Issue 10 - Rethinking Learning Styles and Understanding Rejection

Hey friends. I'm excited to share this October issue with you because it covers a topic I've been thinking about for most of the year, and I'm ready to start discussing it more widely. In this issue, I hope to convince you that there’s a better way to think about the delivery methods you use when creating educational content.

I also want to share with you some reasons why perfectly qualified candidates don't get the job. I've done a fair amount of research this month, which took some extra time, so this month's newsletter will only have two articles instead of the usual three.

Let's jump in!

Rethinking Delivery Methods

A refrain I hear from learners and educators is that "people have different learning styles." It's something educators were taught when they went to school for teaching, and they then began diagnosing their students with these learning styles, and it's stuck around. Unfortunately, many people who move into teaching choose the delivery method that matches their learning style. If they like videos, they make videos. It's an extension of the software developer's belief that "I have this problem, so others must have it too."

The problem is that learning styles aren't backed up by research. They're considered to be a complete and total myth at this point. The Visual, Aural, Read/Write, and Kinesthetic (VARK) styles most people are familiar with, either from education training or from discussions with guidance counselors, don't hold up. Hundreds of studies failed to conclude that there's any evidence to support learning styles.

One term that's come out of this is that people have learning preferences, but when studied, people who prefer one mode over another, or have self-identified a style, find they don't perform as well as they thought.

It turns out that personal bias is a blocker to learning. If you are told at an early age that you learn a certain way, then there's a good chance you'll reinforce that by avoiding learning things differently. But despite those uncomfortable periods where you have to read a book instead of watching a video, you'll find you're still able to learn what you need to learn.

I've been thinking about this more and more as I teach various subjects and study learners' reactions, and I've developed my own hypothesis: It's more likely that the subject determines the appropriate delivery method. 

If you're learning to code, you might encounter a lot of video courses right now. Most video content around coding is a recreation of the college lecture. Watch the instructor code, then try to do it yourself. 

But writing code involves reading and writing. A written set of instructions lets learners see the code, copy it, and, more importantly, review it later through searching. And the more familiar your learners are with the concept, the more they want to be able to get to the good stuff and see the code. Written tutorials and guides might be more appropriate for this subject.

But what about something more visual, like learning to use Figma to create mockups? Since the thing you're teaching is visual, it makes sense for the learning materials to be visual. Videos will be great for helping people understand how to use the user interface. 

There's already a precedent for using delivery methods that match the subject matter. If you're in a literature class, you're going to read. If you're in a math class, you'll write math problems. In geography, you'll study maps. 

You might be wondering, then, how come so much video content exists? Be careful to distinguish the number of purchases or the traffic numbers from successful learner outcomes. You can't assess learning by the number of visits to a site, the number of books sold, or the views or likes on a video. A popular content creator with a crafted brand may also contribute to those sales numbers, but again, there needs to be a direct line to how effective it is. I've seen high video traffic, but the watch duration is short on further inspection. Be sure you're measuring the right thing. 

And be sure you're making fair comparisons. The content creator who creates video content about visual media is in a different subject area than someone who talks while typing code.

There's a place for entertaining content that's educational, but if your goal is to help people gain new skills, think about how you can create content that matches the subject matter. And don't be afraid to mix it up. All subjects have components that align with visual, aural, and kinesthetic activities. 

If you're doing a course on software development, you can use videos to illustrate concepts, provide walkthroughs of solutions, and more. For example, I routinely used videos to provide direct feedback to my students as I walked them through a codebase. I even used videos when I graded assignments to show individual students where they went wrong. 

Think carefully the next time you're going to create some learning content. Ask what you're expecting out of your learners, and then think about the teaching and delivery methods you'll apply. 

Why Qualified People Don't Land the Job

When you've gone through seven rounds of interviews and find out you weren't selected, you will wonder where you went wrong. And most companies will only be able to give you detailed feedback due to time constraints, a corporate policy, or just the fact that they worry you'll spend their time arguing with them after they've already decided you're a no.

I've reviewed hundreds of résumés for many roles as a hiring manager, interviewed many candidates for many positions, and sat in the debriefs where we make the decisions. And honestly, if you made it to the last round, the reason you didn't get hired is most likely not anything you did wrong. But let's go over some of the most likely reasons you weren't selected.

You haven't worked at the scale or level you're shooting for.

This one is for people looking to go into leadership roles. A person who's managed a small team now going for a director-level position, or a team lead who wants to move into engineering management is likely to run into this scenario. The candidate has the right drive, personality, and skills, and could do the job, but the manager is nervous that the candidate hasn't done the job at this scale. And someone else in the candidate pool already has this role at another company. They go with the other candidate because it's less risky.

The hiring manager needs a specific type of experience right now.

You may be a great software developer, but you're a little rusty on the language the team needs right now. Another finalist is also a great software developer who has focused on that language more recently. You'd have the job if that other person didn't apply, but since they did, they're getting the job.

This also applies to those situations where you have a résumé that meets all the requirements, and you have experience that is directly applicable to the role, but you didn't get a call. There were just too many other candidates that were a closer fit, and the company had to limit the number of people they brought to panel interviews. 

This is unfortunate, but every role I've hired for has had over 200 applicants. I always start by making cuts to shrink the list, and unfortunately, some talented people don't make it through because there were others with more relevant experience in the pool. After all, that manager is responsible for meeting business goals, and the role is open to hire someone to help meet those goals. Hiring someone who doesn't have the skills to meet that goal puts everyone in a bad place, especially if more aligned candidates exist.

There was a personality clash.

You might have all the skills needed, but in this competitive market, it's not enough to be able to have all the skills. You have to convince the interviewers that they want to work with you, and part of that is showing that you and the interviewers have compatible personalities. Some teams are extroverted, and an introverted person might not make the cut. But I've also seen the opposite: an extremely outgoing and vibrant candidate came across too strongly for the rest of the team. 

It's dangerous for managers to focus too much on personality and "fit" because they can end up with teams that are too much alike, but this does happen, and it's not something you should try to fix on your end. The extroverted candidate I just mentioned ended up at a great company on a team that matched their personality and has done quite well for themselves. They found a place where their personality worked with the rest of the team.

There was a ringer

Some companies will make internal roles public. For example, a person wanting to move from an individual contributor into a management role may have to apply for the position alongside external candidates. If there's an internal candidate, especially one who's been doing the job for a while and already has great relationships at the organization, that's a tough hill to climb. If you don't land the role, there's really nothing else you could have done.

If you've gotten to the end of the process and don't get the job, it's rarely anything you did. In fact, when you look at all of the examples here, you'll see a lot of overlap, so don't agonize over how you can fix it next time. When the recruiter tells you they went with a different candidate who was a stronger fit, they're probably telling you the truth.

On to the next interview!

Parting Thoughts

That's it for this month. As always, I leave you with these things to think about.

1. What's your self-described learning preference, and how did you become aware of it?

2. Have you ever felt that your preference stopped you from using a different delivery method when consuming content? For example, if you like books, have you actively avoided using a video-based course instead?

3. Do you tend to favor your own learning preference when creating learning materials?

4. If you've been part of an interview panel before, what were some reasons your team turned down candidates at the final stage?

5. What's your company's policy on providing candidate feedback?

Once again, thanks for reading. See you next month! And if you’re getting value out of this newsletter, please share it with friends and colleagues to help spread the word.

Until next time…

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