Have a flair for writing? Brush up on these skills to land a job in corporate communications

• Corporate communications and media engagement are essential in shaping a company’s brand.
  
• The US Bureau of Labour and Statistics has pegged the growth rate of employment across media and corporate communications at 6% during 2016-2026.
  
• Learn these skills to land a job in corporate communications division.

Effective communication forms the core of any business. Corporate communications and media engagement are essential in shaping a company’s brand.

From the organisation’s perspective, corporate communication is labelled as a medium of interaction between businesses, organisations and clients.

The US Bureau of Labour and Statistics has pegged the growth rate of employment across media and corporate communications at 6% during 2016-2026 period. The salaries in the given domain varies with the level of expertise and experience.

“Corporate communications is a field with no set rules. There is immense scope for innovative ideas, strategies and thinking out-of-the-box as long as all this is aligned with the communication objectives and business environment. The communications specialist needs to be a good planner to chart out the strategy and path to achieve the objectives of corporate communications,” Ullhas B Kulkarni, head-corporate communications, Kohinoor Group told a job search platform.

Learn these skills to land a job in corporate communications division.

Media and public relations

Corporate communications and building a brand involves a thorough understanding of the media and its members. A communications specialist is expected to bridge an organisation’s needs with that of media and reportage.

This includes strategic thinking to approach media and clients effectively and setting up conferences, media events and others.

Writing and editing

As media interactions play a key role in the job, writing and editing skills will make the job easy. Within the communications division, the job will require writing press releases, proposing interactions, creating social media posts and blogs, newsletters, and product launches.

Writing skills will help to communicate better across audience.

Research and analysis

Corporate communication strategy largely affects the marketing strategy of an organisation. In order to generate marketing materials including promotional banners, it is important to implement research skills and analysis to form a strategy and evaluate the organisation’s resources.

Inferring historic data and sources, and analysing them can lead to more compelling stories. This is where analysis plays a key role.

Presentation and public-speaking

Presentation skills have become crucial to organisations. This is not specific to the communications department, but across roles and levels. According to a corporate recruiter survey of 2017, presentation is one of the top five skills that companies look for.

Clear and crisp presentation of an idea with the team and external audience will require public speaking and effective presentation.

Social media and technical advancements

Emerging technologies have changed the way to communicate with clients and businesses largely. Infact, as per the Internal Association of Business Administration, AI assistants, virtual reality and, blockchain and ML are the top trends affecting corporate communications.

Also, social media is a great tool to catch and respond to emerging industry trends. A communications specialist needs to know which platform will work the best for use in a certain situation — utilising it to its maximum potential.

Crisis communication

Crisis communications comes into play when a company faces an unpredicted situation, for instance revenues and losses. A communications specialist will have to organise interactions to establish a positive impact.

This may also include government interventions, politicians and media.