Theme: Sense of initiative and entrepreneurship. Development of my soft skills of initiatives for employability.
Developed by: Social Innovation Fund, Lithuania.
Based on:
www.jobsearch.about.com/od/skills/fl/creative-thinking.htm
www.jobsearch.about.com/od/skills/fl/critical-thinking.htm
www.businessnewsdaily.com/7532-critical-thinking-in-business.html
www.mhhe.com/socscience/comm/group/students/creativity.htm
Aim: To develop your creative and critical thinking skills as well to deepen knowledge about these soft skills.
Description: Creative and critical thinking – both are the skills which employers want their employees to have. Creative thinkers propose new ways to carry out tasks, solve problems and meet challenges. Creative thinkers bring a fresh perspective to their work. They think "outside the box" and can help organization/enterprise to move in more productive directions.
Employers seek candidates with creative thinking skills for most of all jobs. It’s also important to show this skill while applying for job, during interview as well as to add it to your CV.
To have a skill to be critical is equality important. Critical thinkers can analyse a range of information, different work situations, identify the most important elements for consideration and suggest improvements. To be a critical thinker is rather demanding as person has to use its own experience and knowledge and to be brave to express his/her opinion which could differ from already exiting or from the direction given by employer or manager. Critical thinker also accepts and analyses the feedback from all the people involved in the situation.
Critical thinking is one of the most wanted by employer soft skill for job-candidates. Employers often list this skill as a job qualification in a broad range of job postings including both professional and non-professional (unqualified) positions.
In this exercise you will deepen your knowledge about what does it mean to be a creative and critical thinker and how this knowledge could improve your behavior within different work-related situations.
Learning outcomes: Completing this exercise will enable you to:
- Develop your ability to make reasonable judgement and rational decisions;
- Develop your ability to behave in the way that encourages creative thinking.
Expected duration: 20 minutes.
Please, read the statement and decide whether it describes Critical thinker or Creative thinker!