The role that communications plays in conservation NGOs is as wide-reaching as the oceans. It covers outreach and awareness raising, influencing people’s behaviours to act positively for the environment. It also covers a great deal of promotion of the organisation and its impact, keeping stakeholders, funders and networks informed through digital communications channels, as well as public relations and dealing with various media outlets. It’s wide ranging and in small NGOs often carried out by just one or two people.
We’ve recently completed recruiting a new Communications Manager for Reef-World, to craft and lead our communications strategy and manage our Communications Officer. We received a total of 107 full applications for this role. 3 staff read through each application and we shortlisted 9 applicants to interview for the first round.
We then used a recruitment rubric similar to this example to assess these candidates (and check our biases) according to indicators for the following criteria:
Management and leadership
Passion for our mission & alignment to our core values
Able to undertake our implementation work (related to Comms) & work with our stakeholders
Culture fit
From this, we shortlisted 3 candidates for the second round of interviews. These candidates were also set a short task to outline the steps they would take to design, develop, execute, monitor and evaluate a campaign to launch a new Green Fins membership for a new marine tourism industry globally. This helped us get some insights into their thought and work processes.
In the end, our chosen candidate scored highly in the interviews, rubric and in the task. What really impressed us was their proven experience in leadership and management, knowledge of the marine tourism sector and their passion for marine conservation.
General feedback on applications
Being a small team means recruitment takes a huge amount of time and resources for us. Whilst we’d love to give each of you individual feedback, we’re simply not able to. However, recognising that conservation is extremely competitive, we think it’s important to share some of the general observations we saw during this process.
Cover letters are a critical component to show a potential employer who you are. We refer to it at each point in the selection process. Unfortunately several applications did not provide one therefore and were not considered.
Following the instructions to apply: we had lots of LinkedIn profile shares, but those that did not send a CV and cover letter to apply@reef-world.org were not considered.
The strongest cover letters outlined:-
briefly their motivations for conservation work,
what lessons or skills they picked up from their experiences and how that would be beneficial for the specific role and associated responsibilities and;
what they would gain from the role, as well as what the organisation would gain from having them in the role
how they align to the organisation’s culture, mission and vision.
Avoid writing a cover letter that is just a narrative of your CV, you are just replicating information already available. Use the cover letter to outline how you meet the job description. Don’t make the reader work to make the connection between your experience and the role, they probably only have a few minutes to review your application in the first screening.
Every one of us is passionate about the work, set yourself apart by demonstrating your passion through the impact you’ve had, rather than stating it.
And a last note on cover letters - don’t forget to change the job title and organisation to the specific position! Never copy paste from another job application. You would be surprised how often this happens.
Many of the applicants has levels of experience that would make fantastic junior communications professional (i.e. Officer level at Reef-World) but did not have the experience of managing a communications department or managing people that is required.
Some candidates focused on scientific communications or other specific communication specialties. Since the job will be dealing with a wide variety of subjects and communications approaches from outreach to PR and marketing, these applicants would have needed to demonstrate how their skills can transfer to a broad communications programme.
General feedback on interviews
Try to keep your answers concise and not “waffle” without saying something meaningful. If you’re nervous, say so and explain how that affects your communication. Interviewers know people act differently to their normal self when nervous or stressed about interviews so it’s good to give an indication on what normal is for you.
If you don’t know the answer, or feel that you can’t answer well, say so and try to explain how you would develop that knowledge or skill set instead of trying to hide your lack of understanding in conversation.
Take notes on questions/ answers during the interview (if that works for you), it can help keep your answers on point or not forget questions that come up for you during the process.
Take a moment to really understand the question so you can answer directly and not go on a tangent
Do ask questions! It’s not just about whether you are the right fit for the role, but are the role and organisation the right fit for you too?
We’d like to thank everyone who applied for taking the time to apply for this role. We know what a challenge the application process can be. We hope these tips serve to help you in your next application. Best of luck!