best way to kind of, you know, the efficient way to promote professional skills when you're trying to do that career transition and then where is the support.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (30:25.134)
That's a good question. know when, yeah, I first started this. You remember there was the, I didn't even know what it was called anymore. But there were a couple of programs specifically for people leaving teaching that were giving them instructional design and learning and development skills. I know a couple of people landed jobs because of that upskilling. there's...

Holly Owens (30:26.664)
It is a good question.

Holly Owens (30:46.774)
There's a lot of different things out there. Like there's Idle Courses with Robin Sargent, and then there's Luke Copson. These are free stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (30:52.622)
Well, these were free, but I agree. Yeah. Yeah, I was going to say, I do think sometimes it's worth paying for a course. I think a lot of times we feel like we're not sure that our job search is going to be effective. And so we don't want to invest money in it, but investing in yourself is really important. So yeah. So the fact that they are paid is not a detriment to me. I think that we should be paying people for their time. So yeah. So Robin Sargent's Idle course, that looks fantastic. And it's accredited. So you can actually get...

Holly Owens (31:21.492)
Yes.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (31:22.658)
Well, I was gonna say you could get federal funding. We don't know what that looks like anymore, but theoretically you can get some loans for that. Yeah, I haven't, I just recently saw that Luke Hobson has a new program.

Holly Owens (31:26.72)
Yeah.

Holly Owens (31:33.622)
He's had the Instructional Design Institute. Yeah, he's had that. He's like on his sixth or seventh iteration of that, and it's super affordable. So if you're like somebody who's looking, and I'm not just not an ad, I just love Luke and what he does. If you're looking to get into a higher education instructional design, that's where it's at. It is really good. And he added in Nicole who does accessibility stuff, and she has a module in there now.

It's like all around good. Even if you're thinking about corporate, that one is good too. And I do want to point out that exhaust your free resources first because a lot of people go into this not knowing where they want to be. they're like, well, if I pay for this, this is going to happen. It's not a guarantee. So if you know after doing some research and things that you want to go into corporate instructional design, then you might want to check out either courses or some sort of corporate.

type training maybe through ATD or do you want to go into higher education? Maybe you need to check out Looxsoft, but you really got to figure out where you are freelancing. You got to first know where you're going and definitely exhaust those free resources before you invest in anything. Because I've seen all too many times where people have spent like, they've spent like six grand upwards and they're like, this isn't what I wanted to do. I'm like, well, you didn't do your research. I'm so sorry, but yeah, please.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (32:58.158)
Yeah, is, yeah, definitely find the career clarity before you spend the money because otherwise you're, you're not really using those resources as well as you could because you want, once you know what you're going to do, you can apply that so much more easily.

Holly Owens (33:02.038)
Definitely please.

Holly Owens (33:07.062)
Mm-hmm.

Holly Owens (33:17.812)
Right. Yeah. I'm, grabbing the link for my ID stuff that I have with all those resources. And the other thing too is Heidi Kirby. Yeah. Yes. I've been curating this for like almost three years now or two or three years. I don't know when you get older.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (33:21.991)
good.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (33:25.38)
yeah, you have a whole long list of resources. Yes, I love that resource list.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (33:37.734)
It's definitely, it's been a while. So, cause I've had a link to it for it's in my air table links. I could probably tell you the date I put it there.

Holly Owens (33:40.469)
Yeah.

Holly Owens (33:43.978)
trying to get the bit.ly link. Yeah. Well, it's a great resource. And I was just going to say that Heidi Kirby's useful stuff community is something else that I found very useful. So as far as support group, there's a lot of people in there who are transitioning teachers or just transitioning into different roles and learning and development. So that's bringing a great place to be as well. And then also I found

Chelsea Maude Avirett (34:08.95)
him sleep. Yeah.

Holly Owens (34:10.218)
That's what I was going to say, Tim Slade's community, eLearning Designers community. my God, Tim Slade, and shout out to Tim Slade. He's been on the show and I love him. He is like straight to the point, honest, authentic, love it, love it, love it. His eLearning Developers community is something I gotta get the link later, because it's giving me trouble. But go, these are free things. These are not paid for. Yes, there are other things you can do with Tim Slade.

or Luke Copson or Robin or Heidi, but they have free stuff. And it's really, this community is really, really helpful as well. So as far as support groups go, I would say there's, I run an instructional designers and higher education group. There's so many ID groups out on like LinkedIn world. I'm noticing more and more that people like, I didn't know IDs had a presence on Reddit. Like ID stuff is like pretty popular.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (35:05.646)
Actually, I do know that.

