IS BEING CREATIVE CLICHE? BY JASON PLAGENS

Students. They bend over backwards working on their professional image just to get their foot in the door at the “company of their dreams.” Working at Career Services, I’ve seen it all. I could bore you to tears with the relentless pet peeves, mistakes, and issues found on every résumé… But do you know what really drives me up a wall? When your typical student types some form of the word “creative” under their “Skills”, “Summary”, “About Me”, or “Profile” section. I’m creative, he’s creative, they’re creative, my creative skills, my creative innovation, my creativity… but then I see the other end of the spectrum. A résumé sooo creative and artsy, it’s messy, unprofessional and downright hard-to-read. I just want to bang my head against a brick wall.

A word to the wise: don’t you are creative. That’s cliché. It’s all talk and no action. this so called creativity; yet in a clean, concise, professional and simple way. We were born and raised to believe that our mind as a child was that of a creative genius – and I truly believe in that. At this point, however, the complexity and over saturation of our professional world does not have room for a résumé with a creative temper-tantrum all over it. Be creatively clean, creatively consistent and creatively crisp with your brand – that’s the key.

BUT at least these two types of students realize the utmost value that creativity can bring to the table of a business, and that gets the ball rolling in the right direction.

If you read this carefully (or should I say creatively?), you would have realized the numerous clichés in my sentences…

So maybe being cliché, is creative?
No probably not.