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Do You Feel Like an Imposter? You're In Good Company

“I’m a fraud.”

“I only got the job because I got lucky.”

“Will they find out I don’t know what I am doing?”

Do any of these sound familiar? You may be dealing with imposterism. And you are in good company.

If you aren’t sure, take this Imposterism self-assessment created by Pauline Rose Clance.

Imposterism. Imposter Syndrome. Imposter Phenomenon. Imposter Experience. 

These terms describe how high-achieving people fail to recognize their success and/or accomplishments and have persistent self-doubt and fear of being exposed as a fraud. They struggle with attributing their performance to their competence and often attribute success to luck or other outside factors.

No matter what you call it, imposterism is real and present in the business world. It is not a disease or an abnormality, but can have a harmful impact on job performance and satisfaction, and eventually cause burnout.

Prevalence, Predictors, and Treatment of...

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Diary of a New IDOL: Episode Two--Day One

 

Diary of a New IDOL-Day One

The day we have been waiting for has finally arrived. It is the first day in our role as an official IDOL! 

Kristi:

My first day was pretty chaotic. I went into the office for orientation along with at least 90 other temp workers. Every two weeks, my company holds a new hire orientation. This week was especially large because they are hiring in preparation for the open enrollment that will begin in October (I work for a health insurance company). 

 

Once I got in the building, mask and all, I was escorted by my one and only fellow ID on my team to our floor. She set me up with my computer and showed me around the building. I was so excited to see where I would be sitting every day (the view!!) and to see all the extra amenities that the building had (a gym, a cafe, work treadmill rooms). 

 

Then we sat down and tried to get me set up with all my logins and such to prepare me to go to my home office until January. That is where the...

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Diary of a New IDOL: Episode One--Landing the Job

 

Hello, this is Kristi Oliva and Veronica Reed. We each come from different backgrounds and have taken different paths to where we are today, but we have both worked hard and are now proud to be starting new roles as IDOLs. Through this blog/vlog we will be sharing with you what it is like as new IDOLs. We will shed light on our journey from the first day to day 90 and tell you what happens behind the scenes when you land your first ID role.

We hope that our experience can help others have the confidence to apply for and land that IDOL role without doubting their abilities.

 

Kristi:

I come from a teaching background. After 12 years of teaching, I knew that it wasn’t what I wanted to do anymore. Even though I wanted to switch careers, I didn’t know what I was qualified for. I honestly thought my only options were to either become a school administrator, or get my PhD and teach at a university. Neither of which really got me excited. 

 

While doing a job...

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Lessons Learned During My First Big ID Project

I have been an ID for some time now.  Mostly working independently on projects except for referring to a couple of Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) to ensure I have processes and terminology correct.

 I was very excited when I was asked to be part of a large, high profile project. We were asked to redesign a New Hire Training (NHT) that traditionally was done face-to-face and took approximately five weeks to complete.  The redesign was an innovative concept to the company, and the reason it became such a high profile. Everyone wanted to know how the new concept would work. We developed a blended learning course for NHT, which reduced training time to only 3 weeks. 

You are probably thinking – Blended learning is nothing new. It has been a valid teaching strategy for years. However, my new company had been solely creating facilitator-led training before this. We were finally breaking into more modernized training methods.

This was going to be my very first...

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5 Lessons I Learned Building My Portfolio

Are you a perfectionist?

Are you struggling to build your first portfolio?

Do you feel like you're spinning your wheels and not getting anywhere?

STOP! Right where you are. Save yourself wasted time and effort by learning from my mistakes.

Here are some revelations I had while working on my portfolio:

Set realistic expectations for what your portfolio should look like based on your current abilities and experience as an instructional designer. If you are new to the field, aim to demonstrate your proficiency and understanding, instead of skill and expertise.

While the portfolios of experts and leading industry practitioners are great sources of inspiration, your portfolio will likely not look like theirs. As a novice, you do not have the experience to create a portfolio equivalent to the portfolios that took others years and sometimes a decade-plus to work up to.

Here are some examples of what your first portfolio website might look like:

Christine Prince

Bonnie Lou Davis

...

