Stop Treating Communication as an Industry-Specific Skill

Jacob R. Robinson

If you think good communication is industry-specific, you’re hiring for familiarity, not capability.

Too often, communication professionals are judged by the environment they came from rather than the skills they possess. A freelance consultant may be overlooked because they haven’t yet worked on the agency-side. A publicist may be passed over because they lack more direct marketing experience. A journalist may be underestimated because their expertise is viewed as strictly editorial rather than strategic.

Rationalizations are infinite, and they’re an oddly narrow way to assess a discipline whose very purpose is helping people understand complex information, build trust, influence behaviour and achieve outcomes.

The fundamentals of communication don’t change because the logo on your email signature does.

Whether you’re breaking down a multifaceted problem, monitoring a social movement, preparing for a corporate crisis, launching enterprise innovation, or overseeing organizational change, the fundamentals of effective communication remain remarkably consistent.

You still need to:

• Understand your client’s business.
• Correctly identify and define problems.
• Assess risk, separating fact from hyperbole and unsubstantiated claims.
• Listen, research, consult and craft narratives that feasibly drive and embolden collective action.
• Distill complexity into clarity and communicate it well and with care.
• Harmonize messaging and CTA to the broader buy-in and business strategy.
• Measure how communication achieved the intended outcome(s), and related areas of opportunity and growth.
• Build and safeguard reputational currency.
• Question answers, learn lessons.

The subject matter changes. The discipline doesn’t.

Which is why communication done well is among the most transferable skills in the workplace of today and tomorrow.

And communication professionals who have worked across domains and clients often develop stronger situational instincts because they’ve learned to hone and apply universal communication principles and truths, rather than rely on acquired knowledge alone. Granted, through their experiences, they’ve become more adaptable, versatile and valued: Exposure doesn’t dilute a communication professional’s expertise; it strengthens it. They become better listeners, enlightened learners, and more capable of seeing opportunities and challenges that others may not initially see. That counts. That matters.

And it remains true today, where we know artificial intelligence has rapidly powered fundamentals such as real-time dashboards, search functions and report creation. What organizations increasingly need are professionals who can effectively interpret that pre-packaged information, fact-check, contextualize, exercise human judgment and connect dots.

KPIs tell you what happened. They rarely explain why. That requires deeper understanding and acumen of factors, context, people, ecosystem. With which good communication encompasses all.

I’ve observed communication professionals build successful careers across agencies, corporations, nonprofits, healthcare, finance and higher education to name a few. Their success wasn’t determined by the industry or organization they hailed. It came from their ability to listen and understand people and landscape, think out of the box, and lead, follow and communicate with purpose.

That adaptability is precisely what makes communication such a core capability – dare I say superpower – in a tumultuous attention economy where everyone is fighting for real estate.

If organizations truly want fresh thinking, innovation, and diverse perspectives, they should stop treating communication experience as industry-specific, and start by evaluating candidates on their core capabilities and skills.

Because great communication professionals don’t just know their industry.

They know how to make people care, even as they move around.

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Jacob R. Robinson is a strategic communication consultant whose work sits at the intersection of reputation, relationships and business outcomes. Throughout his evolving career, Jacob has helped organizations navigate complexity, build trust with clients, and communicate with clarity during pivotal moments of change, opportunity and uncertainty.

With more than 5-years experience spanning public relations, media relations, research, corporate storytelling and strategic internal and external communication, Jacob brings a multidisciplinary zest shaped by his recently acquired professional MBA from the University of London (U.K.), continuous learning, and insatiable curiosity for how organizations, economies and markets interact and work together.