Written by Andrew Harvey, UK Managing Director at VMA GROUP

This article first appeared on IoIC's The Voice online.

When recruiting for a role, employers now place greater importance on candidates’ skills, attitude and aptitude. From our Inside Insight studies, we know that over 80 per cent of IC professionals believe IC experience in the same industry is not required when recruiting for a role within their organisation.

Notably, we have also seen an uplift in employers from the banking and financial services and professional services sectors relaxing the requirement for experience in those sectors and instead, where appropriate, looking for candidates with global experience or who have managed communications for non-office-based workforces.

A role requiring many skills

The role of the IC professional has become more multi-faceted. The same IC study found the top 10 most important skills and competencies for an IC practitioner in 2018 included communications planning, ability to measure outputs and sound business judgement.

For any practitioner looking for their next IC role, be open to broadening your horizons by working in a new sector – don’t be afraid of discovering something new.

Having said that, in our 2018 Inside Insight survey, we asked if people agreed or disagreed that a specialist qualification in internal communication would help them perform better in their role.

I was really surprised that only 42 per cent agreed, 23 per cent disagreed and 35 per cent were neutral. This suggests 58 per cent are at best indifferent to the value of professional IC qualifications. Are these IC professionals saying they don’t have anything to learn?

Effectively communicate change

The business world is operating in a state of constant transformation and this is driving the demand for change communications skills and experience. This is substantiated by the latest Inside Insight survey, which indicates that change communications is the third most important skill for an IC professional.

We are also seeing more job titles changing to encompass both “change” and “communications” to reflect the broader remit and range of skills needed by organisatio