Creativity is a skill and it can be practised

Because “creativity remains one of the uniquely valuable human skills” for employers, if you're one of the many graduates whose CV doesn’t showcase and highlight your own valuable creativity skills alongside all your other skills, then Graduate Creativity Circles is here to offer you a range of solutions to help you to practice, develop and master your creativity skills and creative ability using the latest neuroscience and world-class creativity tools and techniques.

Which means that you will then be able to add these valuable new creativity skills to your current CV together with specific examples of how you've developed and used them both inside and outside your work so that you can differentiate yourself from other graduates in the competitive graduate employment marketplace to help you to get the job you want.

You will also be able to apply your new creativity skills and ability to use world-class creativity tools and techniques to the practical business of getting hired: what you say, when and to who (because the right words at the right time to the right person makes all the difference); how you evidence what you say including highlighting and showcasing your creative skills and ability; and what you do to get an interview and get hired.

Listen, Artificial Intelligence can automate a great many tasks but creativity, curiosity, imagination, innovation and human-centred problem-solving are not among them. They remain essential human skills that technology cannot fully replace and these skills are what will continue to drive innovation and progress. As MIT's Professor Ed Boyden said recently about the complexities of AI recreating a human brain "We know very little about the circuitry of a brain frankly. There is one worm that has 302 neurons where the wiring has been mapped out very well." The human brain has billions of neurons.

And if you're in any doubt about AI not currently being able to automate uniquely valuable human skills in the workplace, then you simply have to read all the job adverts of the world's leading AI companies and the specified tasks they require of the successful candidates. They make for very interesting reading because when viewed all together they create a list of valuable human workplace tasks and skills that AI agents have yet to master.

Further more, it is a person’s capacity to generate creative new ideas that didn't previously exist and to creatively solve problems in new and novel ways that is central to all aspects of innovation and progress. The obstacle to training AI to do this currently is because high-quality brain scan data is still scarce.

It turns out that the part of the brain that is most active when people are discovering novel solutions to problems, the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, is the same brain area that is most active when people are imagining things that don't exist. When people are imagining things that do already exist, this region of the brain stays inactive.

That is the reason creativity will go on being one of the most valuable skills in the job market, and the reason why it is worth you being able to evidence these skills rather than merely make claims. And this is the reason why highlighting, showcasing and demonstrating this to employers can set you apart from other graduates when applying for jobs.

It's important at this point to shine a spotlight on my own personal CV and to show you how I've very carefully chosen 31 specific examples that perfectly highlight and showcase how I’ve developed and used my creativity as a valuable skill both inside and outside work.

That's why on the home page you can click through to the thirty-one examples I've chosen from my CV that highlight and showcase how I developed and used my creativity both in my work and in my personal life. And if you want to save time going back to the home page, I've copied and pasted the click through buttons below on this page as well so that you can easily read these examples now as you go along on this page.

And by working with me in all 6 of the Graduate Creativity Circles outlined below you will be able practice, develop and master your creativity skills and creative ability using the latest neuroscience and world-class creativity tools and techniques. And then use and apply these new creativity skills both online and offline to get the job you want.

The neuroscience of creativity

Despite advances in the neuroscience of creativity before January 6th 2019, scientists lacked clarity on whether a specific neural brain architecture distinguished the highly creative brain.

The good news is that by using the most modern methods in network neuroscience and brain imaging analysis, a team of neuroscience researchers in 2018 was able to model individual creative thinking ability and identify a brain network associated with creative ability. It was comprised of regions within the brain's default, salience, and executive systems—neural brain circuits that often work in opposition.

However, that's not all. They also showed that a person’s capacity to generate original ideas can be reliably predicted from the strength of the functional connectivity within this network, indicating that creative thinking ability is characterized by a distinct brain connectivity profile.

And the most important factor is that this specifically suggests why highly creative people are characterized by the ability to simultaneously engage these large-scale brain networks.

In a nutshell, this means that we now know the specific neural circuits to target within the default, salience, and executive brain systems in order to develop and master creativity skills and ability.

And because neuroscience firmly established and named neuroplasticity in the 1960s/1970s (via electron microscopy showing the adult brain’s anatomical reorganization of the brain), the prevailing mindset that the adult brain was completely fixed, was changed forever.

And so for you this means that you can learn how to develop and creatively apply these core areas of neuroscience to the Six Graduate Creativity Circles and the job search itself.