Holly Owens (35:08.022)
Yeah, I was like, that's pretty interesting to me. And then find the people that you kind of connect with. Like in some of these communities, like I said, Heidi's is really good. So, and that's like everybody, everybody's in that community.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (35:24.494)
Well, and that's also, we haven't talked much about networking, but I think that this is networking that we're talking about, is really finding your people and saying, are the people who resonate with me that I can have real conversations with? Because that's where you're going to be sitting there at midnight when you meant to get a bed a half an hour earlier, scrolling through, and then you see that job that somebody posted that, you know.

Holly Owens (35:30.922)
Mm-hmm.

Holly Owens (35:44.64)
Yep.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (35:49.294)
It's perfect for you. So a lot of times that those there's some interesting research on those warm connections and how a lot of times those do make a difference in a job search.

Holly Owens (36:00.222)
Yep, 100%. I just, you know, what you're feeling and what you're thinking about, everybody's feeling or thinking about, you don't realize it. You're like, I can't ask this question. I can't tell people like I'm imposter syndrome. That's going to make me look like I don't know what I'm doing. I can guarantee almost everybody has felt imposter syndrome, especially in navigating the space with the transition. So that was really, I really liked that question a lot. So find.

wherever you want to go see there's tons of support. I'm still trying to get the link to the thing. It's like, yeah, it's giving me a hard time. don't know.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (36:33.709)
to the ID.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (36:38.478)
Can I put things in the chat? if so, I

Holly Owens (36:40.158)
Yes, yes, there's a chat. It's on the side here. I don't know if you can see it. There's a live stream chat. I'm just going to share the long ass Google link. So it's just there. Yeah, there we go. That's the link.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (36:43.672)
Peace.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (36:48.642)
Okay.

Okay, yeah, I have that right now.

Holly Owens (37:01.984)
All right, let's see what's next. Let's see. All right, so we're going to take a, like a, I need to do a little ad, you know, you all know I work at Yellowdig and now, yeah. So I am going to tell you all about Yellowdig. had Chad GPT kind of arrange a little bit, a copy for me, cause I don't, it's very difficult to like share the idea of what we actually do at Yellowdig. Cause it's a little bit different and

Chelsea Maude Avirett (37:10.36)
looking forward to it because I want to learn more about Yellowdick. So this sounds fantastic.

Holly Owens (37:30.678)
than other ed tech companies. So what I really want to say is, and this goes for everybody, our main target audience is higher education institutions, but we are in K to 12. We are in organizations. So if you were ready to transform the way you engage with like participants, your learners, I highly encourage you to go and check out Yellowdig.

You can imagine a space where learners don't just participate, they thrive. And I've used it in my classes, and this is true. When you enable those best practices, it's crazy how much of a community and like connectedness people feel within the community. So the experience is authentic, it's meaningful, it's conversations that drive engagement, collaboration. know, in higher education institutions focus on things like retention.

So our platform, it really mimics what you see in everyday life. We kind of compare ourselves to like a Slack, but it's different than that. It's academically focused and it really is designed to foster those organic learning experience through gamified participation. So we do have a point system, real world connections and the data and insights for the faculty to see what's happening. And just a few things about like why educators, professors, people love Yellowdig.

the seamless integration, can be standalone or can work with your LMS. We have LTI 1.3, increased engagement and we have all the data to show you about how students' grades have been impacted, how much engagement has happened over time, through in-person courses as well, not just online, and then the analytics. You have access to so many community insights through there.

If you're looking for this, like it's missing in your life, like the engagement, the collaborative, whether that's in higher ed, the organization, you know, it's very inclusive learning environment. I would definitely encourage you to go out and check out Yellowdig today. So I'm going to put the link in the chat to Yellowdig and I'm going tell you it's like nothing I've ever experienced in education. And I actually wish they had it when I was a student because

Chelsea Maude Avirett (39:39.438)
Thank

Holly Owens (39:39.924)
I don't know about you, Chelsea, but in higher education, I felt so isolated. Even though I was on campus, I didn't know where to go for this or not just in classes. Where do I go to register? From enrollment, we're from enrollment to beyond. That's my spiel about Yellowdig.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (39:56.044)
Yeah, and I loved it. what I was thinking about while you were talking about that is when I was teaching college, I was actually trying to figure out this. This is 10, 15 years ago. I was trying to figure out how do I create this digital engagement, particularly like the Thursday before Thanksgiving break. I would try to have like, you just need to participate in this online class and we'll take the day off. I'm hoping to like stimulate some real.

