5 tips for social impact organisations recruiting communications experts

After more than a year collecting jobs, here's what I would love to see happening

Back in 2021, Gabriella Mikiewicz and I had a random idea. Having worked together remotely for some time, we looked at each other’s eyes and saw that little spark of joy (hello, Marie Kondo). Let’s make communications jobs more visible across LinkedIn and beyond!

At first, we had hundreds of questions: Are we going to manage to publish them often enough to be relevant? What if we don’t find enough job offers out there? How do we define our target group, where are they and what do they look for?

Many remained unanswered until we went out there and said: Hey, here’s a list of comms jobs for social impact, tell us if you like it. It seems people did.

Since then, we increased our reach and joined the #jobfairies 🧚🏼‍♀️ community formed by many social impact professionals that pursue a similar goal. We all want to bring to the surface interesting opportunities that are often hidden on the web, not even listed in the most popular job search pages.

This adventure translated into many hours of searching, scrolling, saving and checking job ads, sometimes finding awesome opportunities—often coming across postings that made no sense. To mark our 50 #commsjobs for #socialimpact round, we have collected 5 tips we hope can inspire recruiters and job seekers alike.

The Channels Network’s 5 tips for recruiting #SocialImpactComms jobs

1. Make it attractive

Comms experts out there are creative people. If you want to bring their talent to your team, I would recommend you create short and concise job ads that focus on what the person will do in their daily life in the organisation. What kind of projects and tasks are they gonna be involved in? How much responsibility are they going to have? What are the values and team culture? Where do you want to be as an organisation in five years?

2. Be realistic

Content creator, SEO expert, Google Ads manager, video editor, community specialist, social media manager, events manager… these are all job roles hidden behind the common “Communications Manager”. Most organisations tend to add long lists of “must-have” and “desirable” requirements. Well, let me tell you the secret: that perfect candidate simply does not exist. I’m far from an HR expert, but the experience analysing job ads tells me that wishlists are not the way to go.

Instead, I recommend organisations sit down and ask this question: What are our communications priorities in the next year and what skillset do we need to fulfil them? You may want an all-rounder comms professional to oversee the whole strategy, but then you need to acknowledge you will have to allocate budget for them to outsource pieces of work to experts. Otherwise, you may have someone that can do many things, but will have a burnout sooner or later 😇

3. Don’t forget the important details

Location. Deadline. Contact email. Visa. It seems awkward to add these to the list, right? But I found so many job ads that do not specify the logistical details properly. Some ads say people are expected to “work from the office” (where is the office? nowhere to be found on the page🤦🏽‍♀️) or they offer “hybrid arrangements” (what do you mean?).

I recommend saying it clearly: This is a position for candidates based in, let’s say, Hogwarts who are expected to work from the castle on a daily basis / two times per week. Or candidates can work from anywhere in the UK but are expected to go to Hogwarts whenever Dumbledore requires them to do so. If it’s a global remote position, make it clear and bold too!

The pandemic triggered what is, in my opinion, a positive change in the workplace culture. If you make it easy for employees to work remotely, you will be more likely to hire the talent you look for and, most important in the social impact sector, find candidates that bring more diverse perspectives to the work you do. I’m tired of finding job ads that combine these two sentences:

• We are committed to making our organisation more inclusive and we encourage candidates from all regions, countries, cultures and backgrounds.

• Candidates must have a valid work permit to work at Hogwarts.

How does that work? 🤯

4. Talk about professional development

Social impact organisations often struggle to hire the best candidates because they cannot afford to have expert recruiters or just simply cannot offer competitive salaries. That’s not an easy scenario. But here’s the good side: people that want to work in your organisation are highly motivated and have a passion for your mission. If you know there is not enough funding allocated for communications work, which is quite common in NGOs, change your strategy.

Draw a path for the candidates: tell them how much room they will have to develop themselves, how you will support them (e.g. budget for training, time off to attend events), and the freedom they will have to define their own progress. And last but not least, who are they going to work with? It is common for candidates to stalk people on LinkedIn, trying to guess who is going to be their supervisor and immediate colleagues. It’s normal, they want to imagine their potential new life. Save them time and tell them directly. These are going to be your colleagues and their skillsets combine transfiguration, potions and defence against the dark arts.

5. Specify the role and the salary range

Saving the best one for the end. If you read through the whole thing, make sure you leave a little heart 💙 down here, this way I will know how boring I am. We at The Channels are all volunteers and the word exists for a reason. If you are looking for a communications volunteer, explain what the role is about and don’t make long lists of requirements. If it’s an internship, write “intern” in the role title (not “assistant” or anything else—be honest), and, please, specify the compensation. If it’s unpaid, well, think about it again and read this article 😉

A few organisations have recently started to share the salary range. This is not only good practice and a sign of transparency but will save time for the candidates and your HR department too.

“Salary will be based on experience”, say most job ads. Understandable, but not really effective. I believe indicating a broad salary range empowers people to apply more confidently, and that’s already helping you screen the right candidates in the first round. If you want to see them showcasing their talent and personality, let’s include salary in the conversation. Working in the social impact sector and being used to a certain lack of stability does not mean that people are not interested in their income. Aren’t you?

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At Channels, Elisabeth collects our regular jobs round-ups. You can follow her on LinkedIn to never miss a new opportunity!

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