Career story: instructional designer

What does a day in your shoes feel like? And what are the key skills that can make or break a career in your field?

We’ve asked a diverse group of Apolitical members to share their career story with us and the tips they have for junior public servants. In this article, Melanie Marttila explains why it’s important to keep the human in focus in their role as an instructional designer.

What is your current role and how do you spend your time on a standard day? Currently, I'm an instructional designer with our department's internal college. On a standard day, there's a morning scrum for our team (and usually two or three other meetings), project management, design work, e-learning development, staging of learning products on our LMS, and other miscellaneous tasks and projects.

What did you do before taking up this role? I was a business expertise advisor (corporate trainer) for 12 years prior to being successful in the assessment process for instructional design.

In your opinion, what are the most important skills someone needs to excel in your field? The focus is on human-centred design, agile methodologies, and continual communication between our team, team lead, and manager, our subject matter experts, and other critical stakeholders.

What is your favourite part of your job? The design work. I love creating meaningful and engaging training products.

What advice would you give to new public servants who are interested in a career in your field? Develop expertise in curriculum design. Applying for one of our student recruitment programmes is the most direct route to employment.

Want to share your own career story with the Apolitical community? Use this form to let us know about your job.

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