Our interests and talents are useful when navigating the maze of career choices.
Sporty types find themselves drawn to a career in outdoor pursuits, science buffs to engineering and bookworms to journalism or teaching.
For those who truly enjoy being creative, the opportunities are endless and that’s because inventiveness and originality are such a huge part of so many jobs.
Public relations and marketing, however, needs creativity in bucket loads.
In fact, most of the PR and marketing vacancies on s1jobs include the word creative somewhere in the job spec.
Whether it’s working as a copywriter, designer, social media executive, creative head or art director, the ability to conjure up fresh ideas and use lateral thinking is highly sought after.
Creativity is the lifeblood of PR and marketing. It’s the ‘wow’ factor in a successful public relations campaign. It’s the perfect angle in a press release pitched to catch a journalist’s eye and make headlines the next day. It’s the magnet in a topical tweet that goes viral.
Sometimes creativity is all about capturing the zeitgeist, as in the Ice Bucket Challenge.
Often it’s knowing your market and what it wants.
At other times it’s simply having the courage to take a punt on an idea.
But thinking outside of the box all day can be exhausting – and that’s where PR and marketing professionals would do well to emulate the late Steve Jobs, who said creativity is ‘connecting things’.
Jobs admitted he wasn’t much of a creative genius himself, just someone who knew how to take something that already existed and transform it into something much cooler. He could give a new twist on an old story, if you like.
In order to keep any creative mojo at its peak, collaboration is also key.
Sometimes this means bringing a new perspective to the table.
Equally it can come from aspects of our own lives. After all, creative ideas aren’t the preserve of a hip, trendy loft space – they can spring from the mundane: a coffee break conversation, a Facebook comment or even your two-year-old nephew’s refreshing and funny observations on life.
So, if you were one of those imaginative types at school, even it was only for your Blue Peter-style toilet roll and glitter space rocket, Marketing and PR could be a natural career choice.
Keep an eye on s1jobs for the perfect role to channel your creativity.