Holly Owens (40:17.769)
Right. Yep.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (40:22.786)
real conversation and was so hard to do because we didn't have the right tools. So having those tools that actually create meaningful spaces is so important. And I love that. I love that those opportunities are there. It's nice to see technology helping to improve education rather than just kind of replacing it.

Holly Owens (40:41.638)
And I'm just giving you the tip of the iceberg about all the stuff that that's been implemented. And I was telling you before, I could never work for an tech company or somewhere where I don't believe in the product. I don't know how celebrities do it if they've never reached the product. I know they're going to pay millions, but I can never just endorse something that I haven't used myself and haven't thoroughly understood how it all works pedagogically, you know, all those different things. So that's Yellowdig.

Back to the conversation, because yes, we have some more questions in the chat. And people are sharing stuff, which I love. Hopson, Instructional Design Institute, people know them.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (41:16.876)
That's lovely.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (41:26.926)
Now I have the chat.

Holly Owens (41:28.278)
Okay, here we go. It says, while I'm in the market now for a new role, I hired for a role where we had an overwhelming number of applicants, but when I filtered for preferred qualifications, the number of people who were qualified at the preference level was a very small percentage. That really wasn't a question, but that's more of a comment. Is that how it normally goes if you're talking about some of the data, like the applicants that apply are like...

very small percentage are actually qualified because people I find if it's LinkedIn easy apply they're like you know I didn't I do too I do too I did too so

Chelsea Maude Avirett (42:06.956)
Yeah, I think I do see, I hear that, but I think that's really when you hear 800 to 1000 applicants, it's important to recognize there's a funnel. And so of the 80 to 100 applicants, half of them at least are not qualified. The challenge is that you still have 400 to 500 who are qualified at that point. But yes, I've seen that when I do the hiring and it really, that's also one reason why when we get to those interview stages, like you were talking about earlier, six is too many, but

It can be really hard when you get down to a couple. I know I've been in the committee part of the interview and just handed it off and been like, I'm so glad I don't have to make the final decision here because I would hire them both. And that's not practical. It can be really, it can be very difficult. So yeah, one of the things to think about is that most people aren't qualified, but there is a smaller part of that funnel that is very well qualified. And that's who you're competing for.

Holly Owens (42:37.237)
Mm-hmm.

Holly Owens (42:50.454)
That's so hard. It's so hard.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (43:04.898)
And that might also help when people are trying to figure out their unique selling proposition is really think about in the people who do what you do, what do you stand out for? Because that can help you say, this is what I need to include on my resume, or is this what I need to highlight in those knockout questions?

Holly Owens (43:21.8)
Yep. Yeah, 100%. And I think that, you know, like you're saying, it's just not one thing. Chelsea and I are talking for an hour and that's not even enough time to give you all the best advice in the world. And a lot of it too is accountability on your part and to taking the steps, like not just throwing it out there, the resume and hoping that it sticks and that somebody is going to call you. It's really a lot on you as well. Although the companies do need to be organized. So I think people have this

Like the company is, you know, they didn't, it's like victim, like they didn't do this or they didn't do that. But what are you doing to make it better? If they don't reach out to you or they ghost you, I wouldn't work there anyways. That's not, that's not a company for me. if they don't take the time to like generate an automated AI email that just says, sorry, we went with whatever they say. We went with a more, we had a million applicants and we had, we went with somebody more qualified or something like that.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (44:12.972)
Yeah, we have a lot of applicants. We appreciate your application.

Holly Owens (44:21.142)
But yeah, that's a slippery slope sometimes. We have another question. Yeah, go ahead.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (44:28.821)
I wanted to break it with the question from my LinkedIn page too. So Riley was asking, how do you get experience with e-learning tools when you don't have them? And I'll let you start Holly, because I bet you have a lot of ideas.

