r/LearningDevelopment

Hi everyone,

I am reviewing our new hire onboarding flow and would love to hear how other teams handle LMS provisioning.

At what point in the onboarding timeline do you give new employees access to your learning management system?

Option 1: Well before their official date of joining (preboarding stage, so they can explore culture, intro videos or basic compliance beforehand).

Option 2: Exactly on Day 1 / Date of Joining (along with their standard IT hardware and account setup).

Option 3: Later during their first or second week (allowing them to first settle in, meet the team and complete manager check-ins before diving into learning modules).

If you grant access before Day 1, how do you handle labor compliance, paid time tracking or security policies? If you wait until Day 1 or later, how do you keep them from feeling overwhelmed by a sudden pile of training assignments?

I would love to learn what has worked best for your organization and what optimal learner experience looks like in your setup. Thanks in advance for sharing your insights!

I'm starting to put together a stronger portfolio for future job applications and I've realized that showing completed Storyline courses only demonstrates that I can use the tool, not that I can think through a learning problem. I want to show my process, the needs analysis thinking, the decisions I made about what to include and what to cut, the rationale behind the interactions I chose. But I'm not sure what format actually works for that or how much process documentation hiring managers in L&D actually want to see versus a clean finished product. Has anyone found a portfolio format that successfully communicates the thinking behind the work rather than just the output?

I came from teaching so I understood the work immediately when I transitioned, but I've noticed that when I try to explain my new role to family or even colleagues in other departments I can't find a description that lands. "I design training" sounds too simple. "I apply learning science to corporate education" sounds like I'm reading from a LinkedIn bio. I've tried a few versions and none of them make the job sound as interesting or as complex as it actually is. How do people in L&D describe what they do to non-L&D people in a way that actually communicates the real value of the work?

Hi everyone! I’m hoping to tap into the experience and connections in this community as I make the next move in my career.

I have 10+ years of experience across education, learning & development, training, leadership development, and people management. I’m currently an Education Manager overseeing programming across 24 sites and 100+ staff, and a significant part of my work has centered around developing people.

I’ve designed and facilitated 25+ trainings on topics ranging from active supervision and program quality to management and leadership development. I’ve also coached and developed leaders, led teams of directors, built training resources and systems, and worked to translate organizational goals into practices people can actually use.

I’m now looking to take that experience into a role where learning, development, training, or employee development is the primary focus of my job.

Some of the roles I’m exploring include:
- Learning & Development Manager
- Training Manager / Training Program Manager
- Learning Program Manager
- Leadership Development
- Talent Development
- Employee Learning / Employee Experience
- Instructional Design or Learning Experience roles where my facilitation and program-management background would be valuable

I’m located in the DC/Maryland/Virginia area and am primarily looking for remote roles or hybrid opportunities in the DMV.

My biggest challenge has been translating a career built largely in education and nonprofit leadership into the language of corporate L&D. I know the skills transfer; I’m working on helping hiring managers see that connection as clearly as I do.

So my ask for this community: Are there companies, organizations, job boards, recruiters, or people in the DMV/L&D space that you think I should be connecting with?

I’d also genuinely appreciate hearing from anyone who transitioned from education, nonprofit leadership, or a similar field into corporate L&D. What helped you get someone to take a chance on your background?

I’m not expecting anyone here to find me a job. I’m hoping to learn from people in the field, expand my network, and hopefully find a few doors worth knocking on.

Thanks for any advice, connections, or leads you’re willing to share!

Hi all! Would love some real talk advice from pros already working in the area. I am an academic with limited corporate experience that's 10+ years old. My PhD and teaching is in comms, so I have a lot of teaching and development experience in higher ed, but I am hoping to pivot to corporate. I can't stand the higher ed environment and I honestly miss more hands on applied work. I'm having trouble getting hits on my resume, I think it's hard for some managers to see me as a credible choice despite the fact I have framed my resume around every transferable aspect of my work. I am not assuming I am credible director-level L&D roles but I am also overqualified for entry level roles so I am kinda stuck. I was hoping to better understand what some of the best things I can do to help people understand what I can do. I have lots of course design, assessment, facilitation experience but talent development is all essentially in higher ed context and I have limited project management experience in the traditional sense.

-Is there a credential that is foundational or particularly well regarded for mid-level folks?

-What type of baseline portfolio work might hiring managers be expecting to see?

-Any other general advice for how to upskill or things to avoid saying/doing in documents/interviews?

Really appreciate your insights.

I have been at my current company for a few years and have built multiple ILTs from scratch that I facilitate. I am currently searching for a new job, which has me wondering about what is considered my IP and what belongs to the company?

I know that the company will continue using the courses I built and will find new people to facilitate, and of course I have no problem with that, as they were built for the company. But I’m wondering if it is considered wrong or even illegal (in the US) to download my materials and facilitator guides if I leave for a new job. Of course I wouldn’t just copy and paste those courses in a new company, but having my notes and materials would be beneficial if I ever build something with a similar theme or topic.

Does anyone have experience or insights with IP in corporate learning?

Most learning platforms still feel like:

Course → Video → PDF → Quiz → Certificate.

