Welcome to The Public Affairs Recruitment Company!
We are a specialist recruitment company and have been operating since the year 2000. Our focus is on ensuring our clients have access to the best pool of public affairs officers and are able to access them quickly. Our Chief Executive is a former Director, Public Affairs so we understand the requirements of government and private sector clients and the various roles that public affairs officer undertake – as well as the standard to which they are expected to perform.

Are you looking for skilled professionals to tackle your organisation's communications needs?

You may need a public affairs officer!
"Public affairs" is a generic term covering a wide range of professional skills that essentially enable an organisation to communicate effectively internally and externally with its various target audiences.

We specialise in providing candidates in the fields of:

• corporate affairs management
• strategy development and implementation
• media management
• marketing
• publications
• public relations
• journalism
• graphic design writing & editing
• web design & content
• government public affairs
• multi-media
• advertising
• market research
• crisis & issues management
• campaign evaluation
• event management
• radio, TV, film and print media
• and more….

Who are our clients?
Our clients approach us to help them with their recruitment and professional development needs.

Employers recruiting public affairs staff – Many of our clients have been using the company on a regular basis since 2000 to source permanent (ongoing) or temporary/non-ongoing/contract staff.

• We’ve placed juniors through to senior specialists.
• Many clients are repeat customers.
• Many of our clients started out as candidates and have benefitted from our professional advice.
• Many of our clients register with us when they want to move on.

List of Recruitment Clients

Employers organising staff to attend standard courses – Many of our recruitment clients and others – around 155 at last count – send staff to our standard courses. We’ve trained around 800 public affairs officers and APS officers in topics as diverse as media, professional writing, internal communications, recruitment, marketing and event management.

Employers organising tailored training – We’ve trained Senators, opposition members, professionals such as doctors, captains of industry, senior public servants, international media managers, state office managers and many not-for-profit organisations. We’ll find the right person within our networks to conduct the training and create a tailor-made course to meet your training objectives.

What our clients say about the company
“We now have a database of over 6,000 public affairs contacts in Asia/Pac and a colleague identified you as a specialist recruiter in the field.” Hong Kong 6 June 2008

[Candidate] mentioned that she was very impressed with your company’s work from a prospective candidate’s position – I’d be interested in having a chat to you about a position that we are looking to fill. As [candidate] mentioned, it’s a special fit that we’re looking for!” 13 March 2007

“Your reputation is the reason that we’ve chosen you and it is obvious that our Director has had a good experience with you.” 5 March 2008

"Thank you for doing this so quickly - it's great!" 1 March 2007

“You have a fantastic business and the two days I spent with you certainly in my mind puts you very much at the top of Micro Business and Macro business.” Consultant assessing the business 12 February 2007
…and the next day:
““I just wanted to ring and let you know that I have been thinking more about your business and it really struck me that you have a very good business. I’ve never seen a business as good as yours and I’ve worked for [company] which is the 7th largest conglomeration in the world with 460,000 people and $178bn in funds.” “Your records are impeccable. You have got an outstanding business that can boom in future.” 13 February 2007

Client response to a person seeking work in marketing: “[Name] Understand where you're coming from...
I've cc'd probably the best recruiter in ACT. Karen Paxton knows where to go and who to contact.’ 11 January 2007

“Everyone gives you a good wrap. I’ve spoken to several people around town.” 18 January 2007

“You are doing really well, really really well.” (as a company that has been in business for 7 years)” 21 December 2006

[Candidate] has settled in really well. It's such a relief to have staff who are able to just come on board and run with a project. We've been really impressed with [candidate’s] skills and ability to pick things up quickly. She has completed all of our internal induction papers and seems to be enjoying herself. She's settled in with the team and I think will be a valuable team member. Thanks for recommending [candidate].” 24 April 2006

“So at this stage, I won’t be pursuing these candidates, but I have to say that the quality is very good. [Candidate name] in particular I thought looked very appealing for my commercial marketing team, but I won’t be advertising the account manager role for that team until March.

So Karen many thanks for your assistance - your candidates look very high quality. I’ll certainly come to you next time. As you may guess, the staffing situation is very fluid in this area – primarily created by young women who are building families! 2 February 2006