Holly Owens (44:33.478)
yeah, that's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Holly Owens (44:42.27)
Okay, this is a great question. This is a great question. And I'm gonna start with like a disclaimer, technology is secondary to the skills. It's secondary to like the knowledge and what you bring to the table. So learning the technology, whether that's Articulate, iSpring, know, insert set Adobe product here, that is not gonna land you the role. It's gonna be who you are and if you fit into that culture. So.

I would say this again, exhaust the free resources, do a trial of an iSpring, do a trial over and articulate and force yourself to do a project in that technology because then you start to learn where all the buttons are. And I know Tim Slade does like a monthly or something like an e-learning designers challenge or something. Put yourself in one of those. I know iSpring is doing one coming up. So put yourself in one of those challenges and really challenge yourself too.

learn the tool and then come up with some content. And you never know, like you might use it later for monetization, you could use it as a portfolio piece. So to me, that's going to be exhausting your free resources as well. And I say for the technology, because you're not gonna learn everything through a free trial, learn just enough to be dangerous, like in an interview. Like make an impact in showing people what you know.

I think one of the things that people think is like, I have to know everything about this technology or I'm not going to get this job. No. I like to focus on accessibility when it comes to technology. So that's where I, the straight where I go, do they have accessibility checker? Do they have expectations listed out on their site? You know, those different kinds of things. So if you're focused on a certain tool, like what is important that that tool does? So you're kind of evaluating it yourself when you're testing it out, but.

You got to start small and you're not going to learn these tools overnight. And they're certainly, they help, but they're not going to necessarily land you the role.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (46:44.792)
I love that. actually wrote it down that technology is secondary to the methodology because that anybody can learn the technology. But if you don't know how to design an effective learning experience, it doesn't matter. I'll also say one thing that I saw the other day, which I loved. This woman created a little instructional design portfolio introducing herself. she had like, this is who I am. Here's my experience. can go click on my, she had her resumes on the wall or not resumes. She had her.

Holly Owens (46:55.305)
Right.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (47:14.414)
What are those things called? Our graduation certificate. Degrees, thank you. She had the wall of her instructional design. You could click on it and see. It was really, really well done. so if you're like, I know. Right, and it's like that video you were talking about earlier. And so it's also something where you can show off your skills, but also it's really practical. You don't need a major, major project. You can just say, hey, what do people need to know in order to

Holly Owens (47:17.682)
our degrees.

Holly Owens (47:26.048)
That's cute. I love that. That's so innovative and like different.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (47:44.328)
interested in interviewing me, let me design a little quick two-minute interactive piece from it. And there's also geneally, I don't know, do you have any experience with that? Because

Holly Owens (47:55.894)
have a little bit of experience with that, but I know it's a good building tool as well and it's something that people are getting more more involved in. It's like a popular one to build design in. Yes.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (48:06.028)
Yeah. And you can also like structure it so that before you get that free trial, you learn on something that's a lot more accessible.

Holly Owens (48:12.534)
YouTube has the videos, so learn it and then do the free trial when you're ready to set up the project. I teach at an institution and we don't have the funding to get the Articulate licenses or any of the other stuff, so I have them do the free trials. And I say, don't sign up until you're in development stage. So it's possible, but I understand that there's challenges with that too, like what is your work get lost? My link still works.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (48:31.502)
here.

Holly Owens (48:41.906)
out to mind. That was, I think, something I didn't articulate. So.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (48:45.42)
Nice. Yeah, it's challenging. wish there were, because the software is so valuable, but it really is geared towards professionals, like who using it on a daily basis. So the cost per use is low. But I wish they had a student version and a transitioning person who needs to learn it version that was more accessible. So you can also get 50 % off a lot of these with your student, your teacher.

Holly Owens (48:57.472)
Mm-hmm.

Holly Owens (49:07.87)
Yeah. And yeah, your education stuff. Yeah, for sure. And I know that also too, you don't have to, like I said, you don't have to come and be an expert. Any good company will allow you the time to onboard and get comfortable, not just with the culture of the company and the people you'll be working with, but also the technology too. They will have a great onboarding plan for you where you're first supported through the entire process. So.

That's one of the things you should ask in the initial interview, what does onboarding look like? Because if they say, we don't have onboarding, I'm going to say, you later, because then you're not going to feel supported. And if they can't tell you what it looks like, they don't have it set up properly. Yeah.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (49:52.654)
And it's also to like remembering, finding out whether you're going to be the sole contributor in an organization or whether you're going to have colleagues. Because if you have colleagues, you're not going to be pushed immediately into developing five learning platforms in five weeks, five months. But if you're the sole person, that's another way to evaluate whether to apply for a role is like how much other support is there as you transition to that career. So you're the only person.

