Have you ever looked at a job description and thought: is the organisation hiring hope or capability?
I recently came across a post by a senior change and communication professional lamenting how job descriptions for roles were insulting the community by seeking younger talent to come in at a lower salary range but expecting them to deliver what senior leaders would do.
Across the change and communications profession, there is a growing disconnect. Organisations want transformation, reputation stewardship, crisis maturity, executive advisory skills, and the ability to shape culture. And then they tag on people with few years of experience and offer a pay band that barely covers the role’s risk and responsibility.
The result? Talented younger professionals take a leap believing they will lead a strategic mandate. Weeks later, they are running on fumes, carrying unspoken expectations and no safety net. What should have been a career milestone becomes a test of survival.
This is not ambition. This is setting people up to fail.
Why this hurts more than just morale
When companies compress 20 years of lived experience into a cost line, three things happen:
1. The talent burns out: No coaching. No sounding board. No organisational context. Just pressure.
2. The function loses credibility: Leaders begin questioning change and communications maturity because expectations and support never matched reality.
3. The organisation pays later: Reputation erosion, high churn, poor stakeholder trust, rework and inconsistency.
False economy at its finest.
Experience is not expensive. Mistakes are.
A strong change and comms leader is not paid for the time spent writing a plan. They are paid for the years spent learning how to build systems that last and avoid reputational firestorms.
Strategy without experience is theory. Execution without mentorship is chaos.
The smartest organisations know this. They build layered teams. They nurture future leaders instead of fast-tracking them into burnout. They invest in capability with a long view on reputation and trust.
But what organisations sometimes forget is – that you can learn tools. You cannot shortcut judgement.
We can do better.
If we want change and comms to deliver strategic impact:
- Match mandates with maturity
- Build pathways, not pressure traps
- Stop treating experience like a cost and start seeing it as a safeguard
- Invest in talent instead of testing its breaking point
Great change professionals and communicators are forged through practice, reflection, mentoring, and time. Not by accident and certainly not by cost cutting.
What if hiring for change and communications leadership began with one question: Are we setting this person up to succeed or to sink?
Curious to hear your thoughts. Have you seen this trend too? What needs to change for the profession and those entering it?
#change #communications #job #talent #careers #culture #orgaanisationalmaturity
