I have a pet peeve that a spoonful of sugar will not relieve. Why are L&D professionals supposed to have eLearning portfolios?
Our finessed skills cannot be fully encapsulated in one microlearning. That’s like reading a random page of a novel and deciding whether or not to publish it.
Not all learning professionals are eLearning designers. If that is your limited definition of learning, hire a strategist – not a designer.
Not all companies design eLearning in house or at all, due to organizational need or budget and time constraints.
eLearning is not the most sustainable or high impact form of learning. Why use this as the measuring stick?
Courses we build for other organizations remains the intellectual property of those firms and that means you are either asking us to steal, break confidentiality agreements or purchase expensive software on our own for your brief passing review. This is an inequitable barrier to entry for junior level roles, an inadequate way to assess experienced learning professionals and a high stress matter for all.
How many other fields use portfolios when other metrics are available? This is akin to asking a sales professional to sell you a pen rather than assess their capabilities through behavioral based interview questions and references. Learning has measurable skills and results. While there is an art to talent development, we’re not painters, interior designers or musicians. Assess our skills the way you would an IT or Finance professional. We can speak to our technical prowess in the same fashion.
Bag of Tricks
Distinct from a limited portfolio, L&D professionals have a magical, near bottomless bag. While we cannot share our full body of work, we do carry it forward with us. The joy of talent development is we can pull from not only our past but also a generous L&D community and the public domain to craft custom creations for you. We can reinvent from our experience-informed bag of tricks. The options are endless.
The solutions we can deliver for you are time-tested yet bespoke to your needs, audience, goals and circumstance. If we don’t have the right skills, we know the chimney sweeps who do, and by the end, we’ll have you singing along, too.
This metaphor for experience is not unique to L&D. As with any employee, the richness of experience and creative problem solving is best experienced a “step in time.” Allow us to reveal our magic a spoonful at a time.
Also, in the spirit of the famed nanny, talent development professions mirror Mary Poppins for educational play, shining optimism, fun adventures and polished style. We also float into challenging situations and leave them better.
To the Point
Embrace the magic! Know you are entering a quick-witted conversation with a trusted and experienced confidant who has your best interest at heart. We can share our wisdom without depleting our bag of tricks. A nanny never reveals all of her secrets.
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