How do you know that the person you are interviewing has what it takes to succeed and contribute to your agency’s growth? Is your interviewee one of the 3,521 people who have completed the IPA’s free online Diagonal Thinking Self-Assessment in the last year since launch, or one of the 609 who have discovered they are a Diagonal Thinker, a skill possessed by only ten per cent of the population? The results of the first year’s worth of data on Diagonal Thinking, and its use as an effective recruitment tool for agencies, were announced today (26th November 2009) at an IPA breakfast seminar, supported by Campaign. To view the presentation
click here. View photos from the event at the
IPA Flickr Account.
The Diagonal Thinking project has validated the hypothesis that to get to the top in advertising you must be able to think ‘diagonally’; the special ability to be both a linear and lateral thinker. The results of the research conducted amongst those who’ve completed the self-assessment points to a typical Diagonal Thinker as more likely to be aged 25-34, from a top university, White British and with English as a first language.
The unique Diagonal Thinking Self-Assessment tool to identify this ability is the culmination of a five-year project from the IPA and has been designed as a recruitment aid to encourage applicants from all backgrounds to consider a career in advertising. The research amongst completers of the free online self assessment has been positive with 43 people saying it helped them get a job. However too many found that recruiters were unaware of it and weren’t incorporating the Diagonal Thinking Self-Assessment in their interviewing process. The IPA is therefore encouraging more agencies to adopt it as a key part of their recruitment process to recruit more effectively in identifying top talent.
Says Liz Nottingham, Chair IPA People Management Group, HR Director Starcom MediaVest Group, Vivaki Country Talent & Transformation Officer, “We want to encourage as many agencies as possible to adopt Diagonal Thinking so that it becomes a standard part of the recruitment process for the industry. It is more important than ever to invest in the right person for the job, using this self-assessment enables agencies to do this. Moreover getting the best possible talent from as wide a pool as possible will only benefit our industry as a whole and its contribution to the wider economy.”
The Diagonal Thinking Self-Assessment First Year Progress Report is free to members and can be
downloaded here; it is available to non-members for £25. More information and the Self-Assessment tool can be found at
www.diagonalthinking.co.uk