Difference Between Senior ID and Junior ID?

Sep 10, 2015

I am currently helping my manager create a Senior Instructional Designer position for our corporate training team. We currently have three IDs who are responsible for creating eLearning courses, and each designer has a similar amount of experience and skills.

My question is this: what do you believe the difference between a Senior ID and a Junior ID is? Is it leadership ability, talent, skill set, experience, education, etc?

Thanks!

2 Replies
Bob S

Speaking generally (not IDs per se), there are a couple things that often differentiate senior from junior roles...

1) Project Management - The ability to oversee the project vs just being a key contributor to it

2) Gravitas - Specifically, the ability to interface with senior leaders / key stakeholders and create meaningful business relationships

3) Broader Perspective - A focus not just on the task/project at hand, but deep knowledge of industry trends/best practices and the ability to consider business impact

4) Leadership - Not always direct supervision, but also includes the ability to be an expert resource and elevate the team's work

Hope this helps!

 

Rachel Barnum

I think first you'll need to determine what the Senior ID will be doing differently from the junior IDs. Are they going to be a team lead? Are they always going to be managing the ID outcome of each project? Or are they simply going to be the most experienced person?

From there- look for the qualities that you'd search for that type of role. If they're going to be a team lead, then you'll want typical management skills (e.g. being able to resolve conflicts, give feedback well), if they are going to be managing the ID outcome of each project (basically being the lead ID that everything passes through), then they'll want good project management (e.g. delegation, checking in on timelines) and probably QA skills.

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