About the position The Assistant Director, Communications leads a small, highly skilled team of multidisciplinary communications professionals delivering TEQSA’s strategic and operational communications.

A key focus of the role is leading and enabling an established, capable team: setting priorities, triaging competing demands, managing workflow and resources, and ensuring high-quality communications are delivered in a timely and coordinated way.

The Assistant Director provides clear direction and support while empowering team members to continue to apply their expertise and take ownership of their work.

The role has a strong focus on media and issues management. You will lead TEQSA’s day-to-day media function, manage reactive and proactive media activity, identify and respond to emerging issues and provide timely, trusted strategic advice to the CEO, senior executive team and other leaders.

You will exercise sound judgement in complex and sensitive matters and identify and manage communication risks.

You will also oversee the planning, development and publication of TEQSA’s key communication products and publications, ensuring work is well coordinated, audience-focused, accurate and delivered to appropriate standards and timeframes.

Working closely to support the Director, Communications and Engagement, you will help implement and further develop TEQSA’s communication strategy and translate organisational and regulatory priorities into effective communications.

You will build solid relationships across TEQSA to help distil complex information into clear, consistent and trusted messages that support transparency, understanding of TEQSA’s regulatory role and confidence in the quality and integrity of Australian higher education.

This is a hands-on leadership role. While your primary responsibility is to lead, prioritise and coordinate the work of the Communications team, you will also draw on your own communication and media expertise when issues, priorities or workloads require it.

Interstate travel may be required and, on occasion, international travel.

Duties

As Assistant Director Communications and Media, you will be responsible and accountable for:

- leading and managing the Communications team, setting priorities,



triaging competing demands and managing workflow and resources; building team capability; and ensuring communication products and services are timely, coordinated and of a consistently high standard.
- leading TEQSA’s day-to-day media and issues management, including proactive and reactive media activity, monitoring and identifying emerging issues, managing media enquiries and providing strategic advice on communications and reputational risk.
- overseeing the planning and delivery of TEQSA’s communications, including key publications and communication products, website and digital content, social media and internal communications, ensuring they are accurate, accessible, audience focused and consistent with TEQSA’s brand, editorial and relevant Australian Government standards.
- strengthening TEQSA’s communications capability and relationships, including implementing and continually improving communications strategies and plans, building productive relationships with internal and external stakeholders, monitoring communication outcomes, and representing TEQSA in relevant cross-agency and sector forums.

Our ideal candidate

TEQSA is looking for high-performing and agile team members who are committed to TEQSA’s role in assuring the quality and integrity of Australian higher education and protecting students’ interests.

Our ideal candidate will have:

1. Demonstrated leadership and people management capability, including setting priorities, managing workflow and performance, building team capability, supporting continuous improvement and ensuring high-quality and timely outcomes.
2. Demonstrated experience in media relations and issues management, including providing strategic media advice, managing proactive and reactive media engagement, responding to complex and sensitive media enquiries, and identifying and managing emerging issues and reputational risks.
3. Demonstrated experience developing and delivering communication strategies and plans that support organisational priorities,



working collaboratively with subject matter experts and managing competing priorities and complex projects.
4. Demonstrated ability to build and maintain productive, trusted relationships with senior leaders and key internal and external stakeholders, and to understand and respond to developments in a complex regulatory, government or public policy environment.
5. Sound judgement, resilience and political awareness, with demonstrated ability to work with a high degree of autonomy and provide high-quality, strategic communication advice on complex, sensitive and emerging issues, often within tight timeframes.
6. High level written and oral communication skills, including the ability to translate complex, technical or sensitive information into clear, accurate and compelling communications tailored to diverse audiences, and strong editing and proofreading capability.
7. Sound knowledge of, or the ability to quickly develop knowledge of, the Australian Government and APS operating environment, including relevant communication, accessibility and publishing requirements.

How to apply

Your application must include the following items:

- TEQSA Job Application Cover Sheet
- A current resume (maximum two pages)
- A two-page cover letter (pitch) (maximum 1000 words) detailing how your skills and experience address the ‘our ideal candidate’ section (i.e., what makes you the best candidate for the position), and the value you can add to TEQSA.

Once prepared, please submit your completed application to *****@teqsa.gov.au.

Additional information

- This recruitment process is being conducted to fill an ongoing vacancy.
- A merit pool of suitable applicants will be created from this process and may be used to fill similar ongoing and non-ongoing vacancies. It is active for 18 months from the date of this advertisement.
- Before commencing in the role, the successful candidate will be required to disclose details of any material personal interests in connection with their employment at TEQSA via a Declaration of Interest form and seek approval to undertake any outside employment (paid or unpaid) via an Outside Employment application.
- For further information on this role, please contact Julie Pearce on 03 8306 2 or email @teqsa.gov.au

📌 Assistant Director Communications and Media (Melbourne)
🏢 Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency
📍 Melbourne