External Communications Specialist

Salary: £34,705 – £37,364 per year

External Communications Specialist

£34,705.2 – £37,364.4 per annum plus excellent benefits

Walsall, West Midlands – Combination of homeworking and office based

Full Time, permanent, 37 hours per week

Our client has an exciting opportunity for an External Communications Specialist to join their Communications and External Affairs team.

With responsibility for developing and delivering our client’s PR and media strategy, you’ll have proven experience of landing media coverage in the right places, have laser-like attention to detail and enjoy working in a busy team juggling multiple projects. You will engage with external partners and stakeholders, maintain strong relationships with key journalists and influencers in the region – ensuring they are making the most of every opportunity.

They are looking for a politically savvy, proactive PR specialist to bring fresh and creative ideas to help tell the story of an organisation that has so much to say.

Main job responsibilities:

• Develop and implement an innovative PR and media strategy to build and strengthen our client ‘s reputation and ensure effective media coverage.

• Maintain and build strong relationships with key journalists and key influencers across all external media, including local, regional and trades press.

• Be the first point of contact for all external media enquiries and respond where appropriate

• Be their in-house journalist proactively seeking out stories from across the business and identifying regular opportunities for PR activity in the local, regional and trade press.

• Provide advice and coaching to stakeholders across the business to support external communication plans for individual teams.

• Engage and liaise with external partners to effectively communicate their partnership work.

They’re looking for someone who has

• A can-do mindset, engaging demeanour and team spirit

• A professional certificate or equivalent experience in PR or National Council for Training of Journalists.

• Experience in the planning and delivery of strategic PR campaigns.

• Excellent literacy skills with the ability to draft creative copy for editorial content.

• An interest in the housing, policy and political world

What’s in it for you?

In return, you will receive a competitive salary, 27 days annual leave, plus Christmas shut down, a defined benefit pension scheme, health cash plan, a range of shopping and leisure discounts.

They are output focused and flexible and believe in giving colleagues the right balance of autonomy and support to enable them to work to their full potential. Despite the high expectation for performance and delivery, they are committed to ensuring colleagues have a healthy work-life balance and are able to work in agile ways which support them. 

About Them

Our Client’s People Strategy presents a clear picture of how they will achieve their Corporate Plan aim, ‘Be an exceptional place to work that attracts, develops and retains talent’. The Strategy focuses on three key themes that help them support their colleagues to make a difference to their customers, the communities they serve and to themselves.

It is important to them that they have a diverse workforce, representative of the communities they serve. Equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) to them means colleagues living their values, dedicated to doing the right thing and exercising good judgement. This will encourage a culture where all can thrive, acknowledging that everyone is different; what matters to them is that everyone can come to work and feel comfortable to be themselves.

They are proud to be accredited as a Disability Confident Employer and ensure that disabled people and those with long term health conditions have the opportunity to fulfil their potential and realise their aspirations while working with them. They want to make it clear that they welcome disabled applicants for all their roles. If in doubt look out for the Disability Confident logo.

They will ensure that their recruitment process is inclusive and accessible, and they will interview applicants with a disability if they meet the essential criteria for a role. They will also support existing colleagues with a disability or long-term health condition enabling them to stay in work, making reasonable adjustments if necessary.