How Six Graduate Creativity Circles help you develop and master your creative ability that you can highlight, showcase and demonstrate to employers

Graduate Creativity Circles are for UK graduates who want to overcome the obstacles standing between them and the job they want. It offers a range of ways to practise and master creativity using the latest neuroscience, and then to apply that skill to the job search itself. For maximum flexibility we work together online so that you can learn world-class creativity models, tools and techniques through the development of your own unique set of 6 Graduate Creativity Circles each with its own purpose as follows:

• Graduate Creativity Circle # 1 - WHY? Because one of the 6 keys to getting the right graduate job is finding the root cause of why you've not been getting the result that you want so far, you will be trained to use The 5 Whys Method to discover this root cause and then use the results to overcome the obstacles identified. This is a creative and very effective world-class problem-solving technique that has been used thousands of times to find the root cause of an issue.

  You do this by creating your own unique set of 5 WHY? circles and then asking and answering "Why?" five times in a row. Because you will be discovering new and novel answers in each of your 5 WHY? circles, you will be using the creative part of the brain called the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, which is also the same brain area that is most active when people are being creative and imagining things that don't exist.

  And we don't stop there, because you will also be using this creative part of the brain when you use The 5 Whys Method to you ask yourself "the root cause" of your motivation as to why you've chosen the specific jobs to apply for so far.

  And just like the people I've worked with, you may well be surprised at the 5 answers you come up with in both of these creative exercises.

  In addition, there’s a proven Japanese concept and exercise called IKIGAI that you will be trained to use that can help you find your professional purpose and bring more clarity to your career and job choices.

  So put yourself in this picture... WHAT IF? you find out that your motivation won't get you a job that meets all of your current and future needs, we can then work together creatively and with curiosity and compassion to discover the jobs that will. I've done this hundreds of times with job applicants and potential employees using The 3M Method™ since I developed it as part of my research.

  Let me clarify… By getting clear about your own WHY? and then being clear about the WHY? of an employer you can can make sure that you're focussing on jobs and careers that meet the WHY? of your own current and future needs and those of an employer.

  What does this mean for you? You will apply the results creatively to the practical business of getting hired: what you say, when and to who (because the right words at the right time to the right person makes all the difference); how you evidence what you say including highlighting and showcasing your creative skills and ability; and what you do to get an interview and get hired.

  And, WHAT IF? one of the root causes of why you've not been getting the result that you want so far is that you need to be better at interviews? That's not a problem as we can work together creatively and with curiosity and compassion to remove any obstacles that we identify (including any fears, worries and anxieties) and replace them with the knowledge and skills you need to perform well at interviews. I've done hundreds of interviews with job applicants and potential employees and can share all my expertise and insights with you so that you know how to perform well at interviews.

  (Click on the button below to see the examples highlighting how I used my creativity in my Recruitment & Training work).

  Examples highlighting how I used my creativity in my Recruitment & Training work

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• Graduate Creativity Circle #2 - WHO? Because one of the 6 keys to unlocking a graduate job is who you know, we start off this Graduate Creativity Circle by working together with curiosity using the dynamics of the world-class model of 6 degrees of separation so that you can create your own unique 'WHO? map' in the form of 6 concentric WHO? circles. Every time I do this with someone they are amazed and blown away by the extent of their own personal WHO? map. In addition, you will then ask 3 further WHO? questions to help you to create your own unique 'WHO? Action Plan'.

  Because you will be discovering your own new novel and unique 'WHO? map' in each of your 6 concentric WHO? circles and then creating your own new personalised 'WHO? Action Plan', you will be using and exercising the creative part of the brain, the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex. This is the brain area that is most active when you are being creative and imagining things that don't yet exist.

  You will then learn how to be effective at online and offline networking and how to creatively apply the results to the practical business of getting hired: what you say, when and to who (because the right words at the right time to the right person makes all the difference); how you evidence what you say including highlighting and showcasing your creative ability; and what you do to get an interview and get hired.

• Graduate Creativity Circle #3 - WHAT? In this third creativity circle you will discover what to practise to develop and master creativity deliberately in a continuous improvement circle, rather than treating it as a fixed trait you either have or do not. One of the key techniques you will be using in this continuous improvement process is the Deming Cycle, a world-class iterative, four-step management method used for the continuous control and improvement of processes.

