Telecommute Instructional Design Jobs
May 18, 2008
About six weeks ago, I added a new feature to my sidebar: an Ask A Question button. This idea was mentioned on Problogger as a way to promote your blog, find out what content is actually relevant to your readers, and improve interaction and community. Since I was already getting a number of questions in comments, I thought I’d try this out to see what kind of questions I received.
Last week, I got a great question from Robert K.:
So my question is, are there instructional design companies that will let you work remotely to some degree or do most require you to be in office to interact with SME’s or other office staff?
The short answer to his question is yes, it is possible. It can take more work to find the right fit, but you absolutely can work from home.
I work 100% from home, although I will admit that it’s rare to find salaried positions that are 100% telecommute. But yes, some companies will let you work from home all the time, and many more will let you do so some of the time. For example, during one contract, I worked from home 3 days a week. One of my friends at that job worked most days from home; she even got permission to work only half days, all of it from home, for several weeks when her daughter was sick and needed extra care.
A Google search for “‘instructional designer’ telecommute” returns over 18,000 hits, so there are things out there. You do have to hunt a bit more though, especially if you want to work completely from home. I’ve been recruited in the past for jobs that required travel at the beginning and end of a project, plus perhaps occasionally during, but otherwise you could work from home. I’m not sure whether you can do any travel in your situation or if limited travel would be acceptable.
Dice and Craigslist both let you restrict your search to telecommute positions, also there isn’t a good way to do a national search on Craigslist. WAHM does a pretty good job of compiling new telecommute jobs from multiple sources, even if it isn’t the easiest site to navigate. You can use the Find command on your browser to search for “instructional” on the page with their job listings.
Especially for someone looking for telecommute positions, I would suggest looking at online schools and publishing companies.
- Online colleges and universities, including community colleges, may be more likely to have telecommute opportunities. These are organizations who are used to having instructors work virtually, which makes it easier for other employees to telecommute too.
- Research the online K-12 environment. This is an area with a lot of projected growth, so those companies will be hiring. The same goes for K-12 schools as higher ed; if other employees are already telecommuting, the infrastructure, policies, and organizational culture already support it.
- Check out publishing companies; they are all doing a lot of e-learning now. Publishing companies should be more accustomed to telecommute work; after all, they don’t have all their authors working in cubicles.
General Job Searching
For all that the big job boards (i.e., Monster & Careerbuilder) get dinged, I personally found them to be helpful. I’ve gotten jobs through both Monster and Careerbuilder, as well as the eLearning Guild’s job board. Certainly networking is still important and online job boards shouldn’t be your only strategy, but there seemed to be a lot of recruiters looking for IDs on Careerbuilder two years ago. Posting your resume wouldn’t take too much time, and it would make you more visible.
Curt Bonk assembled a terrific list of resources for finding instructional technology jobs.
I think anyone who is looking for a job should be on LinkedIn. It lets you build your network and see how you’re connected to companies you might like to work for. Although the author of Linked Intelligence isn’t updating much anymore, the archives of this blog have great information on how to use LinkedIn.
Your Suggestions
What advice would you give to someone looking for a telecommute instructional design job? Are there resources I should have suggested but left off my list? I know my list is fairly US-centric; I’m just not at all familiar with what else is out there in the world.
What have your experiences been finding instructional design jobs where telecommuting is an option?
Update: Read all my posts about Instructional Design Careers.
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Technorati Tags: instructionaldesign, telecommute, career, job
Image: ‘Day 2: Now THIS is what I call telecommuting…‘
www.flickr.com/photos/13684545@N00/456799827
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This is the sort of job I want but not sure if it will materialise. Thanks for information – I’ll keep looking. cheers Sarah
Good luck with your search. Keep me posted on how things are going. I know that many people are interested in finding jobs where they can work from home at least part of the time, so I’m sure that others would enjoy reading about your experiences.
Thanks for this information. I, too, am looking for a telecommute opportunity. I find that it is difficult convincing recruiters and clients that it is possible.
I have been telecommuting for the past 9 months with a company that supports online training for AT&T. I really enjoyed working from home and will search for other contracts that allow this form of employment. I have to mention on small set back though; if you do not have a savings account with 2 plus months worth of income, do not agree to one of these positions!! It can take up to five months to get paid for contract work. Make sure you read the contract before taking the position. Also, you may have to invest in programs and products required to complete the project…(o:
Thanks for the comment. That’s a really good point about freelance work, regardless of whether it’s telecommute or not. I know a number of people who are successful in contract work like you describe, but being realistic about the finances getting started is important.
The taxes for freelancers are another place where people get caught. I know one consultant who didn’t realize that she would owe employment taxes once she became self-employed; that was a huge sum of money that she had not planned for at all. She ended up needing a loan to pay off her taxes. I’m not sure how it is outside the US, but it’s a significant concern here.
I know there’s alot of scams out there when it comes to work at home jobs. That why I started my website Skyline Revenue, to show people they are legit online jobs. I have several posted on my site.http://www.skylinerevenue.com
Edited 2/21/09 by Christy–see comments below
The website listed above appears to be a scam itself, don’t you love when scam artist promote their site stating it is not a scam.
If you hold your cursor over every link on his/her page you will see pay per click links…hmmm I guess that is another method of earning an income while at home.
Good catch JC! I guess I didn’t really look at it, and I should have before leaving the comment here. Thanks for being alert! I’ll edit the comment above so that hopefully no one will get caught.
I work 100% from home as a salaried instructional designer, as do the other three IDs on our team, as well as the five Istructional Techs and their manager. We have the option to conference call in for most of our meetings, but I usually make the drive so I have opportunity for face-to-face networking. That is the only time I am in the office. I work for a college, writing courses mostly for online, but also for classroom or blended instruction.
It was not easy to get this to be a work from home position. Fortunately, I had previously worked for the online division in another capacity, also working from home. When I started in that position, the Online Director had to fight for every work from home position, but as the Division grew by leaps and bounds, the college realized how much money it was saving them not to have to build or lease new office space. It wasn’t long before most of the online division were working from home.
When I moved to Administration as an Instructional Designer, the higher-ups did not see the position as a work from home position–even though we had discussed in my interview the possibility of working from home 2-3 days a week after an initial period. However, I realized on day one that it was not really their intent to let me work from home. My first clue was that I was issued a desktop computer, not a laptop.
It was an uphill battle (fortunately, my immediate supervisor was on my side), but I kept chipping away at the fact that spending three hours a day commuting was affecting my productivity. Normally, I would work into the evening to meet deadlines, when needed. However, after the early start and long drive, I just wasn’t up to the extra effort.
At that time there was just myself and another ID, who was new to the organization. What clinched it was that we had a deadline coming up fast and we convinced them that working in a cubicle was simply not conducive to the concentration needed to write. We were told to go home and work until the courses were done. No one ever told us to come back, so we have worked from home ever since. It helped that our space was needed for others. Our department has since obtained new office space, but the IDs have just been assigned “hotel space”–a work area we can use when we come in.
Two more IDs have been added since. One was an instructor at one of the campuses furthest away. He started out working from home and conference calls in to most meetings. The other ID was new to the college and started out in the office but now works from home.
I’m sorry to be so lengthy, but I am hoping this may be of help to someone. The key to convincing an employer to allow you to work from home is to find the benefit to them–not the benefit to you. It also helps a lot if there is more than one of you and you stick together. If the other ID had come back to the office after meeting her deadline, I would have probably been expected to show up also.
This is a great story to hear how someone made this work in an environment that didn’t really support it. I’ve seen several discussions online recently about this topic and just shared your story with a group on LinkedIn because I think others will find it useful.