So far, you’ve identified your creative strengths and weaknesses, discovered ways to nurture and develop your creative skills, and explored a range of practical techniques to help you problem-solve at work. But how do you demonstrate your creativity before you get the job?
Employers use a range of methods to gauge your creativity in job applications and during interviews. When recruiting, employers want to get a sense of your personality, hard and soft skills, and how you apply them in the working world.
This focus on skills and how to gauge them accurately has led to creative ways to assess new employees. So, let’s explore what they’re looking for and, more importantly, how to respond during interviews.
Promote Your Skills More Powerfully
There’s a well-known saying in the creative writing world that helps writers draw more creativity from a scene. That saying is show don’t tell.
Showing engages readers more experientially. It helps them build a convincing picture and shows how well the writer understands what they’re writing about. Telling means you’re merely making a statement. No evidence supports what you’re saying, no way of convincing the person reading that it’s true.
It’s the same when you’re asked about your skills on a job application, resume, or in a job interview. Use experiences to communicate your skills, rather than simply stating them. For example:
Tell: "I’m creative."
Becomes:
Show: "After talking with the client, I brainstormed five initial app designs based on their needs. Their favorite had all the functionality they were looking for, but when designing it, I also found a solution to a key e-commerce problem they’d been experiencing, which they happily also decided to adopt."
Decipher Non-Standard Interview Questions
How do you get an elephant in a fridge?*
How would you answer that interview question? Think about it and write down your answer. It’s a good example of the kind of weird question an employer may ask you.
This question focuses on your ability to think creatively. It’s infinitely more interesting than the more conventional, “What’s the greatest challenge you’ve overcome,” even though both attempt to uncover the same thing.
Employers ask weird questions to test your reasoning skills, assess your soft skills, throw you off guard, and get you to reveal more about yourself than you would for standard interview questions.
Remember these four key skills when you’re asked a strange question:
Creative thinking.
Problem-solving.
Works well under pressure.
Analytical skills.
Decide which one you think the question is about before formulating your answer. Whether you’re interviewing for a job as a data analyst, AI engineer, career coach, or digital project manager, employers want to see how well-developed these skills are in addition to the hard skills you’ve gained through education or experience.
Curate Your Dream Job
If you could choose your employer and role, where would you be working right now? Knowing where you want to be is the best starting point for making it happen. But don’t wait for a job to appear. Here are a few creative ways to take control of your career development:
Focus on the company, not the role. Find companies whose values, culture, and career opportunities align with yours. Think outside the box. Maybe your ideal job is in a completely different industry to the one you currently work in. Contact them speculatively. They might not have the role you want now, but you’ll be on their radar for future openings.
Get on top of industry trends. What’s happening in your industry and others? Which companies are growing and may need staff? Do you need to upskill? Source courses and workshops to develop your skills.
Build the right relationships. According to a LinkedIn survey, 85% of jobs are filled through networking. So, make contact with influencers or thought leaders. Attend industry and non-industry events and make yourself known. Ask people you admire for informal advice.
Take Action
Make a list of all the companies you’d love to work for or entrepreneurs/individuals/thought leaders who inspire you. Write out questions you could ask them and contact at least one person on your list.
Be Creative With Your Prep
You’ve visited the company’s website to find out more about its background, structure, ambitions, values, and culture. You also checked out its competitors, and read industry publications for trends that could affect the way the company does business. But how can you use this research in your interview to demonstrate your creativity?
Spot potential problems. Whatever job you’re interviewing for, try to pinpoint potential issues related to the work you’ll be doing. These can be problems the company is facing, industry problems, or the specific issues you’ve previously faced in a similar role. Whether you’re working with a product, service, or process, is there a way to do it better, more efficiently, or to solve a current problem?
Offer solutions. Arrive armed with possible solutions to these problems. Make sure you frame your solutions appropriately: acknowledge what you think they’re doing well first, followed by your ideas for improvement.
Demonstrate your understanding of the creative process. When discussing ideas you’ve had in the past, state the problem, where you got the idea, how you decided it was worth pursuing, why it worked (and if it didn’t, what you learned!), and what value it delivered.
Suggest future ideas. What is the company hoping to achieve in the future? Project yourself into the role you’re interviewing for. What ideas can you offer that fits their vision?
Talk about what inspires you and how you apply it. What has this company done in the past to inspire you? And what inspiration might you have found on an industry level? Sometimes even a book, film, or newspaper article can spark ideas. How have you channeled this inspiration? Take this idea further by reflecting on how it inspired you to solve a client’s problem or find a new process at work. Talking about your inspiration shows passion, explaining how you use this inspiration to solve a specific task shows creativity!
Respond Creatively to Standard Questions
It’s easy to give standard answers to standard questions. But if you’re one of 10 people being interviewed for a role, how will you stand out?
Let’s take a look at five common standard interview questions, what the employer wants to know and how to respond creatively:
Can You Tell Me a Little About Yourself?
The employer wants to know: Why you’re a good fit for the job.
How to answer: Answer this question in terms of the skills and experience you need for the job. Think about some common ground between the hobbies and interests you enjoy and the role you’re being interviewed for. How have you applied these skills to your job?
Why Do You Want to Work for Us?
The employer wants to know: Your motivation for applying and if you’ve done any research.
How to answer: Flip the question and focus on what the company needs for the role you’re applying for, not what you want. Use this to frame your answer.
What Are Your Weaknesses?
The employer wants to know: If you’re aware of your weaknesses and whether you have strategies in place to deal with them.
How to answer: Pinpoint an idea you had where you either faced some challenge or found you were unable to complete a task. What were you lacking? What did you learn? How would you do it differently in the future?
What Are Your Strengths?
The employer wants to now: How your skills and experience match the role.
How to answer: We’re usually more aware of our strengths than our weaknesses. So, take your answer further by making it clear how your current employer has benefitted from your strengths.
What’s Your Dream Job?
The employer wants to know: Whether you’ve thought logically about the steps you need to achieve your career goal.
How to answer: Focus on your current skills, the skills you want to develop, the ideas that motivate you, and your values. Frame all of these so they align with the job you’re applying for.
Complete Your Creativity Journal
Do: Write your skills down as a list of statements (for example, “I’m a confident speaker, I can prioritize my work, I’m trustworthy, I work well in a team.”). Remember, this is telling.
Reflect: Now, think back to an experience when you displayed this skill. Make brief notes about the experience. This is showing.
Let’s Recap!
Use experiences to show employers your skills.
Employers often use unexpected questions to assess your creative thinking, how well you work under pressure, problem-solving, or analytical skills.
Use creative questioning during interviews to discover less obvious information about the role or company.
Now that you’ve explored how to apply creative thinking to job applications and interviews, you’re ready to design your personal creativity toolkit.
