Director of Communications - (Acting)

Director of Communications (acting) 

Office of Ellen Sandell - Leader of the Victoria Greens

Overview

Victorian Greens leader Ellen Sandell is seeking expressions of interest for Director of Communications (Acting), which is a leave cover position that is available for a period of 4 weeks from 27 April to 25 May. 

The Director of Communications role is part of the senior leadership team for the Victorian Greens MPs, working across all MPs offices to provide high level communications and campaign advice, and ensuring effective communication of the work of the Victorian Greens MPs.

Key responsibilities

The Director of Communications will advise the Victorian Greens Party Room on political messaging and communications, helping develop and implement a communications strategy for the MP offices.

This will include:

• Working with Ellen Sandell’s parliamentary advisor team to develop communications plans for campaign moments, including policy launches. 
• Advising MPs and their staff on effective messaging and communications strategies.
• Coordinating communications plans and issues-based campaigns across staff in seven different MPs offices.
• Implementing reactive Meta advertising campaigns. 
• Producing and reviewing communications content across various platforms, including email blasts, social media, websites, printed materials and other channels.
• Helping advise on and implement crisis communications where needed.

The role requires you to have an ability to maintain strict confidence on all issues associated with your duties and exercise sound judgment.

The role will report to the Chief of Staff and work closely with communications staff in the seven MPs offices.

Key selection criteria – we’re looking for someone with:

• Qualifications and/or experience in political communications, including developing and implementing successful communications strategies and plans, developing and utilising communications research, and an understanding of crisis communications.
• Great political nous and judgement. We want someone who is great at translating policy into messages that inspire and motivate people.
• Demonstrated understanding of contemporary communications channels and what it takes to develop high quality and successful email blasts, social media posts, website content, leaflets and scripts for materials that engage, influence and inspire the community.
• Experience in issues-based campaigning in a progressive environment and understanding of and experience with different campaigning tools and methods. 
• Excellent people skills, experience in managing small teams and the ability to coordinate work across diverse groups of people to achieve outcomes. A large part of this job is making sure staff in different offices understand and implement our communications plans effectively. 
• A strong understanding of the Victorian political context, of effective political and issues-based campaign strategies, and a demonstrated commitment to Greens values. If you’ve worked on campaigns in a political or NGO/issues-based environment, this will be an advantage.
• Proven ability to work independently, efficiently, with flexibility and adaptability while managing competing priorities, and work well under pressure to meet tight and demanding deadlines. Politics is often a fast-moving, high-pressure and uncertain environment and you’d need to thrive in these scenarios.

Terms of appointment

• Location of the position: The position will be based primarily in inner Melbourne, with the expectation of work in other locations, most notably Parliament House.
• Hours of work: The role is offered as full time. A standard work day is 7.6 hours, to be worked between 8am and 6pm, this role will require some early mornings when monitoring media, with some overtime and weekend work as needed.
• Salary: Starting salary will begin at $113,022 plus an additional 4% workload management allowance per annum, plus superannuation. Starting salary will be set based on experience and qualifications with the applicant prior to appointment.
• Please contact Matthew Thomas should you wish to discuss the salary for this position at matthew.thomas@parliament.vic.gov.au using the subject line: Director of Communications (Acting).