Make Your Company More Creative - 5 Reasons to Hire Arts Grads

Does your company have enough creative employees?

Unless it’s built around a creative discipline — architecture or graphic design, for instance — the answer is very likely “no.”

Make Your Company More Creative - 5 Reasons to Hire Arts Grads: eAskme

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That should change sooner rather than later. Here’s why you need to hire more arts grads.

1. They Tend to Have Exceptional Problem-Solving Skills

If your hiring process already incorporates problem-solving skills evaluations, you can begin testing this proposition at any time.

What you’ll find, in all likelihood, is that creative applicants are extremely good at problem-solving.

In many cases, they blow their “quant” counterparts out of the water.

Why creatives are so good at problem-solving is a conversation for another day.

What matters to your organization, right now, is that you need more of these pros on your team.

2. They Work Well in Groups

Creativity isn’t always collaborative, but collaboration is infused into the degree and certificate programs that creatives typically select.

(see these examples from the Centre for Arts & Technology, a digital arts school based in British Columbia.) Indeed, these programs are as much about gaining and refining specialized skills and credentials as learning to work in multidisciplinary teams — a competency, not coincidentally, that’s increasingly prized by competitive employers.

3. Their Breadth of Experience Is Second to None

Creative professionals’ CVs are very often more interesting than their more highly specialized, quantitatively focused counterparts.

Plenty of creative grads are on their second careers; after working in a field they didn’t really like for some time, they’ve decided to go back to school and pursue their passion.

While they’re doing what they love now, you can bet that they’ll bring the insight gleaned from years of past-life experience to bear at your organization.

4. They’re Specialized, But Not Too Specialized

By the same token, creative professionals are more likely to have that “Goldilocks” level of specialization that top service-sector employers prize these days.

Yes, they have degrees or certificates in specific creative disciplines, like animation or sound editing.

But they also have a wealth of cross-disciplinary coursework under their belt; many arts-based degree programs, after all, require a full year or two of general prerequisites designed precisely for this purpose.

In short, your creative hires aren’t simply good for whatever their degree says they’re good for. They’re all-purpose, or nearly so.

5. They’re Willing to See Other Points of View

With extensive experience comes extensive reflection. At least, that tends to be the case with arts grads, for whom every interaction is a chance to see the world from the counter party’s point of view.

This “soft skill” comes in handy in adversarial negotiations, inter- and intra-organizational partnerships, and day-to-day work as well.

Where’s Your Next Hire Coming From?

You don’t need to radically revamp your hiring process to recognize what’s already plain to so many corporate decision-makers: that your company needs the creative class’s unique mix of talent and insight.

All you need to do is tweak a sentence or two in your job postings, perhaps, and make clear during the screening phase that you’re serious about hiring creative professionals.

You can begin opening your company to creative professionals today, if you so wish.

What’s holding you back, anyway?

If you have any question, Feel free to ask via comments.

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