How To Transition to A Career in Corporate Communications
Transitioning from within or outside the Public Relations and Communications field into Corporate Communications, requires deliberate and conscious action. This article outlines 10 time-tested steps you can take to make that shift. Depending on where your starting point is, several or all of these steps must be part of your transition journey.
10 STEPS
1.Seek advice
The first step is to seek advice . Talk to professionals already in corporate communications. Ask about their journey, challenges, and what skills matter most. This is an important step for context setting and grounding. It gives you the opportunity to compare your desires and aspirations with on-the-ground reality.
2. Learn the spectrum of Corporate Communication
There is a wide spectrum of expertise in the PR and Communications field but most practitioners stay within a limited circle of knowledge. But in Corporate Communications, you would have to deliver end to end so it helps to have basic knowledge about they key practise areas e.g. Public Relations, Media Relations, Social Media Management, Campaigns and Events, Brand, Reputation and Crisis Management etc. This also eases your transition journey as you can begin to build your competence across the spectrum in a focused and purposeful manner.
3. Take a course on Strategic Communication
Taking a course on strategic communication is an important step to transitioning to Corporate Communication because it provides an opportunity to learn the basic concepts and principles and understand the difference between internal and external communication and why it matters. (The SA&A Course on Strategic Communication is an option for practitioners aiming to transition to Corporate Communications. Email: training@solaabuluassociates.com for details
4. Join a professional network
Joining a professional network is the ultimate growth and development hack in the field of Communications because a lot of opportunities open up based on trusted referrals and recommendations. Professional networks provide proximity to those who are well positioned to open doors and mediate access to new opportunities for employment or communications project work or external campaigns. Active membership and participation in these networks keeps you well positioned to be called upon when those opportunities arise.
5. Be active and volunteer to support in professional Networks
Support with events, conferences, regular hang-outs or even to manage the social media pages or the internal communications strategy of the network working under supervision of an expert. This would give you the opportunity to discover where your passion lies and where you have the most potential to develop. It also gives the opportunity to apply what you have learnt in your professional training or courses attended. Most importantly gives you visibility within the networks to those who can directly or indirectly provide access to doors of opportunity in the future.
The 3 steps in transitioning to a new field of expertise are preparation, positioning and placement. Each step is important. Preparation determines the strength, visibility and impact of your positioning, which in turn determines the placement opportunities that you attract and ultimately retain successfully.
6. Put volunteering experience on your CV
Experience is experience. It does not matter whether it was in a paid or unpaid role. The important thing is the role played, skills developed, confidence built and results delivered. Volunteering is the easiest way to get experience and it is within your control.
Do not wait till you get employed to start acquiring experience. Acquire the experience through volunteering. This is how many started in communications. You have to show what you can do before people will choose to pay for your skill.
7. Beef up your LinkedIn profile
If you are serious about transitioning into Corporate Communications, then your LinkedIn profile should demonstrate that. LinkedIn is a very powerful tool and is very good at matching interests with expertise but it does this based on the content it finds on your page. You should be following Communications professionals and commenting on the pages of experienced Communications Leaders, attending their live events and making your own individual posts on the areas of communications that interest you. And yes post about those volunteering campaigns and events that you support.
8.Get a mentor, career coach and a sponsor if possible
Strive to earn the privilege and opportunity to attract the interest of someone who can guide your growth, potentially open doors, and hold you accountable on your career path. Be purposeful about this because sponsors are very important in any Corporate context and career. And when you succeed in attracting the interest of a senior professional, do not squander the opportunity.
9. Seek paid and unpaid internship and apprenticeship roles with PR Agencies & Communications Consultants
Be on the look-out for available or advertised roles with Public Relations Agencies and communications consultancies – as a bridge towards transitioning fully into corporate communications. The most important step in fully transitioning is showing passion, purpose and presence. You must show passion for the profession and demonstrate purpose in terms of your commitment and be actively present. Many roles in communications come from referrals and it is much easier when people see what you can do and can then recommend you based on what they have seen you do.
10. Start looking for Corporate Communications roles
Set up your job search profile on LinkedIn. Start looking for Communications roles that focus on your strength or interest areas. Apply for roles that match your skills in writing, communications strategy or Public Relations program delivery; media relations or internal communications.
Sola Abulu & Associates (SA&A) is a strategy and communications training and consulting firm based in Lagos, Nigeria dedicated to enabling businesses, brands and institutions to achieve their desired objectives through strategic communications, organizational effectiveness and reputation risk management.
Learn with us 24/7 from anywhere in the world on our play-on-demand courses on learn.solaabuluassociates.com