Your Next Comms Hire Should Come From Higher Ed
Before I decided to go out on my own as a freelancer, I sought to change industries. I love higher ed, and I believe in its mission—but I wanted to try something new. With a decade-plus of broad communications experience under my belt, I thought I had a decent shot. I'd acquired an array of marketable skills: running a magazine, leading a massive website redesign, developing an editorial system for a large division, winning awards for longform writing in print and digital.
Yet each time I applied for a non-university position, no matter the level, I was dismissed out of hand, sometimes within an hour or two of applying.
Maybe I needed to know how to translate my experience into language corporate hiring managers could understand. I sought out a coach (shoutout to Amma Marfo) and overhauled my resume, cover letter, and elevator pitch.
No dice.
Maybe I needed to enlist the help of friends and former colleagues who could share insight about open positions in their companies and help crack open the HR door. I was sure that if I could just get an interview, I could demonstrate my value to their organization.
No dice.
The job market is tough, but it's Sisyphean when hiring managers (and their algorithms) have a strong bias against an entire industry. I don't know why many corporate recruiters view higher ed communicators as "less than," but they're missing out. Here are five reasons why university communicators can make exceptional candidates for companies seeking either full-time or freelance marketing and editorial talent.
We can translate technical and complex concepts into digestible content.
University communicators work with faculty—and if you've ever spoken with a professor, you know they're very excited about their work. But faculty don't always talk about their work in average-person terms. Higher ed communicators ask faculty the right questions to elicit the key aspects of their work. Then, we condense an hour's worth of exposition into a handful of paragraphs. Finally, we ensure that this layman's-termed, snack-sized piece of content accurately communicates the main ideas of the faculty's work. In my (freelance) experience, this process is pretty similar to writing a thought-leadership article on behalf of a tech firm's development team, outlining the work they've done for one client so they can establish their expertise in the field and attract more clients.
We're natural relationship-builders.
Like journalists, university communicators depend on sources to get our work done. We need staff across our institutions to let us know what's going on in their areas, tip us off about star faculty doing newsworthy research, and connect us with students whose experiences demonstrate donors' philanthropic impact. People don't provide that information to people they don't know or don't like. To produce our best work, higher ed communicators must build positive relationships with colleagues and strengthen those ties over time. Those are skills that can translate seamlessly into any industry.
We work hard (all year long).
When I worked for universities, some of my friends and family thought I had a lot of "time off." Spoiler alert: We don't. Most university communicators work the full 12 months. We don't get summers off. We don't get sabbaticals. In many cases, higher ed communicators work well beyond a typical 9-to-5 to cover campus speakers, student events, and more. That's not to say that corporations should expect to work their fresh-from-campus new hires more than a typical workweek. But believe me when I say no university communicator is walking in the door of their new company expecting to work a student's schedule.
We're adept at dealing with red tape.
Universities—big or small, public or private—are bureaucracies. There are hierarchies to navigate, competing departments to keep happy, and nitpick brand standards to uphold. Often, even a small piece of content needs to go through multiple levels of approval. It can be a long, frustrating process—one that's similar to the dynamics in a large company. Higher ed communicators are used to professional politics, and we're capable of steering projects through roadblocks and delays to successful completion.
We're wired for growth.
Maybe it's because we work in education. Maybe it's because we're often forced to work with few resources. Maybe it's because many of us are marketing to young people who are avid consumers of the latest popular platform or technology. Whatever the reason, university communicators are always looking to grow our skills so we can produce our best work and bring value to our institutions. Our appetite for knowledge and ability to learn quickly means we're both primed to transition into new industry and motivated to keep building our skills as we go.
Frequently in higher ed, we talk about needing to bring in talent from other industries. There's a lot of value in that—but I hope this short list demonstrates that the value can go both ways. Corporate world, if you're not already looking at university comms offices for your next marketing or editorial hire (or, cough, freelance writer/strategist, cough cough), consider this your engraved invitation.
Have more reasons why higher ed communicators are simply the best? I'd love to hear yours. Send me a note.