Opinion: How to prove your creativity during interviews

Juliet Cameron, Launch’s planning & people director, gives her top tips on proving you have the best creative ideas during the interview process.

So, you reckon you’re pretty good at coming up with ideas and consider yourself a strong creative influence in your current role? The real challenge is, demonstrating this in the interview process, which let’s face it can be quite formulaic.

At Launch our approach centres around what we call real ideas™, meaning sky high ambition of thinking, exacting delivery and brilliant people.  Real ideas are insightful, brave, progressive and defining. Most importantly, they deliver game changing results.

To deliver this we need really special people at every level. So spotting candidates that truly understand our creative cultural blend and ever-constant ambition is essential.

Here are a few pointers that work for me in the hunt for creative talent.

The anatomy of a great idea

• Demonstrate you have the intellectual ability to understand the creative process and what makes a good idea by talking through your own campaigns. Start with the insight and explain where the idea came from, why it worked and what value it delivered. Never forget that. A good idea is pretty useless if it doesn’t deliver value!
• If you get to the presentation stage this is when you can really stretch your creative muscles. But don’t hedge your bets with 20 different ideas. Show conviction and belief in your ideas. Choose a couple, or even just one, but bring it to life and route it in real insight. And sell it with passion!

No experience doesn’t mean no ideas

• If you’re a grad with no specific PR experience, take a great campaign you’ve seen recently and give an intelligent, insightful opinion on it. Or, draw from your own experience, whether during a bar job, or at the student paper and explain how you came up with a creative solution to a problem. Make it relevant, articulate it well and demonstrate lateral thinking.

Listen

• In an interview you’re going to do lots of the talking – but always listen. I start an interview giving candidates a great feel for what Launch is about and what we’re looking for. LISTEN. If I’ve told you that as the Real Ideas agency we look for ambitious thinking, then tell me about campaigns that you think are genuinely brave and progressive.

Creativity in your blood

• At Launch we talk about intellectual curiosity. That’s because to come up with brilliant real ideas again and again, you need constant inspiration as well as a hunger for knowledge and learning. The best ideas come out of a process of pure obsession (with a touch of madness.)
• Talk about what inspires you. What was the last exhibition you went to, book you read, event you took part in and how they inspired your latest content idea for a client.
• Show us how you live and breathe ideas, brands, trends and creativity. And have passion.

Flattery works

• Finally don’t forget a bit of flattery. OK, I admit it, I love it when candidates talk about one of our Launch campaigns. Do your homework and come prepared.

When it comes down to the crunch we want people who are as passionate and ambitious about ideas as we are. Show us this and we’ll want to hear more from you.

---

• Launch is currently recruiting for various roles and wants to hear more from PR community. Get in touch here.
• For further news on upcoming roles please visit Gorkana Jobs.