How To Become A Director Of Public Affairs: What It Is and Career Path

What is a director of public affairs and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

4 min read

Quoted expert

Jody McBrien

Directors of Public Affairs are executives who manage the public relations and communications initiatives of a company to create a positive public image of the company. You are to create guidelines on the proper crafting of communication materials that will be published, form relationships with various people in public, and generate new opportunities for your clients. Your job duties include conducting market research on public opinion, pursuing advertising campaigns with your client's goals in mind, and calculating budgets. You will also arrange interviews, write speeches, and do anything else needed to restore a client's reputation.

The primary qualification needed to be a public affairs director is a bachelor's degree in communication or journalism. As a director of public affairs, you should know how to communicate with the public, create successful brands, and handle crises. You will earn an average annual salary of $90,742.

What's a day at work look like for a director of public affairs?

Jody McBrien

Professor, University of South Florida

If we look at a Spring 2021 graduate's work life, I have to say it remains highly unclear what the daily life will entail. Just last spring, we were all hopeful that we would move out of the pandemic later in 2020. But here we are, nearly a year after the beginning of this pandemic, and we are now fearing variants of the virus when we had hoped that a vaccine might allow us to move back to a more "normal" way of life by spring 2021. So it's just hard to say. I think that graduates need to be prepared for distanced jobs and technological savvy for the near future.

ScoreDirector Of Public AffairsUS Average

Salary

8.0

Avg. Salary $114,639

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

8.7

Growth rate 8%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

4.5

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.42%

Asian 5.07%

Black or African American 5.75%

Hispanic or Latino 8.94%

Unknown 4.65%

White 75.17%

Gender

female 42.38%

male 57.62%

Age - 41

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 41

Stress level

8.7

Stress level is very high

7.1 - high

Complexity level

9.4

Complexity level is advanced

7 - challenging

Work life balance

3.8

Work life balance is poor

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a director of public affairs

Explore director of public affairs education requirements

Most common director of public affairs degrees

Bachelor's

70.9 %

Master's

16.9 %

Doctorate

6.0 %

Start to develop specific director of public affairs skills

Skills	Percentages
Government Affairs	11.55%
Public Policy	11.41%
External Stakeholders	6.70%
Policy Issues	5.59%
Government Relations	5.26%

Complete relevant director of public affairs training and internships

Accountants spend an average of Less than 1 month on post-employment, on-the-job training. New directors of public affairs learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as a director of public affairs based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real director of public affairs resumes.

Research director of public affairs duties and responsibilities

Manage crisis communications, securing any media articles and editorials in support of the company.
Manage communications with students, alumni and faculty, including distribution of all social media
Prepare testimonies for city and state oversight hearings.
Revise and place opinion editorials on behalf of the museum's executive director.

Get director of public affairs experience

Generally, it takes 2-4 years to become a director of public affairs. The most common roles before becoming a director of public affairs include internship, communications director team lead and director.

Prepare your director of public affairs resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your director of public affairs resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on a director of public affairs resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose from 10+ customizable director of public affairs resume templates

Build a professional director of public affairs resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your director of public affairs resume.