Preparing for Your Career

Instructional Psychology and Technology has been called a meta-field because it is integrated into so many other disciplines. Because of this, the careers available to IP&T students are varied. As your career goals come into focus, you should try to tailor your education and experiences to help prepare you for the kind of career you desire. This may mean that your academic preparation will look very different from another student with a different career goal. 

Here are a few resources to help you understand the kinds of careers and opportunities available to you with an IP&T degree and a couple of resources on the competencies required for some of these careers.

IP&T Related Employment

Positions in Academics 

  • The Chronicle of Higher Education - Each week hundreds of new job announcements are posted from the latest issues of The Chronicle, plus other information useful to people pursuing careers in higher education.
  • HigherEdJobs Online - The goals of Higher Ed Jobs Online are to provide the most comprehensive and searchable database of open positions in the higher education field and to provide database access to posting institutions and job hunters at no cost.

Positions in the Development Field 

  • Aquent Partners - a talent agency specializing in creative, Web, and computer/technical people who wish to work either on contract or get a regular job.
  • Clear Point Consultants - Clear Point Consultants specializes in placement of information design and delivery professionals (technical writers, trainers, course developers, instructional designers, user interface designers).

Positions in the Measurement and Evaluation Field 


Positions in the Research Field 

American Educational Research Association Position Announcements - list of job openings in educational research is provided to the education community as a service of the AERA. All of these positions were first announced on the AERA LISTSERV and then archived here.

General Employment Sites

  • America's Job Bank - the AJB is a partnership between the US Department of Labor and state operated public Employment Services. It offers two levels of FREE service to all Job Seekers. The basic level is the ability to conduct a search for possible job openings. The higher level allows a job seeker to create and submit a resume to the system, and conduct and save customized job searches. You must register through your home state to gain access to the higher level of service.
  • Career Mosaic - offers job seekers comprehensive resources for finding a job online while providing companies with a way to reach an expanding market of highly qualified job candidates.
  • CareerBuilder.com - features include the opportunity to save a job search, to create a resume online, and read headline news, tips and other information about getting a great job and important employment trends. The listings come from two sources: they're pulled from the Help Wanted ads of the nation's leading newspapers, and from the websites of leading employers.
  • CareerWEB - organizes listings by country and regions, as well as category. Provides section for resume posting.
  • Monster Board - global online network for careers. Features include resume management, a personal job search agent, a careers network, chats and message boards, privacy options, expert advice on job-seeking and career management and free newsletters.
  • National Association of Colleges and Employers JobWeb - the NACE serves as a source of information on career planning and employment for the college-educated work force.

Compilations and Career Guides

  • Career Development Center The mission of the Career Development Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is to be a team that helps students to take charge and manage their personal career development. It strives to facilitate self awareness, skill development, and the job search process by delivering outstanding services to students, employers, and faculty.
  • JobHunt - JobHunt is a meta-list of online job-search resources and services.
  • Job Search Guides - materials prepared by the University of Virginia Office of Career Planning and Placement.
  • U.S. News - Find Your Career Outlook - geared for graduate students, this site provides growth areas and salaries for in-demand jobs in 20 different fields, providing snapshot of salaries, trends and resources.

Cost of Living

  • Salary Relocation Calculator - Salary information is impacted by a number of considerations. The region of country, the kind of field, the company, supply and demand, etc. To see how cost of living is affected by where you live, check this calculator.
  • Salary and Cost of Living Information - The cost-of-living data presented here is designed to enable employers, employees, relocation firms, and others to compare cost-of-living differences accurately between different areas and to make the adjustments required to negotiate mutually acceptable compensation match-ups. In sharp contrast to comparative cost-of-living data based exclusively on costs of goods and services (food, clothing, shelter, utilities, transportation, health care and other miscellaneous items), the data presented here incorporates a vital additional cost-of-living element: taxes.

Salaries

  • JobStar - general and profession-specific surveys.
  • Occupational Outlook Handbook - online version from the Bureau of Labor Statistics; earnings is given for each of 250 occupations in addition to training, outlook, work setting, and related occupations.