Jobs for lateral thinkers include teaching, marketing, public relations, writing, and game/graphic design. Each one of these careers require the ‘out of the box’ thinking that natural lateral thinkers have in abundance.
Fancy making a living out of your lateral thinking skills? Here’s a list of careers that would benefit from your skills. Remember, lateral thinking skills are best suited for creative careers such as marketing, advertising, and teaching.
Before we begin, though, let’s take a look at lateral thinking in more detail and briefly describe what it is and how you can use it in your career and day to day life.
What is Lateral Thinking?
Lateral thinking is the practice of looking at problems and issues from a ‘sideways’ perspective. Unlike linear thinking, which is more focused on equations and sequences, lateral thinking involves changing perspectives and considering alternative points of view.
Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s a look at how you can commodify your lateral thinking skills by using them in your career.
Jobs that Require Lateral Thinking
The following careers require high levels of lateral thinking:
- Marketing
- Advertising
- Teaching
- Authoring/Writing
- Graphic Designing
- Game Designing
- Architecture
- Public Relations
- Scientist
Let’s break these down one by one to decide which one is best for you.
Marketing And Advertising
Marketing is a skill requiring new, exciting ideas and ways to stand out from the crowd.
In day and age, with so much competition, supreme lateral thinking skills are considered gold dust by marketing companies and they’ll pay generous salaries to those able to help their brand stand out from the crowd.
Advertising is much the same – though its focus on more on the pure sales side of things rather than branding.
Teaching
Teaching requires extremely good lateral thinking skills as you’ll need to conjure up engaging ways of teaching a potentially dry subject.
You’ll also need to figure out ways to keep poorly-behaved students on-task. Something that can be very challenging.
Authoring/Writing
This one is pretty self-explanatory. Writing, whether it’s copywriting or authoring, requires great lateral thinking ways to generate ideas and convey them in a way people find engaging and interesting.
Graphic/Game Design
Figuring out how to design an epic poster or a pioneering video game is not for the faint of heart. However, those with superior lateral thinking skills can help achieve these things.
You’ll need great imagination, tremendous patience, and a broad artistic range to do any one of these things to a good level. If you think you have what it takes and have an interest in these areas, then a career in graphic or game design could be for you.
Architecture
Ever wanted to leave a lasting legacy in your community, or even the world? Consider putting your lateral thinking skills to the test by embarking on a career in architecture.
Keep in mind that you’ll also need strong math and analytical skills, too, so this career choice may not be for those with pure lateral thinking skills alone.
If you have both linear and lateral talents, though, a career designing buildings may just provide the challenge you seek.
Public Relations
Public relations isn’t only about glitz and glamor as it often involves new and creative ways to represent people and unique solutions to a range of crises.
Those skilled at PR are often charming, professional, and have strong personalities – a trait often found in those with strong lateral thinking skills.
However, PR isn’t exactly a cakewalk and you’ll find that the pressures of the industry can stretch your lateral thinking skills to their very limit.
Scientist
Like architecture, science requires a near-equal split between linear and lateral thinking skills. You’ll need to be creative to solve problems, but you’ll also need excellent analytical skills as well.
Science can be a little too by the numbers for most lateral thinkers, so be sure to only enter this profession if you’re confident with your linear thinking skills.
As you can see, the list of jobs requiring lateral thinking skills is broad and diverse. This is because lateral thinking encompasses numerous facets and the ability to create new and unique solutions to the problems businesses face.
Next, we’ll take a look at how you can think laterally and sharpen up your skills to benefit your career.
How to Think Laterally
Despite what some people think, lateral thinking is a skill that can be learned rather than an inherent talent certain people are born with.
Whilst some people certainly are born with more talent for lateral thinking, it doesn’t mean that you can’t learn it.
Here’s how you can improve your skills.
Journaling
Journaling is a great way to improve your lateral thinking skills as it allows your ideas to be transferred from your mind to paper.
If you struggle to fully articulate your ideas, then consider jotting them down.
Mind Mapping
Much like journaling, mind mapping is a highly effective way to convey your thoughts on paper. The highly visual nature of mind mapping can help your brain generate new ideas by connecting thoughts and idea you may have previously thought to be unrelated.
Voice Recording
Most of us don’t like the sound of our own voices, but if you get past this hurdle, you’ll find that listening to your ideas on tape and listening to them over and over again is great for reinforcing ideas and developing them further.
Having voice recordings provides a much more portable way to develop your ideas as most cellphones today have a voice memo feature. Therefore, you won’t need to worry about carrying your items with you as you would with mind maps or journals.
Conclusion
Lateral thinkers have a broad range of careers to get in to. Finding the right one may take some time, but the hard work will definitely be worth it.
A valuable skill capable of making a lot of money, you should be thankful for being blessed with this thinking skill and endeavor to make the very most of out it.
References
https://successatschool.org/advicedetails/609/examples-of-lateral-thinking-skills
https://www.ziprecruiter.com/blog/how-lateral-thinking-can-help-your-career/