Holly Owens (49:58.976)
Mm-hmm.

Holly Owens (50:08.406)
Exactly.

Holly Owens (50:20.533)
Yep.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (50:22.338)
you probably don't want to take that job as a career transition.

Holly Owens (50:26.772)
Yeah, absolutely. So we had a question from Kerb. He says, do you have any suggestions for website service to create a portfolio? I waver on the usefulness of this. I get it. I get it. You know, like a portfolio is something that's dynamic and always changing. And when I did a portfolio and I'm starting to transition, I do a lot of things with Ice Cream, so I'm starting to transition my portfolio into there, but I use Google Sites. It's free.

That's it was easy. set it up. not saying I had everything like perfect or ready to go, but I set it up in like 20 minutes. I set up my pages like about me, use Chatgy BT, modified it to feel like me and that's it. It was Google Sites and it worked for me. Like some of these other ones, I just try to say they help you, like they'll set it up for you, things like that.

I don't know, I'm kind of weary of those things. Like I'd rather set it up myself and have the pages and things I want in there. But yeah, it's really simple as Google sites is the answer to that. Yeah, and the usefulness of it depends on the position you're applying for. Corporate sees portfolios as a must have if you're applying for them. Even higher education is getting to the point where they're like, we need to see some of your previous work.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (51:33.516)
Yeah.

Holly Owens (51:49.898)
Do any of the roles that you post, have they asked for portfolios? Have you seen that come across?

Chelsea Maude Avirett (51:54.062)
You know what's interesting is that they don't say it, but then when you get to the interview, they expect it. So that's where having that blurb that says this is what you need in the interview process is so helpful. But also one of the things I notice is that they don't say it in the job description, but take a look at the knockout questions required, link to portfolio. Almost every single one is going to have that. So yes, it is.

Holly Owens (52:00.2)
Right. They should say it in the face.

Holly Owens (52:16.086)
Okay. Wow. I want to, I just wish the job descriptions were more transparent. Transparency is key in any relationship, in any networking, things like that. Please.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (52:31.438)
Well, and I also, one of the things that's driving me baddie right now is that this is the time of year where a lot of people, a lot of companies are hiring because you have everyone from recent graduates to people who are coming out of education from teaching. Everyone's applying this time of year because we're ending the semester. And so what they're doing is they're taking those roles that they've had on the job board for months and they're reposting them. And I'm like, you have not closed this job.

Holly Owens (52:39.167)
Mm-hmm.

Holly Owens (52:56.576)
Yeah.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (52:58.87)
over the last six months, but now you've suddenly made it a little more active. You could have just put a little flag on there for November saying, hey, we're not hiring with this position until January. It's like just a simple thing of respect. Don't collect resumes. And when you do start collecting resumes, let people know so they can apply to it because otherwise how do people know? So it's really, there are just so many small pieces that where recruiters haven't.

Holly Owens (53:13.055)
Yeah.

Holly Owens (53:19.838)
Exactly.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (53:28.386)
done needs assessments. They haven't done all of these things as educators. think about this as you want to think about how people are going to go through your process. And I think it's so natural to us. It's really frustrating to see that it isn't natural to everybody, but it's also one of our unique selling propositions. We solve problems. We see problems. We fix them.

Holly Owens (53:38.752)
Right.

Holly Owens (53:48.83)
Yeah, for sure. We have a couple more questions in the chat. And then I want to spend like the last five minutes maybe talking a little bit about data and also your tips for what you should look for in a job description before you even start applying to that role. So we did have a question from Sam and I'm going to put that up here. Currently Sam is currently working as an L &D as an instructional designer looking to step into mid to senior role. What are the best tips for making this step, especially when it comes to standing out in it?

Chelsea Maude Avirett (54:09.303)
Eh-hem.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (54:19.33)
Hmm. Yeah. Yeah, I I always love hearing your perspective.

Holly Owens (54:20.832)
That's a good question. I'll take that one. Yeah, I think it's important to have, you know, like allyship. If you're doing it within the company, it's important to have those people who are behind you supporting you. But also too, like what work have you done and the data that supports like if you've trained X number of people and this is what's happened from that. And a lot of times we don't say the I statements like I did this because we don't want to take all the credit, but really.