  And specifically you will have many other world-class practice exercises, incorporating the lastest neuroscience, that develop the functional connectivity within the brain network associated with creative ability that's comprised of regions within the brain's default, salience, and executive systems—neural brain circuits that often work in opposition.

  Importantly, you will then ask and answer a series of fascinating WHAT? questions to help you to create your own unique 'WHAT? Continuous Improvement Circle'. You will learn how to creatively apply the results to the practical business of getting hired: what you say, when and to who (because the right words at the right time to the right person makes all the difference); how you evidence what you say including highlighting and showcasing your creative skills and ability; and what you do to get an interview and get hired.

• Graduate Creativity Circle #4 - HOW? In this fourth circle you will find out how to use The 3M Method™ yourself to help you to develop and master your own creativity and creative ability. I developed my innovative 'The 3M Method™' in my research as a Senior University Research Fellow specifically for this purpose. And I've used it creatively over the last 25 years to train hundreds of people from apprentice to masters level (click on the buttons below to see the examples highlighting how I used my creativity to develop and use The 3M Method™ in my research and then develop and use it in my Recruitment & Training work for 16 years).

  Examples highlighting how I used my creativity to develop and use The 3M Method™ in my Senior University Research Fellow work

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  Examples highlighting how I used my creativity to develop and use The 3M Method™ in my Recruitment & Training work

  Read more →

  Best of all, you will also learn to practice Action Learning, a world-class process that I used creatively in a unique way in my PhD research. You will develop both your creativity and your innovative insights when answering my expert-embedded creativity questions designed with curiosity and compassion to accelerate your progress to mastery.

  Which means that you will crucially learn how to creatively apply the results to the practical business of getting hired: what you say, when and to who (because the right words at the right time to the right person makes all the difference); how you evidence what you say including highlighting and showcasing your creative skills and ability; and what you do to get an interview and get hired.

• Graduate Creativity Circle #5 - WHEN? Here in this fifth creativity circle you will discover how to use The Pareto Principle to choose when to use creativity to get the results you want and how to incorporate Lean Six Sigma that relies on data to drive your decisions to get higher success rates.

  The first step in this creativity circle process is answering the question "What is/are the result/s that you really want to achieve?". The next step is creatively generating a list of all possible options that might deliver the result you want including incorporating Lean Six Sigma data. You will use AI as one of the tools to do this. Then after creating the best list of options that you can, the third step is then determining the critical factors that will either (1) highlight which of these options will deliver the results you want so that they can be ranked as the 20% Vital Few Options (VFOs) and the 80% Trivial Many Options (TMOs), or (2) identify which of the options from your list will not work at all in delivering the results you want so they can be avoided or eliminated. The next step in the process is then adding the action steps to each of the 20% Vital Few Options (VFOs) in order to create an action plan that you will implement, check and then adjust using the Deming Cycle.

  And finally to get even higher success rates in your results achieved when more data is collected you will discover how to get better results even faster by repeating The Pareto Principle steps on the 20% Vital Few Options (VFOs). This means that you can identify the top 4% Vital Few Options (VFOs) that deliver 64% of the results and focus your action steps here.

  Most importantly, you will also learn how to choose between creative Chronos v Kairos time management to help you to deliver the results you want both inside and outside work as well as when to integrate online and/or offline world-class creative project management tools and techniques.

  Which will also mean that you are then able to apply this new WHEN? knowledge and skills with creativity to your own project of getting hired: what you say, when and to who (because the right words at the right time to the right person makes all the difference); how you evidence what you say including highlighting and showcasing your creative skills and ability; and what you do to get an interview and get hired.

• Graduate Creativity Circle #6 - WHERE? Last but not least in this sixth creativity circle you will find out how to use a variety of world-class online and offline tools and techniques to research and discover WHERE? are your potential employers. We work creatively together online with curiosity and compassion, both asynchronously and synchronously, to create a timely WHERE? employer shortlist to target both online and offline.

  So let me now ask you this very important question: What if you discover an obstacle that's stopping you from developing and mastering your creative ability that you can highlight, showcase and demonstrate to employers?

  The answer to this question won't be a problem because we can work together creatively and with curiosity and compassion to remove any obstacles that you identify (including any fears, worries and anxieties) and replace them with whatever solution you need. What makes this so special is you can apply the results creatively to the practical business of getting hired: what you say, when and to who; how you evidence what you say; and what you do to get an interview and get hired.