Looking For a Career in Corporate Communication?

As the name suggests, corporate communication or ‘CorpComm’ is basically about communication - and while communication itself is a pretty vast concept, in this case, it is quite specific. You communicate on behalf of a company. This can mean many things and includes (but is almost never limited to):

• Writing press releases and disseminating them, either yourself or via a PR agency or newswire service
• Writing internal communications, speeches and press briefings on the behalf of senior stakeholders in the company
• Dealing with the media on a pretty regular basis and ensuring that the company is quoted often and favourably
• Training people within the company in good communication skills and protocols

Two things stand out here - media/press relations and writing. In other words, a background in journalism can be a major asset for someone looking for a career in CorpComm. This is because a reporter, almost by definition:

• Has attained a more than cursory proficiency in writing
• Knows how the media world works and has contacts in it 
• Is used to coordinating with people to gather accurate information quickly
• Understands and respects deadlines

This is not to say that a journalistic background is an absolute pre-requisite for a career in corporate communication - but you get the idea. Primarily, it is your language skills - both verbal and written - will determine how successful you become in this field. Other must-have qualities are:

• The ability to focus sharply on a task at hand even while juggling multiple tasks
• A very good knowledge of social media (you will be doing a lot of it on behalf of your company)
• A high level of comfort with the Internet, computers and MS Office or similar programs, and
• A researcher’s temperament.

Depending on the size and prominence of the company you are applying at, your interviewer will expect to see some or all of the following features reflected in your CV:

• A degree in Mass Communication and/ or Public Relations
• Some experience in journalism, research or as a CorpComm professional in a previous firm
• Skills such as proficiency in social media, MS Office suite programs and Internet research
• Links to your personal blog or your posts on blogs you write for and articles published under your byline.

The interviewer will consider the manner in which your CV has been composed as the first and foremost evidence of your writing skills. He or she will also subject you to more tests to gauge your writing proficiency, and quiz you extensively about your understanding of and connections with the media. Your social media skills will also be tested. 

Before or after the interview, your social media counts will be closely perused to try and establish your real-time communication skills, the kind of material you tend to share and whether you have managed to create a certain image for yourself via these channels

If you do not come equipped with a journalism or PR background, there is no shortage of mass communications and PR courses which you can pursue to acquire the basic skills you will need for a career in this field. However, the one thing that will serve you more than anything else is an inherent love of reading. 

If you have read a lot of books by good authors in the language you want to be a communicator in, you are way ahead of those who hope to rely on crash courses or pure academics. You need to have a love and respect for the language, and an instinctive grasp of grammatical rules and good composition. You need to get a kick out consistently finding and using of the well-turned phrase and mot juste (the perfect, most appropriate word). The amount of reading you have done in your life always determines how well you write – and how well you write determines how far you will go in corporate communications.

On the job, you will not only be doing a lot of writing but also be proofreading and copy-editing material that others have written. You must be able to perform such functions for long stretches of time without getting frustrated. You must also be able to derive a sense of personal pleasure and achievement from writing the perfect article, speech or internal /external communiqué, and seeing your company’s spokespeople quoted in the media as a result of your efforts.

Finally, remember that corporate communication is not a glamourous job in the usual sense of the word. It is not your job to look good yourself – it is your job to make others look good. If you manage to do that consistently and exponentially, your rewards in terms of remuneration, job satisfaction, and internal acknowledgement will be quite satisfying. If you love this work, it will love you right back. 

(This article first appeared in Times of India on 19th May 2017)