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Become an IDOL 21: Become an IDOL Advice with Zsolt Olah

Published: August 12, 2020

Episode: 21



Zsolt Olah, Author of Engage the WORL&D! 

In this episode, I’ll be chatting with Zsolt Olah about his journey and advice for becoming a learning designer.  Zsolt just wrote a comprehensive guide on becoming a learning designer and we dig into his research and findings. Listen to Zsolt share some great tips for those looking to enter the learning and development world.

Zsolt Olah is a creative learning consultant at Kineo with over 15 years of L&D experience. Zsolt is a frequent speaker at learning conferences on the subject of engagement and game thinking for L&D. He is also the author of the book, Engage the WORL&D!, exploring six essential traits of instructional design. 

If you are a new listener to Become an IDOL, we would love to hear from you.  Please visit our Contact Page and let us know how we can help you today!

 

Subscribe & Review in iTunes

Are you subscribed to my podcast? If...

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Virtual ILT and Staying Connected

I have been living in the Middle East for the last two years.  Although I am far away from my home in the United States, I have been able to connect with learning and development professionals from home and around the world.  Covid-19 has changed the world, but my face-to-face connections have been limited this year; my digital ones have been plentiful. I have my days where I can get Zoomed out or tired of all the screen time like anyone else. I make sure to choose encounters that I need to attend for work or ones I find interesting and will help me grow as a professional and network.
 

Virtual Instructor-led Training

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to attend a Digital Encounter from the Central Florida ATD Chapter with special guest Jo Cook and Mike Cook.  Jo and Mike are a brother and sister team from the United Kingdom who are experts in the virtual classroom and webinar facilitation.

 Jo was a dynamic speaker who showed in practice how to facilitate...

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Building a Portfolio Without an ID Job

 It is a little overwhelming (to say the least) to transition from being a classroom teacher to instructional designer. Once you decide to make the switch, how do you get a job?

See this post by Roshon Goode: "Degrees Don't Get You an IDOL Job, Experience Does."  To prove you have the experience, you need a portfolio. And to create a portfolio, you have to be working as an ID.

 

Or do you?

 

Building a portfolio is something I never had to think about in my 15 years as a classroom teacher. It isn't easy to know where to start! But the IDOL courses Academy takes you through each step of the process. When building a portfolio, most people use their past experience and past projects. But since I was coming from K-12 and wanted to move into corporate, none of my previous work samples would do.

Here are my suggestions and experience with building real portfolio pieces without having an ID job.

 

  1. Reach out

Once I began my journey to becoming an ID, I told my...

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What I Learned From The Show: Learning Competition

 If you haven’t had the chance to check out The Show from The Learning Conference, I have to say you are missing out. The Show has been an incredible learning competition where designers worldwide have been showcasing their solutions for designated client briefs. The creativity and designs have been inspiring. Cath Ellis and Kim  Tuohy, the hosts and creators of The Show, have worked to develop a fun and engaging contest where designers have gotten out of their comfort zones.  There were a ton of cameos, including IDOL courses Academy’s own Dr. Robin Sargent, who was a guest host and provided feedback on the LexCorp Engineering Resource Challenge where competitors had to create a universal storyboard per their client request. 

 

The Show is the preceding event to The Learning Conference, which is happening online from August 3rd to 5th 2020.  They have got a fantastic lineup of speakers. If you have the time, you should join in the...

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Bringing Learning Design Theory Down to Earth

 Professional learning designers are skilled at informing their practice with current research and theory, but building this skill can be challenging – especially for beginners. With so much information out there, how can you ground your design decisions without wasting time or getting lost in tangents that are irrelevant or overly complex? 
  1. Get familiar with the major theories of how people learn.

Before you can apply a theory, you need to understand it. In most learning design graduate programs you’ll get to deep dive into learning theories like behaviorism, cognitivism, constructivism and others, but you don’t have to join a graduate program to do this. IDOL courses Academy includes bite-sized modules on the major theories you’ll need to know as a learning designer. A good test for whether you’re familiar with a learning theory is whether you can describe it simply, with the kind of language you might use when chatting with a...

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