Staying creative in the workplace can be challenging, even if you work in a creative environment all day long. I was recently asked in a marketing meeting what websites, books or blogs I read for inspiration and creativity and my list wasn’t that long, in fact it was downright pathetic. I never made time for surfing the web to view other designer’s work or reading design blogs mainly because I felt I couldn’t give myself permission to take the time away from my daily job duties. So I challenged myself to find interesting design websites, blogs and articles to view or read several days a week, such as Pinterest.  Once I gave myself that permission, I opened myself up to a whole new world of creativity, excitement and a fresh perspective on ways I can be more creative.

The article “5 Ways to Ignite Creativity” by guest author, TJ Philpott states, “In order to promote our own ability for thinking outside the box and spawn the creativity we seek within ourselves deliberate measures sometimes need be taken”. One of his suggestions is to separate yourself from the work environment which is usually a very structured environment with triggers that limits one’s ability to create and causes one to focus more on the issues and functions of that environment. Our marketing department is following this suggestion. We have decided that each month we will focus on a new creative medium and choose a day to do a mini field trip to explore that medium. For instance, March is Interior Design, April is Television & Movies and June is Culinary. The idea being that exploring different forms of creativity and getting “away from our work environment” will open our minds to be more creative in what we do on a daily basis.

So what do you do if you don’t work in an extremely creative field or department? What if your job is more technical? How do you stay fresh, come up with new ideas and think outside of the box? I collaborated with Brightwing Recruiter Angela Crooker to get her perspective on staying creative in the recruiting field.

Being a Recruiter is more of a technical job but you can also be very creative! When you are looking for candidates for a position, sometimes you have to get creative.

Bianca Male, in the article “10 Creative Recruiting Strategies to Hire Great People”, states “…many companies are embracing creative recruiting.”  Recruiters these days have to think outside of this box. Some of the ideas that this article suggests are some Angela uses every day, like utilizing obscure social networks. Angela also likes to meet with candidates after work hours in a group setting to discuss things such as resume and cover letter building. This brings her a lot of referrals.

By staying creative in your career, you will have greater success. Being creative doesn’t always mean painting a picture or sculpting something, it’s as simple as the dictionary describes it – the ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns, relationships, or the like, and to create meaningful new ideas, forms, methods and interpretations. This can mean just thinking outside of the box, making use of creative thoughts and problem-solving like Angela does when looking for new ways to find candidates. Something as simple as day dreaming is considered to be a constructive way to help foster new ideas and to open your mind to creative thinking. So anyone at any type of job can find a moment to step away from their usual setting to do something that will open themselves up to more creativity.

Authors: Carol KoskynAngela Crooker