#IChoseIC Campaign: 2024 Round-up (so far!) IoIC, The Institute of Internal Communication

25 Oct 2024

The campaign

The #IChoseIC Campaign aims to drive awareness of internal communication as a career of choice, helping to change the narrative from ‘I fell into IC’ to ‘I chose IC’.

The campaign engages with those making, or who are going to be making, career decisions and introduces them to the rewarding and exciting profession that is internal communication.

Internal communicators are notoriously passionate about their work, and we couldn’t run the campaign without the support of our incredible #IChoseIC Ambassadors, whose enthusiasm for, and commitment to, the profession brings the campaign to life.

We are delighted to have welcomed 12 new Ambassadors this year, all of whom bring fresh ideas, passion and creativity to the campaign, and who are keen to support the next generation of talent and the future of the profession.

What have we been up to this year?

Aside from welcoming so many new Ambassadors, we’ve had a busy year with outreach.

We kicked off with a virtual session at the University of Strathclyde in January where Ambassador Stacy Gibbs spoke to PR and Communication students about her IC Career journey and the reality of the role day to day. We might be biased, but we felt Stacy’s talk was the most inspirational of the event!

Since then we’ve taken part in skills sessions for higher education – including at LSE University where IoIC Chief Executive Jennifer Sproul and Ambassador Laura Colantuono spoke to students as part of a Creative Industries Career Week, and more recently at Warwick University where Ambassador Juliet Green introduced a cross-section of students to the wonderful world of IC.

This year we have also been invited to deliver in-curricular sessions for Universities, such as for an English at Work Module at Chester University where Ambassador Melanie Hinds spoke to English students about internal communication, career pathways and navigating working lives.

We’ve also been involved with events such as the Realising Opportunities National Conference – an event for 16-18 year olds from underrepresented groups - and mentoring schemes for young people.

Working with Inspiring the Future – a fantastic volunteering organisation - #IChose Ambassadors have also visited schools to talk to groups of younger people about internal communication. We were delighted to hear that during one session delivered by Ambassador Kirsty Bowen the group had heard of internal communication!

And most recently new Ambassador Kate Goodman attended a Careers Fair at a school in Birmingham with around 450 students – Kate fed back that she had a roaring trade of young people wanting to learn about internal communication.

We have also been working on building relationships with more organisations this year and we have a number of opportunities already planned and in the pipeline for 2025 – including in-curricular guest lectures, skills sessions and career events.

#IChoseIC Blog Series

Alongside our outreach activities, we have also been running the #IChoseIC blog series this year, with blogs being published each month exploring different career journeys and personal experiences of IC roles. The series showcases the varied routes into the profession and the passion of internal communicators. These incredible stories have also been a useful resource to share with organisations as part of the campaign to help us drive awareness.

Behind the scenes

Behind the scenes we have also been busy building our materials for the campaign, updating our website and information, and adding more faces to the campaign via our ‘meet the ambassador’ page and a new campaign video (coming in 2025!).

Looking ahead we plan to keep developing the campaign – with ambitions to continue building our network, work with a wider range of organisations, and provide more information and support for those considering a career in this incredible profession.

We are incredibly excited about what lies ahead with the campaign which is very close to our hearts!

If you’d like to learn more about the campaign, or get involved, you can visit our website here or email us on [email protected]

As part of the campaign we’ve engaged with, and are working with, organisations such as: