Why Job Seekers Should Doodle More

According to The Doodle Revolution, a brilliant book by Sunni Brown, doodling unlocks your creativity, enhances your memory and lights up neural networks that allow for cognitive breakthroughs that otherwise would have been lost in a daydream. I would like to suggest that job seekers should doodle to help them secure their next role.

It sounds like that would be useful during any job search when breakthrough insights often open up new avenues of possibility.

Doodling has definitely brought many benefits to my career. It has been a “white noise” for the right side of my brain whenever I was trying to work out a creative problem, and a filter in those boring meetings to help me concentrate on the key messages. It is my “go-to” activity when I am experiencing any heightened emotions – negative or positive. 

But how can scribbling down random images actually help your job search?

Why should job seekers doodle?

Doodling helps develop a better memory. A 2009 study from the University of Plymouth found those who doodled during a recorded phone call recalled 29 per cent more information than those who didn’t doodle. Doodle your career highlights. You might be surprised which distant memories might surface.

Doodling improves your concentration. Rather than diverting attention away from a topic, Brown says doodling can be an anchoring task, helping us stay present. “We think doodling is something you do when you lose focus, but it’s really a pre-emptive measure to stop you from losing focus.” When you have a big career decision to make, it could actually help you to stay in the room.

Doodling promotes creative problem-solving. “To doodle is to engage in an intellectual, creative and physical activity that recruits many neurological networks simultaneously. This makes it a strong force for change and a portal for imagining and inventing preferred realities,” writes Brown. Imagine your dream job with a sharpened pencil ready to go.

Doodling helps you grasp complex ideas. You will be able to see the big picture. Doodling is actually a great way to engage the mind in a way that helps the doodler think and process information. No more looking out of the window wondering when the seagulls will bump into each other… Your subconscious mind is now fully engaged in the task at hand.

Doodling helps express complex emotions. Four-year-olds express their emotions through doodles far more accurately than they ever could with words. Doodles are more intimate than text or images can ever be. Maybe doodling will become a standard tool in the workplace. Anything to help sort out the mess in my head is alright by me.

Brown’s hope “is that [doodling] becomes a competency and literacy that becomes universal. Just as you learn to read and write, you will also learn to sketch and doodle. To me, they’re synonymous with a capacity to think.”

Frustrated by your job search? Scribble something on a piece of paper. If anything, you are at least giving your emotions a physical outlet. That is only the start of the benefits.

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This blog is shared with Job Seeker Duetists. 

Written by former recruitment ghostwriter Paul Drury (not AI).