The 5 Most In-Demand Skills for Creatives in Tech (and how to show you have them!)
In this blog:
I work with a lot of clients whose goal is to pivot into a tech role or join a tech company.
They want to be on the forefront of innovation, and benefit from the salaries, flexibility and growth tech jobs can offer. Since you chose to listen to this episode, I’m guessing that you identify with these desires, too.
Whether you see yourself as “techy” or not--if you’re driven, think outside the box and are motivated to make a positive change in your career and life, this episode will help you learn how to position yourself for your next role in tech.
In this episode I share:
Why creative professionals are well-positioned to transfer into tech companies and roles
The 5 most in-demand skills for creatives in tech
How you can show you possess these skills, even without a background in tech
The 5 Most In-Demand Skills for Creatives in Tech (and How to Show You Have Them!)
Why creative professionals are well-positioned to transfer into tech companies and roles
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: being a creative professional is less about the actual job titles or training you’ve had, and more about how you approach problem-solving and invest in your work.
This list makes the case that creative professionals are uniquely suited to career change into roles at tech companies.
You might identify as a creative professional but have never had a specifically creative role, or have experience working in tech, such as being a project manager or HR professional at a construction company.
Or maybe you’ve had positions where you’ve worked with a lot of tech, such as digital marketing or graphic design, but you’re really looking to work within the tech industry--not just use their products.
Whatever it is that piques your interest to learn how to position yourself for a new role in tech, this list is meant to serve you.
While specific technical skills are essential for certain types of roles in tech, a successful company has a variety of roles and departments to keep everything running.
For the non-technical creative that wants to break into tech, here are the five most important transferable skills to show you have:
The 5 most in-demand skills for creatives in tech
1. Creativity
What it is: You already know what creativity is, but did you know it’s considered the top soft skill in the tech industry? Creativity goes hand in hand with innovation. It’s the skill of being able to generate new ideas, come up with new solutions and improve upon existing ideas, things or processes.
Why it’s valuable in tech: Creativity is valuable in any industry, but it is essential in technology. Tech companies are constantly needing to innovate and adapt in order to stay relevant and meet the changing needs of their customers. They need to differentiate themselves from competitors. All of these things require creativity.
According to LinkedIn’s research, creativity has been the top in-demand soft skill in 2018, 2019 and again in 2020. Since creativity is unique to humans and expands solutions, it will stay relevant and necessary into the future.
How to show you have it: Creativity in the workplace can look similar, or quite different from how we tend to think of creativity in our day-to-day lives. In day-to-day language, sometimes “creativity” is used interchangeably with being “crafty.”
When you are positioning yourself as a creative professional, it’s important to highlight the aspects of your creativity that have led to innovation. For example, sharing how you were able to make progress on a project despite constraints or in the face of obstacles. Or, sharing what your creative process is when you are planning a new project.
If you can show how your creativity has birthed passion projects, that’s great, too! Tech companies tend to see the value in employees with side hustles or passion projects because they understand how these indicate and contribute to motivation, time management, skill development and creativity.
2. Problem solving
What it is: Problem solving is the skill of being able to think critically and develop solutions to problems. But it goes beyond that, too. Beyond coming up with possible solutions to move forward, developed problem solving skills also include decision making, ownership and leadership.
Why it’s valuable in tech: Problem solving is essential to technology because there are always new problems cropping up. Technology breaks. Systems go down from time to time. Customers learn about new tools or software and want to know why your tech doesn’t match up.
Being able to navigate complex situations like these is incredibly valuable. People who lack problem solving skills, or who don’t feel confident in the skills they have can quickly become a burden. Showing that you have these skills and know how to use them in real life situations will make you a very appealing candidate.
How to show you have it: One of the best ways to show your problem solving skills is by showing your process. You can do this in a resume or cover letter by mentioning the achievement or result you got along with the steps you took to get that result.
For example, “Increased email list subscribers by 150% in 6 months by developing targeted lead magnets, increasing referral rate and developing a consistent email marketing strategy and calendar.” This shows that you tried several different approaches and obviously found some solutions that worked.
You can also show you’re a problem solver by doing your due diligence to research an organization before you apply and/or interview. This shows that you have the skills to find relevant information and helps you solve the problem of “how to stand out as a great candidate for this position.” Even though every job seeker probably knows they should be researching a company before they apply, you’d be surprised at how few actually take the time to do so.
