External Communications Specialist

Salary £36,905

Position: 6 month FTC – possible extension

Location: Birmingham/ Hybrid

We are brave, we are ambitious, we are honest, and we are Citizen!

Are you a creative? Do you enjoy telling stories through writing engaging articles and developing powerful videos? If you want to work for an organisation with a strong social purpose where you can unleash your creativity then we’d love to hear from you!

We have an amazing opportunity to create, demonstrate, learn and be a part of a team that is growing. We need you to understand how our diverse stakeholders will receive and act on all of our communications utilising your skills and experience.

Communicating effectively with our customers and external stakeholders has never been more important within the social housing sector. As a communications specialist you will use your storytelling expertise to strengthen our brand through effective external and customer communications. You will support internal clients including colleagues, senior leaders, and c-suite members with effective and impactful external communications. You will manage the delivery of exceptional levels of customer communication, devising and delivering comprehensive, coordinated multi-platform campaigns, creating tools and mentoring for leaders, to enable them to play a lead role in delivering customer communications.

In housing you can make a real difference, the role of external communications specialist will involve:

drive, help to maintain and enhance our positive reputation with external stakeholders, local, national and trade media, public and customers.
develop engaging content for an external audience that helps tell the story of our business and brand. This content will not only effectively position us with our key stakeholders, but it will also achieve demonstrable business outcomes e.g raising customer and partner perception
support the head of external communications with the delivery of exceptional customer communications, share informative, accurate, and honest, compelling, and engaging content for customers, bringing to life customer experience and involvement.
develop and maintain a media relations programme and produce a broad spectrum of content – PR, blogs, videos, vlogs, podcasts, events, publications, digital emails etc.
lead on devising/writing the monthly customer email, planning and developing relevant content with colleagues across the business
maintain an awareness of market issues to develop and share opinion pieces that are aligned with the brand
as well as responding to calls from the business for communications, you will actively build relationships with key contacts that seek out opportunities to tell our story
mentor and advise colleagues in the business on what communications channels and approaches will have maximum impact for their goal, developing campaigns where appropriate

As an External Communications Specialist we need you to have:

professional copywriting skills
experience of using CMS, Adobe Creative Suite, MailChimp/Campaign Monitor
ability to film and edit video content
good working knowledge of Microsoft Office, Teams, Sharepoint, key social media and media monitoring platforms
demonstrable experience in PR or corporate communications
proven experience in using metrics and user feedback to define and improve content
proven experience of managing relationships with stakeholders
experience of creating a broad spectrum of content
knowledge of how to set goals for content against campaign objectives, monitoring and interpret performance data against these goals

We would be really excited if you have:

degree level or equivalent experience
CIM/ CIPR qualifications preferable but not essential

Our people are everything and we offer:

opportunities for salary progression, which is directly linked to performance reviews
IT equipment to allow some optional home working
‘Live work better’ scheme which actively encourages work-life balance
annual leave starts at 25 days per year, increasing with length of service
enhanced family leave
company Pension – Citizen match up to 10%
if part of the pension scheme you are entitled to Life cover (three times your annual salary)
organisational Sick Pay (benefit increases with length of service)
EAP – a 24/7 service which gives free, confidential advice and support on a range of issues including telephone counselling
Medicash scheme -which includes GP Access, digital Physiotherapy app, retail vouchers and discounts, discounted gym memberships and more!
Recognition through our Employee Excellence Awards
Representation opportunities on our Staff Consultative Forum
Access to Citizen’s Wellbeing platform
Employee Excellence Awards (winners receive extra days annual leave that year)
Occupational Health
We believe everyone has something to give and encourage everyone to be the best they can be to reach their full potential with extensive learning and development opportunities and Study Leave

Here at Citizen, our purpose is to provide homes that are a foundation for life.

With over fifty years of experience, we have grown to be one of the UK’s most trusted social housing providers, Citizen owns and manages 30,000 homes for diverse communities across the West Midlands, from urban tower blocks to rural villages and towns.

There are some fundamental challenges people in our communities’ face, and we want to be an organisation which can help them deal with these. So, we are working to solve some of the most pressing issues around housing and homelessness.

We adopt a proactive approach to safeguarding to ensure everyone accessing our services can do so without fear of harm, abuse or neglect.