The NCS’s marketing and PR professionals will be expected to develop longstanding partnerships with the media. Photograph: Audi Luci Store
David Cameron’s flagship volunteering program for young people, the National Citizens Service (NCS), is starting to take shape and establishing itself as a long-term scheme. Eight months after Stephen Greene, co-founder and chief executive of RockCorps, was announced as head of the NCS’s independent management body, the organization is now in the process of recruiting for other key roles.
The opportunities currently available in marketing and public relations at the NCS trust are targeted at professionals with at least five years experience. A background in the voluntary sector is an advantage. Natasha Kizzie director of marketing and communications at the NCS trust says: “Each of the roles requires different levels of experience; voluntary sector experience is a bonus but not essential. I am looking for marketeers with integrated campaign experience. They must have worked with the youth demographic and be passionate and curious people with strong opinions on cutting edge youth marketing. It is vital that they have worked in multiple stakeholder environments.”
The NCS’s marketing and PR professionals will be expected to develop longstanding partnerships with the media, youth and “parent-focused” brands in order to sell the NCS message. Their mission is to make NCS “irresistible to young teens,” says Kizzie. “I want young people to feel that they have missed out on something special if they have not taken part in the NCS.”
The job description for the PR manager however explicitly calls for an individual with the skill to “create communications that depoliticies NSC and makes the programme part of British culture.” The manager will however be expected to liaise with the Cabinet Office, which supports the programme.
Kizzie says: “Our key audience is 15- to 17-year-olds – we need to be relevant and engage them in a way that is inspiring and surprising. Sustainability is important for obvious reasons so we are not depoliticising the programme as such, if anything, we want to secure cross-party support.”
Sarah Buckley is chair of the public affairs young professionals group of the professional organisation the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR).
Buckley says it is unusual for a PR job description to include the phrase “depoliticise” but adds: “I haven’t seen that language before in that kind of public sector role description but I would say that it is borne out of an analysis of what their main reputational risk is which is that it [NSC] may be seen as a political tool as opposed to an excellent way of getting young people into volunteering.”
Buckley, who is also the public affairs manager for the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, says the core skills of PR are the same whether working in the public or private sectors: you must be an excellent communicator with good analytical skills. “You need to understand your audience and what needs to be achieved. In PR you also need a really good sense around what the media wants and needs,” she says.
Around 50,000 young people have been involved in the NCS since 2011 and the same number again are expected to take part this year. Last August Cameron said that he wanted to see 90,000 young people participate in the scheme by 2014. This year 120 organisations are delivering the programme – which includes residentials and the opportunity to participate in a local volunteering project – across the country.
In September the CIPR is running a NCS workshop in Kent talking to young people about the career options in public relations and the impact of PR. A spokeswoman for the CIPR says: “We want to talk to them about PR as a profession but we also want to explain to them what PR is, and how they are affected by it and make them realise that it is part of their every day [life].”
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The opportunities currently available in marketing and public relations at the NCS trust are targeted at professionals with at least five years experience. A background in the voluntary sector is an advantage. Natasha Kizzie director of marketing and communications at the NCS trust says: “Each of the roles requires different levels of experience; voluntary sector experience is a bonus but not essential. I am looking for marketeers with integrated campaign experience. They must have worked with the youth demographic and be passionate and curious people with strong opinions on cutting edge youth marketing. It is vital that they have worked in multiple stakeholder environments.”
The NCS’s marketing and PR professionals will be expected to develop longstanding partnerships with the media, youth and “parent-focused” brands in order to sell the NCS message. Their mission is to make NCS “irresistible to young teens,” says Kizzie. “I want young people to feel that they have missed out on something special if they have not taken part in the NCS.”
The job description for the PR manager however explicitly calls for an individual with the skill to “create communications that depoliticies NSC and makes the programme part of British culture.” The manager will however be expected to liaise with the Cabinet Office, which supports the programme.
Kizzie says: “Our key audience is 15- to 17-year-olds – we need to be relevant and engage them in a way that is inspiring and surprising. Sustainability is important for obvious reasons so we are not depoliticising the programme as such, if anything, we want to secure cross-party support.”
Sarah Buckley is chair of the public affairs young professionals group of the professional organisation the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR).
Buckley says it is unusual for a PR job description to include the phrase “depoliticise” but adds: “I haven’t seen that language before in that kind of public sector role description but I would say that it is borne out of an analysis of what their main reputational risk is which is that it [NSC] may be seen as a political tool as opposed to an excellent way of getting young people into volunteering.”
Buckley, who is also the public affairs manager for the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, says the core skills of PR are the same whether working in the public or private sectors: you must be an excellent communicator with good analytical skills. “You need to understand your audience and what needs to be achieved. In PR you also need a really good sense around what the media wants and needs,” she says.
Around 50,000 young people have been involved in the NCS since 2011 and the same number again are expected to take part this year. Last August Cameron said that he wanted to see 90,000 young people participate in the scheme by 2014. This year 120 organisations are delivering the programme – which includes residentials and the opportunity to participate in a local volunteering project – across the country.
In September the CIPR is running a NCS workshop in Kent talking to young people about the career options in public relations and the impact of PR. A spokeswoman for the CIPR says: “We want to talk to them about PR as a profession but we also want to explain to them what PR is, and how they are affected by it and make them realise that it is part of their every day [life].”
To find out more about this role click here.
This content is brought to you by Guardian Professional. To join the voluntary sector network, click here.