What is CQ? How can it help you build a Creative Workforce?
What’s the most important quality to look for in a job candidate these days?
The answer isn’t IQ, it’s CQ!
Creativity Quotient is the measure of an individual’s creative intelligence💡
Creativity should perhaps be the most important quality that startup founders should look for in individuals when hiring them.
Firstly, let’s understand why creativity is the need of the hour?⏳
With the recent advent of AI and the imminent threat it poses, it can possibly replace humans in almost any field. But can AI replace a human’s creativity?
Creativity is a fundamental feature of human intelligence, but is a limitation for Artificial intelligence. AI takes decisions based on a algorithm. Whereas humans by nature have the creativity and confidence needed for extreme experimentation to come up with new ideas to solve new problems.
Hence creativity is the only aspect that can keep humans a step ahead than AI in the future.
Now, we know what is creativity and why it is essential but did you know that there’s a way to measure creativity? Just like how we measure intelligence and call it IQ, there’s also a way to measure creativity.
Don’t call it a test
The first rule that has to be followed while conducting a creativity test is not calling it a Creative Test. Because the moment you call it a test, the human mind starts to force creative thinking.🤔
In this case, you may not know whether the person is actually creative or not.
Types of Creative People
Initially at Animaker, we used do it in both ways. Sometimes we inform the candidate that it is a creative test and sometimes we don’t.
But there are even cases where even if we inform the candidate, the chances of divergent thinking is pretty low. They’re not creative and may not be a good fit for your startup.
The remaining people who exhibit divergent thinking are the kind of people within whom creativity can be induced. They can be trained easily at work.
Natural creative thinkers are always a great fit. Do you know who is the most creative person in the planet? A newborn baby.
Yes! If you really don’t know the existing process then most of the time your ideas are fresh & novel. That is the very basis for creativity. And that’s precisely why a lot of startups prefer hiring freshers.
How to measure creativity?
Should creativity be measured only for Designers? Well, absolutely not! These days even Developers, Marketers, Business heads all need high creativity quotient to survive the present day competition.
There are a lot of different ways to measure someone’s creativity. I will just share 2 simple methods.
Simple method: Just ask one question
This is a very simple hack to measure creativity, especially if your recruitment cycle is a fast paced one and so is your startup.
Just ask the candidate one question which is related to failure. If he/she panics or shows signs of fear then there’s a fair chance that he/she has a low creativity quotient.
According to Intelligent Fast Failure, a term coined by Jack V Matson, “People who take risks & are ready to fail usually have the highest innovation & creativity Quotient.”
Example questions like these will work:
The workload here will be too much. You think you can handle it?
You’ve to prove yourselves within the first 2 months. Can you prove yourself by then?
Longer method: The Guilford approach
This model will work if you have more time to test a candidate. It is derived from one of my favourite psychologist, J. P. Guilford.
I just developed my own method to test creativity inside Animaker from his concepts.
The test is usually simple & easy, but candidates will be given some form of constraints.
One form of test is to ask a candidate to just use a circle as the base & draw whatever they can. and the test can go for 5 minutes or less.
Assume 5 candidates take part in this test, each can throw a different form of skill set. This test will help you measure the following aspects:
Fluency: how many responses
Flexibility: how many types of responses
Originality: the unusualness of the responses
Elaboration: the detailness of the responses
Each of these aspects can have a score of 0 to 5 & you can measure the overall quotient.
Here’s another question you can ask candidates.
“You have a pen, tell me the different ways you can use it” If possible also ask them to represent it visually.
It’s better to challenge candidates in multiple ways and not just with one single task. The result of one task might not truly reflect the creative potential of a candidate.
I think I’ve just touched the basics of measuring creativity and there are many more ways to do this. It may or may not help you with recruitment but it is worth a try.
Happy to answer any questions related to CQ. Let me know in the comment section below.😊