I did this and this is what happened. I think that's important for getting a mid to senior role as an instructional designer and also showing how you advance yourself like in the current role. Like were you going out and doing professional development on your own? Were you doing some passion projects, you know, that kind of flowed into the projects you were doing internally? I think that I think that's really important to to set that up.

And standing out in the interview, like if you're an internal candidate, you probably got the job. But if you're applying to a position outside where you're outside coming in, I think that it's so important for you. the portfolio I think is important in this situation because it showcases your skills. But also like, you know, just have some scenarios ready to go because of those behavioral based questions in the interview. Like I would always write down on Amazon,

Chelsea Maude Avirett (55:43.694)
Mm-hmm.

Holly Owens (55:47.446)
does this, always write down like the scenarios where I had to deal with a difficult situation or I had to deal with like talk about a project, start to finish. Like those are common across interview processes. So if you have those scenarios written out, like you're going to be golden. And if you can connect with the future boss and have just the interaction with them, I think that helps too. That's what I say about that.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (56:12.3)
Right. And we talked a little bit earlier about the difficulty often in connecting with the hiring managers. But when you're getting to the senior level roles, fewer people are applying, and it's more common to actually be reaching out. definitely, that's something that's definitely different as you're moving through your career.

Holly Owens (56:26.869)
Right.

Holly Owens (56:32.104)
Yeah, yeah. Again, it's not just one thing. It's so difficult. I really want to come into these webinars and tell you like, this is the, I listen a lot to the Mel Robbins podcast. This is the formula, but in L &D, is so hard to find that formula because every organization or institution sees an instructional designer, and I'm just using this as an example, how they participate in the institution differently.

how, their role is differently. So there's not, it's really just not one thing. I mean, like commonalities, you need a resume, you need a portfolio, you need like a website or something that talks about you.

All right, Jackie wants to know where do we find these knockout questions? And I need to put those in the I and D the L and D stuff that I shared.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (57:18.678)
Not a fight.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (57:23.788)
Yeah, I should have clarified. That's a good point. What a knockout question is. So when you fill out the application and you hit the apply button and then it asks you a hundred things, some of those are short answers. And that's what I call it a knockout question. Or it could be something like, do you have three years experience in instructional design and you have to decide yes or no.

Holly Owens (57:41.59)
those are the knockout

Chelsea Maude Avirett (57:43.99)
Yeah, that's a great point that I should have talked about. But yeah, so knockout questions are something that basically the ATS allows people to add to their applications.

Holly Owens (57:55.562)
So might be a good thing in some situation.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (57:58.382)
That's why I think yeah, a knockout question and particularly like Bonnie Dillar said, 85 % of people who applied to Xavier always uses them. People aren't actually filling them out. So the fact that you fill them out means that somebody is going to read them. So it's a great way to attention and get people, they like your answer. They're going to be more likely to look at your resume. So I think when you see them, definitely take advantage of them. Even as you roll your eyes, because it's yet another thing.

Holly Owens (58:12.777)
Right.

Holly Owens (58:26.578)
Yeah, it's like, my God, something else to fill out. I never apply for anything. I never apply for anything in work day. That is the most sorry work day. Your application process or people that are using work day is it's one of those things where you submit the resume and then you have to fill everything out and it takes an hour. No, not not a fan.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (58:27.123)
taking longer to do the application. But that's cool.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (58:37.596)
you

Chelsea Maude Avirett (58:50.21)
Okay. I bet it doesn't work well for recruiters either. Cause I will say I, the reason I know about Workday blogs is that it messes up my, the automations that I do. And I'm like, why, why am I doing this job again? I'm like, I saw that yesterday. So yeah, it's a messed up system all the way around.

Holly Owens (59:04.022)
Yeah.

Yep.

Anything that does that, in this day and age, you don't need to submit a resume and then fill it back out. Why? No. No. Exactly. If you had to give, and I know we're going to go a little bit over time here, if you had to give people three things that they must see in a job description before they apply, what would those be?

Chelsea Maude Avirett (59:18.446)
Do we have technology for that?

