What is a Public Affairs Officer?  

Are you unsure whether you qualify to be called a public affairs officer?

Public affairs officers are responsible for the initiation, development, production and implementation of public relations and public communications strategies.

In federal government, public affairs officers are classified into levels:

• public affairs officer level 1 (PAO1) – equivalent to an APS level 4 (APS4) or APS level 5 (APS5)
• public affairs officer level 2 (PAO2) – equivalent to an APS level 6 (APS6)
• public affairs officer level 3 (PAO3) – equivalent to an APS Executive Level 1 (EL1)
• senior public affairs officer level 1 (SPAO1) – equivalent to an APS Executive Level 2 (EL2)
• senior public affairs officer level 1 (SPAO2) – equivalent to an APS Executive Level 2 (EL2)

            To obtain more details: refer to PAO Work Level Standards

List of Professions
Public affairs officers may either be specialists in a particular field (see below) or they may be generalists with experience across a number of professions such as:

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

If you have any of these skills, or combination of skills, then:

Congratulations! - you are a public affairs officer!

The exact mix of skills and experience you have will differ from other people in the industry - making you unique.

Clients will often have a specific mix and range of skills that they are looking for in a candidate - it is this information which enables us to closely match client requirements with candidates and to rank them in order of suitability.

Work Level Standards
If you want more detailed information on the expectations of the different levels of public affairs officers then the work level standards will assist you.