The Candidates You’re Looking For Are Creatives

In the wake of The Great Resignation, companies are struggling to find candidates for their open positions. Plenty of people are hungry for upward mobility and a chance to prove themselves, but they’re being filtered out of the applicant pool based on algorithms, not unique experience or skills. 

Click “Apply” on most job postings and you will be taken to Workday, ICIMS, or other automated portals. Upload your resume and cover letter, hit submit, and wait for a call that never comes. Why? Because that portal has scanned your resume for the only thing it understands: the exact terms listed on the job description.

Sometime in the last 10 or 15 years, HR standardized the use of AI software and Applicant Tracking Systems to filter candidates. In the words of ZipRecruiter CEO Ian Siegel: “The only job your resume has, is to be comprehensible to the software or robot that is reading it, because that software or robot is gonna decide whether or not a human ever gets their eyes on it.” 

So, the hours of ingenuity and craft a designer put into their resume’s design? Immaterial. The audio samples included as appendices for an application to a studio manager role? Unless the resume is loaded with the “right” buzzwords and job titles for the position, the AI couldn’t care less. 

Trying to get your foot in the door? Even an administrative assistant role at an LA media company presumes no one without four years of executive assisting experience could adequately use Microsoft Office or manage a calendar. 

HR has outsourced the most imaginative, discerning, human part of their job to robots. But imagine a world where HR and talent recruiters put their glorious, pre-frontal cortexes to work and took a single step outside the box. They might come to the same conclusion I did: the candidates they’re looking for aren’t traditional, they’re creatives. 

Scrappy, resourceful, and generative, creatives are a massive untapped pool of hidden talent in today’s economy. Their “formal” experiences may look pitiful to a machine, but their portfolios and capabilities are robust. 

You want someone who works well on a team? A stellar collaborator who thrives in a brainstorming session? You’re looking for a creative. Film? A music tour? Hundreds of collaborators. A book? At minimum an intimate collaboration between author and editor. The arts are a team sport, and the work is the real MVP. Everything is in service to the work because the work is what people remember. 

Whether they went through formal training or not, all creators have experience exchanging meaningful feedback. They know how to give and take critique about their art—their souls! The stakes of an interoffice memo or functional presentation pale in comparison. Creatives who successfully synthesize that feedback, develop incredible bedside manner for delivering their own critiques. They know the sting of thoughtless judgment.

Most creatives produce their work in whatever time they have left after their bill-paying servitude is finished. They’re managing all the timelines and tasks at their day jobs and then completely owning and managing the timelines and tasks for their own creative work. Despite financial insecurity, limited resources, and cultural apathy towards their efforts, creatives persevere, creating the music, podcasts, videos, and novels you consume to refill your own cup. They have synthesized their most turbulent experiences into a product you get to enjoy forever. You may need to reign them in sometimes, but when given a deadline, they can reverse-engineer and deliver against all odds.

Every company is looking for candidates who can generate meaningful deliverables and results. Do you know what creatives are really good at? Ideating. Generating. Most of them are coming up with ideas from nothing and turning those into fully-formed somethings without anyone paying them. Imagine what they could do with a budget. If you want a yes-man, you should pick the candidate with all the traditional resume building blocks and no gaps. But if you want someone to push your organization forward, someone to take your projects from idea to completed deliverable, you’re looking for a creative. 

Creatives are outsiders who challenge, and question, and follow curiosity. If you want to position your company at the future of work, you’re going to need that innovative spirit. New perspectives pave the way for innovation. And so far, robots are still unable to pick those perspectives out of a crowd.