Six things a new employer expects from you

By Annie Waite, Global Editor of the Internal Comms Hub, Melcrum

In case you missed the news on the Hub last week about what recruiters want from comms candidates, here are a few tidbits of info, taken from VMA Group's Internal Communications Career Survey 2008-09.

VMA's Rebecca Tarry and Charlotte Butler here list 6 key attributes that IC candidates need to possess to increase their appeal to a potential employer:

1. Tenure and background: “You need to be able to demonstrate clearly the transferable skills you’ve gained from working within other functions,” says Tarry.

2. Relationship building: “Candidates need to have sales skills, the ability to present well, get in front of people to make connections and forge relationships,” says Butler, who also advised candidates to “pre-empt a potential move by getting this experience on your CV now.”

3. Gravitas: “You need to be able to demonstrate your credibility to ensure senior leaders become advocates of IC,” says Tarry, who pointed out that “punchiness” is also vital. "Punchiness is having the presence to make an impact quickly, the credibility to influence and the confidence to 'upset the apple cart' when appropriate," says Tarry. Punchiness is hard to measure at an interview situation, but increasingly IC is becoming a coaching role and communicators need to combine this with practical, technical skills, Tarry advises.

4. Writing skills: Writing is rated as the third biggest skills deficit among internal communicators as perceived by clients. Communicators should have the ability to articulate something in a way that shapes opinions, attitudes and ultimately behavior, rather than just the ability to string a sentence together without any typos or grammatical errors. “It’s also important to be accurate in emails about any jobs for which you’re applying – and that’s just for us and we’re only recruiters!” quips Butler.

5. Change experience: “This is now seen as expected rather than a nice-to-have skill. You need to show that you can understand change at a strategic level and that you’ve been brought onboard in change plans early on,” advises Tarry.

6. Professional development: “You should be attending events like this and Melcrum’s conferences, networking and benchmarking yourselves. Start remembering the ‘buzzwords’, recognize and use the IC vernacular – this comes across well in interviews,” says Butler.

Perhaps you're having job interviews at the moment - do these findings tally with your experience of the employer's IC wants and needs? If not, let us know what other attributes are high on the agenda. And take our poll on the subject - see right.