Chelsea Maude Avirett (59:32.482)
Let's see. So first of all, I would say, look at the top two to three things the job does and make sure your accomplishments match that. Then I would look at the preferred experience. Preferred experience in a tight job market, they're often getting people with that preferred experience, and particularly in L &D, where you might have an instructional design role in ed tech, or you might have an insurance that sometimes those preferred skills can be really a differentiator.

particularly when you have hobbies or other things or other jobs you've done before your current job. So definitely look at the preferred skills and then look at the knockout questions. Honestly, I would start looking at see if there's a knockout question because that tells you what they're prioritizing and what they are going to rule you in or out first using. So I think I answered your question. There were three.

Holly Owens (01:00:24.57)
Yeah. Yep. So I love it that you're saying like, obviously the obvious things, you know, the salary transparency, because you're not, I'm not going to waste my time interviewing. And I did this in the past for a role where they tell me in the committee interview or the interview with the leadership, Oh, we're paying X amount and it's not a livable wage. No, that's not happening. And I think you and I could definitely go into like, we probably need to do a whole nother episode about salary negotiation. Cause people just take what they get and like now

Chelsea Maude Avirett (01:00:53.155)
No, not.

Holly Owens (01:00:53.226)
They have a range. They have a range. can go higher than what they put into the role. Go higher.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (01:01:02.508)
yeah. I was going to say, sometimes you'll even see them do that. When they talk about salary band and we typically hire in the middle of the salary band, some companies are very nicely transparent, but that means that all the other companies are doing the same thing. They're just not.

Holly Owens (01:01:03.816)
So try to give us, go ahead Chelsea.

Holly Owens (01:01:09.512)
Yup.

Holly Owens (01:01:19.38)
Right. And the grand scheme of things, five thousand additional dollars, if you think about that per paycheck, isn't that much. So per page. Yeah. I mean, I mean, like if it's additional for for them, it's not that much for them to go a little bit higher. They're going to be fine is what I'm saying.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (01:01:27.544)
per paycheck. That is a lot. Over a year.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (01:01:39.0)
Yeah, yes, I agree.

Holly Owens (01:01:41.558)
So give us the spark notes version of what you're seeing in terms of data. And if you don't follow Chelsea out on LinkedIn, you're really missing out or you don't follow Skip, you need to go out there now. I'll put all the links in the show notes on where to find you because this is going to be shared as a podcast, episode, or video. You can watch this thing over and over again as much as you want. But the data that you're sharing, oh my God, I love it. I love your little charts and graphs. I'm like, this makes it so easy. So tell us a little bit about that.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (01:02:09.228)
I know. Yeah, so every week I dig into the data. So if people have questions, I love having answers and having new questions. So I just put up a chart. And so one of the charts that I showed recently was looking at curriculum, learning and development and instructional design jobs seasonally. And it's really interesting because summer has been really high and then it kind of falls in the fall, unintentional pun, and now it's starting to tick back up. We're going back to that seasonal height.

And a lot of this is because I followed the education ed tech market. So you're seeing seasonal patterns that echo the school calendar because you're either selling in schools or you're stealing sheep from the school teachers. And one of the things that I've noticed is that the types of jobs stay pretty consistent. You're always going to have your professional learning specialists. You're always going to have your instructional designers. You're always going to have your curriculum managers, your project managers, et cetera. It's just the number.

Holly Owens (01:03:05.163)
Right?

Chelsea Maude Avirett (01:03:05.934)
then you see more of them at certain times of the year. I think the big question that I have about the job market right now for this field is what's happening with ESSER funding expiring. All of the federal pandemic money is almost gone. And so how is that going to impact hiring? I think we're going to see that in part-time jobs especially, but it's still an open question about how much companies have already adapted to that.

Holly Owens (01:03:19.552)
Yeah, that's scary. Yeah.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (01:03:33.484)
because they've known this was going to happen for a few years. So ideally, a well-run company has been able to absorb those costs. But we're seeing people who are current contractors get fewer contracts. And so I think we're going to see fewer new people pulled in. And that's a shame, because that was actually those contract rules often got people a full-time job if they were moving from edge to edge. That was a great bridge role. But it's an unknown.

Holly Owens (01:03:54.048)
Yeah, that was like the stepping stone, right? Yeah.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (01:04:02.944)
So it really does depend on how much school funding we see over the next couple of years. But overall, the market is still strong. There are still jobs. if you have the flexibility, do keep in mind that there are more jobs at certain times of the year. We're entering that period, and it's going to really peak in the summer. So this is a good time. But even when it drops in the fall, the reason it's dropping is there are fewer people applying.

