Leading companies see creativity as a key employability bench mark when hiring. However, sometimes even the most creative person can miss a trick by not conveying this quality in job interviews.

Dr Mark Batey, the world-renowned creativity expert of Manchester Business School was invited by the Chamber's HR Focus Group, to lead an interactive and engaging workshop on Creativity and Careers on 22 January 2014 at Shanghai Marriott Hotel City Centre.

Dr Mark Batey is a creativity and leadership specialist and Joint Chair of the Psychometrics at Work Research Group at Manchester Business School.

Dr. Mark said, “to take your career to the next level, you need to constantly think outside the box and ensure creativity is part of your own personal brand.”

During the event, Dr. Mark utilized several cases to stimulate the creative thinking way of audience and shared his “INCUBATE” module; he encouraged people to spend time accumulating insight and evidence before generating ideas. This is where time is spent ‘brainstorming’ and generating different ideas and options.  More is always more. Then second step, using a diverse team, more ideas to choose from, the better chance that one of them will be effective. And finally, select ideas and evaluate them at the end of the process. Dr. Mark emphasized that “DO NOT evaluate too early – it kills chain reactions”. So Incubation is vital – make sure you make time for incubating ideas and evidence all the way through the process.

At the end of the session, most of the members said they have practical ideas on how better to promote themselves in a competitive job market.