3. Growth mindset
What it is: Having a growth mindset is a soft skill that encapsulates several abilities including flexibility, adaptability and self-improvement. People with growth mindsets see adversity as an opportunity to learn something new and overcome obstacles. They are intrinsically motivated to grow in their skills and knowledge, and believe in their ability to learn new things.
Why it’s valuable in tech: Especially in the tech field where hard skills change fast, the soft skill of having a growth mindset is very valuable. Whether or not you have a growth mindset influences how you respond to change and how you react when obstacles come up.
As I mentioned before, technology is always experiencing change and new obstacles. Seeing those events as opportunities to learn, grow and be creative will serve you well in your career.
How to show you have it: One great way to show you have a growth mindset is by courageously pursuing a career change! Career changes are almost the epitome of a growth mindset.
Career changers are essentially saying, “I don’t have all of the direct experience or industry knowledge, but I believe that I can use the skills I have to learn the ones I need to be successful in this new career.”
A lot of times people feel anxious and self-doubt when applying for a job that they’ve never held before. However, it’s all in the positioning. You need to draw the connections between your past experiences and skills with what’s required for the new position. You can’t always expect hiring managers to do that for you.
It will also benefit you to clearly express your personal motivation for developing the skills you may currently lack. Personal motivation and excitement about your work is incredibly desirable to companies.
4. Emotional intelligence
What it is: Emotional intelligence is the ability to be aware of your emotions, control them and express them appropriately. The term is also used to describe people’s ability to understand and respond appropriately to the emotions of others. At its most basic level, emotional intelligence is one thing that makes humans, human. Robots and AI can not interpret emotions in the ways humans can.
Why it’s valuable in tech: Technology and AI are becoming more and more prevalent. And with that rise comes an increased need of humans with great emotional intelligence to inform and fill in the gaps this technology lacks.
Think about it, the smartest, quickest developer in the world wouldn’t be much of an asset if the software they built wasn’t able to be used by people. Empathy and compassion are needed along with technical skills to create meaningful products and services.
How to show you have it: There are many opportunities to show you possess strong emotional intelligence when you are applying and interviewing for a job. Every piece of communication you create or send is a chance to show your emotional intelligence.
One key thing is to make sure you sound like a human when you are applying to jobs. Be careful not to use cliches or overly robotic sounding phrases you would never say out loud. You want to come across as a professional who can communicate clearly and genuinely.
When you are interviewing, soft skills like making small talk, eye contact and showing a real interest in the people you are connecting with will go a long way, too.
5. Data analysis
What it is: Data analysis is the ability to analyze and gather insights from information. Whether the data is related to sales revenue, employee turnover, leads generated or hours spent on a project--data is everywhere.
Why it’s valuable in tech: Data analysis is a valuable skill because it’s at the heart of improvement. Data tracking provides the objective information about what is working, and what’s not working in regards to a company’s goals. Armed with data, people and companies can make decisions about how to spend their energy and resources. And, those efforts can be tracked to see the ROI.
The more data we have access to, the more important data analysis becomes (and the amount of data being tracked is growing exponentially). Data isn’t worth much if it’s not being used to make decisions and improvements. That’s why this skill will continue to grow in importance in the future of work.
How to show you have it: There is data collected on nearly everything these days, especially in the workplace. Even if your job responsibilities don’t explicitly include data analysis, you probably use, or could use, data in your job.
For example, if you work in customer service you can track how many customers you interact with each day. You could track what types of questions they have, how long it takes to resolve their problems, how they contact you (email, phone, social media, etc.), or how processes that you implement change any of this data overtime.
In most cases, this type of data is probably already being collected. Whether the data is being leveraged, however, is a whole other thing.
Figuring out how this information is tracked, or how you can start tracking this information, is essential. Once you have access to the data, you can use it to quantify your productivity and impact on the organization. You can also identify areas that need improvement and track your efforts to create change.
There are a multitude of technical skills that can aid data analysis; including certain software and programming languages. But as a start, showing you have the ability to recognize, collect and make decisions based on data is a great way to position yourself for more technical roles.
This is why including quantifiable achievements on your resume is so important. It shows that you are able to track and report on the data related to your job.