Holly Owens (01:04:08.544)
Yeah.

Holly Owens (01:04:25.302)
Absolutely, 100%. It definitely is.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (01:04:32.512)
So that can often be a time where you can get an edge in. So it's, yeah. Yeah, if you can, if you're willing to.

Holly Owens (01:04:36.254)
Yeah. I love that advice. Apply in the fall. Yeah. It's kind of like the summer is tourist season like here in the Southeast. Don't come here in the summer. Apply in the fall. Come in the fall.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (01:04:45.358)
where we are too.

Exactly. And it's worth thinking about if you're currently in the classroom, being willing to break your contract or applying in the fall, you can probably finish out the school year because the timeline on that is probably going to work out pretty well to give two weeks to a month notice. But if you're willing to do that, a lot of people are not. So and put yourself first. I definitely think you should put yourself first in your career. So.

Holly Owens (01:05:08.842)
Yeah, absolutely.

Holly Owens (01:05:15.518)
Yeah, you are the most important piece of this. Like this is what you're going to be doing for however many years. So why would you pick something that you're not going to like and want to leave anyways, or that has a bad company culture? So I put the link to your LinkedIn in the chat and Chelsea, you have like 55,000 followers on LinkedIn. That's crazy.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (01:05:36.824)
I know, it's crazy. It's so crazy.

Holly Owens (01:05:40.598)
You're like a first time talking like I think both of us are pretty low at that point and now That's amazing. I love that that is happening for you and you're kind of blowing up for the things that you just do it so well and you have all the pieces of it like the data and Skip is free and you get a certain you share about what 10 to 20 percent of the jobs that you You go out and look for you know when people come in and post up

I will say if you want to sign up, you should for the skip options. They're so affordable, like actually less than a gym membership. Gym memberships are astronomical. Less than that, oh my God, let's this, fly off the handle. I don't know what they're thinking, but I would encourage you to sign up for that and I'll put that link in the show notes as well. It's well worth it. It's well worth your time to have that. And even if you just say like three months, I'm still looking for a role and then.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (01:06:20.686)
and Netflix too.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (01:06:26.817)
I know.

Holly Owens (01:06:38.612)
You can cancel after three months or then you lose a job and then you have to come back. So it's there for you.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (01:06:43.842)
Yeah, yeah, it's definitely something you can use no matter where you are in your career. have jobs explicitly looking for educators. I have jobs looking for people who are executives currently.

Holly Owens (01:06:53.342)
Yeah, and the filters, those are magical. Those are magical. like every time when I go out and do my job postings, I'm like, okay, I need an entry one. So I go, you know, look for that. okay, I need a more experienced one. So I go look for it's just so easy. And it makes so much sense to me like cognitively, like how that all operates, but excellent. Well, we went over about eight minutes, which I'm not surprised that we did that.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (01:06:57.837)
I love this.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (01:07:04.23)
Ha

Holly Owens (01:07:20.726)
I say this generally and I can't thank you enough. I'm a huge fan of yours. I love that we're connected and we're friends and we're colleagues in this space. Thank you so much for sharing your advice, your tips, your data, all the information about what you've learned. Really enjoyed having you on here.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (01:07:39.136)
And I always enjoy chatting with you. You're not only like a wealth of information, but you share it so generously. You've always done that and you've always built communities. So I'm thrilled to be part of.

Holly Owens (01:07:46.954)
Yeah.

Holly Owens (01:07:51.284)
Yeah, I think I think I was lacking that when I was looking for a job. So I never want somebody to feel like that. You know, if you grow up like with a bad childhood, you never want your child to experience that. So you kind of shift it. Well, that happened to me in the job market. So I don't want people to feel that way. We're here to support you.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (01:08:06.786)
Yes, and I think people feel that way. I certainly feel that way. It's great to have work friends and work colleagues even when we work by ourselves.

Holly Owens (01:08:15.342)
I know, yeah, we just pop on and chat and do a LinkedIn Live. Well, thanks everyone. This is going to be released soon as a podcast episode, so look forward to that coming out so you can review everything that Chelsea and I talked about. And obviously I'm going to have all the different advice, the links and everything in the show notes is going to come out on my podcast at FLND. So be sure you subscribe so you get access and alerts to the episode. All right, take care.

Chelsea Maude Avirett (01:08:42.254)
Bye everyone, see you later Holly.