I’m interested in something more adaptive.

Imagine an LMS where an AI tutor understands:
• What you’ve already learned
• Where you’re struggling
• Your assessment history
• Your learning pace
• Your goals

And dynamically changes what you learn next.

I’ve been experimenting with ideas around AI-powered learning and offline/on-device AI as well.

For people who use LMS platforms: what is the biggest thing they wish their current platform did better?

My company wants to do a tech exchange with Google for a small group of developers. The plan is to present an overview of Google AI capabilities, and provide resources (training, developer docs, support) so they can develop an MVP based on solution that could potentially be further developed for our clients.

I’m trying to come up with use cases for the tech exchange. I’ve have identified the domains (modernization, migration, AI development) and aligned it to Google’s tools like Gemini, LLM, BigQuery, etc. However, our business leads are worried my use cases are too specific and we won’t have the time or capacity to develop it during the tech exchange (7 weeks with 4-6 hours a week dedicated for this).

Does anyone have any resources or recommendations on how I can go about with this? Anyone with experience developing use cases for tech exchanges or hackathons?

I've used a lot of different tools when it comes to building training sessions (or even participating as a learner/guest). And a lot of times, I've seen colleagues and myself use a tool every once in a while but never really have one dedicated training tool I keep coming back to.

Anybody else like this?

What makes you keep coming back to a training tool? What features make a training tool something you want to keep using?

Instead of just a "one-and-done" kind of usecase..

Hi everyone! I'm 34 and trying to make a thoughtful career pivot into Learning & Development, specifically instructional design, and I'd really appreciate advice from people who actually work in the field.

I recently completed my MPH through WGU. My background isn't traditional L&D at all, I've bounced around quite a bit professionally, mostly in behavioral health, disability/employment services, case management, healthcare support/operations, and other people-facing roles.

I've realized over time that I do much better with work that is structured and project-based, where I'm creating, organizing, improving, or delivering something with a clear beginning and end. Constant caseload management and emotionally intensive direct-service work haven't been a great long-term fit for me.

Years ago I became really interested in instructional design, but I got discouraged because it seemed incredibly difficult to break into without direct experience or a portfolio. I'm now realizing that the broader L&D/training world may have more entry points than I understood.

Long term, I'm especially interested in the intersection of L&D + behavioral health/public health + disability/human services + trauma-informed practice. I could see myself developing staff training, onboarding, educational programs, learning materials, e-learning, etc. for healthcare or human-service organizations.

Eventually, I'd also love to have skills that could translate into freelance/contract work or consulting. I like the idea of being able to build and deliver projects rather than spending my entire career in direct service.

My concerns:

• I'm 34 and would essentially be entering L&D as a career changer.
• My MPH is from WGU and doesn't have a concentration.
• I don't have formal L&D experience.
• I don't have internships or an L&D portfolio.
• My résumé has quite a few jobs rather than one obvious career progression.
• Most of my strongest experience is in behavioral health, healthcare, disability services, employment services, and client-facing work.
• I don't want to spend money on another degree. I'd much rather build actual experience.

I'm considering intentionally taking a lower-stress part-time job for a while, which would give me time to work seriously on this transition rather than trying to squeeze it around another demanding full-time human-services position.

My tentative plan is to find a nonprofit where I can volunteer on a real training/L&D project, learn some of the foundational L&D skills/tools, create a small portfolio, and start targeting roles such as Training Coordinator, L&D Coordinator, Learning Coordinator, LMS Coordinator, or junior Training Specialist, preferably in healthcare, behavioral health, disability services, nonprofits, or similar organizations.

For those of you actually working in L&D:

Does this sound like a realistic way to break in, or am I misunderstanding the entry-level market?

I'd especially love to hear from career changers:

1. What was your background before L&D?
2. What was the first job/project that actually got your foot in the door?
3. Which skills or tools actually helped you get hired versus things you learned that employers didn't really care about?
4. Would you prioritize volunteer experience, a portfolio, Articulate/Rise/Storyline, facilitation experience, LMS experience, or something else first?
5. What entry-level job titles would you target with my background?
6. Does an MPH/human-services background give me a useful niche, or would employers mostly see me as someone without L&D experience?
7. If you were starting from my position today, what would you spend the next 6 months doing?
8. For anyone who eventually became a freelancer/consultant, what did the path from employee → independent work actually look like?

I'm not expecting to jump straight into a senior instructional design position. I'm trying to figure out the most realistic first 1–2 steps that would let me start accumulating legitimate L&D experience and build from there.

I'd really appreciate candid answers including if there are parts of my plan you'd change.

From Mumbai, India

I believe I posses the skillset needed for the role. I have facilitated a few sessions and enjoy the training part. But corporate may require something else. I am not sure about that part. I wanna understand the role better so I can interview with confidence and land it in my first attempt.

please share anything that could help

AI helps you move faster. You review, edit, improve, and decide what stays.

Because the goal isn't to replace instructional designers.

It's to give them more time for the part that actually requires instructional design.

AI shouldn't make the final learning decisions.

The human still decides