As a career changer, it can be difficult to showcase your instructional design (ID) skills when you haven’t had a chance to use them full-time. Standard resume advice is to write accomplishment statements for your work history. There is value in including transferable skills alongside accomplishments when they relate to your desired role. If you have a strong employment section but are not getting traction in your job search, strengthen your resume by adding a project section.

As a career coach for technical boot camps, I became familiar with project sections. I encouraged my students to showcase their best projects near the top of their resumes, even though they included the same information in their portfolios and GitHub pages. Students who showcased two to three of their best projects throughout their materials would gain traction in their job search. When they made it to the first recruiter call, we knew their resume was working. 

When it came time for...