Creative Talents: A MUST for PR & Creative Agencies

As recruiters, our mission is to build relationships with the best and greatest talent in the industry. Our mission is also to build relationship with our clients, understand their needs and match them with the best talent possible. There is only one problem and it usually is not the talent — It’s time (or lack of it). Our internal or external clients usually come to us at the 11th hour and want the perfect candidate yesterday.

Our clients usually come to us at the 11th hour. They want the perfect candidate and they want it yesterday.

Each industry has its own unique challenges and needs. But creative and PR agencies do stand out. They really do need the creative talents.

The new report published by Holme’s Report investigates whether the PR industry is capable of attracting the right creative talent, and why they might struggle to keep and to develop them. Among many, the report discusses the types and duties of the talent needed.

When asked, what type of talents does the PR business need, the responses were strategists (55%) and creative and art directors (52%).

When asked, what type of talents does their business need, the responses were strategists (55%) and creative and art directors (52%).

When asked, what are the duties of such individuals, the responses were: campaign ideas, new business, design and branding and talent and training.

When asked, what are the duties of such individuals, the responses were: campaign ideas, new business, design and branding and talent and training.

Talent is one thing that PR and creative agencies cannot take for granted. They are looking for disciplined and yet, a bit crazy talents. They want creative employees.

PR and creative agencies need creative employees.

Creativity continues to attract an increasing premium when it comes to agency hiring decisions. The agencies’ clients rate it at 8.6 out of 10, with 65% rating it 9 or higher. Interestingly, agencies see it slightly differently: When asked how important creativity is to their clients’ hiring decisions, they rank it as 7.19 out of 10. So, not only the agencies need creative employees, their customers demand it as well.

Time is always of an essence for the creative agencies. In most cases, the new talent is immediately put to work in a new campaign or project. As recruiters, how can we not sacrifice value to gain more time?

As recruiters, how can we not sacrifice value to gain more time?

This is where technology can help. Most recruiters and talent agencies do use some sort of applicant tracking system. They also do know how to test for some basic hard-skills and abilities. But let’s take this a step further. Personalities and soft-skills such as your creative abilities do matter.

Your personality matters.

As creative director, being bold and imaginative is important. Being also ambition and hands-on matters. Such attributes can be measured using various personality assessment such as Hogan Personality Inventory, Hogan Development Survey, CEB and CPP.

I highly recommend to all recruiters to at least get familiar and suggest them to their clients and hiring managers.

Your creative abilities matter.

This is no surprise. Creative directors must be creative. 17% of PR agency respondents note that clients are demanding greater levels of creativity from them but, worryingly, almost 20% see this moving in the opposite direction. Overall agencies ranked rising creative demands as 3.43 on a scale of 5, pointing to a general positive trend. Unfortunately, most firms don’t believe they have the necessary creative qualities.

How do you measure one’s creative abilities?

How do you measure one’s creative abilities? A company called SparcIt purely focuses on non-cognitive assessment with a niche focus on creative-thinking abilities. SparcIt uses a new tactic of measuring one’s creative abilities based on four sub-dimensions: Originality, Flexibility, Fluency and Elaboration. Originality focuses on how novel your ideas and solutions are. Flexibility is the ability to change your perspective or see situations from multiple perspective. Fluency is the ability to generate multiple solutions. Last but not least, Elaboration is the ability to provide intriguing details.

As you have seen, the creative abilities of the candidates is of utmost importance. Having said that, most recruiters are simply looking at the resume and the past work. Although, those are important qualities, we can look further and technology can help. With the help of technology, we do not have to sacrifice value over time. We can gauge the candidate’s creative abilities and provide it as a selection criteria.

References:

The Holmes Report: Creativity in PR Global Study 2016

About SparcIt: SparcIt is a technology company with a focus on combining psychological constructs with large-scale semantics analytics. Our flagship product is our well-researched and well-known SparcIt’s Creative Thinking assessment. Unlike traditional assessments, SparcIt’s unique feature is in the use of open-ended exercises and automated scoring. Using a Watson-like engine, SparcIt’s patent-pending engine, accurately and efficiently grades the participants’ responses and provides a detailed report to the participants and the test administrators. Hence, it eliminates the major factors for not using such assessments.

SparcIt’s Creative Thinking assessment is fun, fast, automated, affordable and scalable.