The production and amendment of all published materials is the key role of a Publishing Assistant and commonly involves liaising with external clients, designing input for new material, and offering inputs to the team.

The role requires accuracy in formatting, editing, and proofreading all correspondence, press releases, copy, order forms, manuscripts, reports, and other materials. This is essentially to check the grammatical accuracy of the material or content. A Publishing assistant also has to review outgoing material for completeness, attachments, dates, and signatures. At times, the individual may be required to assist in writing and laying out of copy for publications during the editing and production stages.

The bposition involves shouldering a lot of responsibilities that include coordinating with all production schedules and ensuring that all printing deadlines are met. Some of the other functions include compiling and recording of data, creating reports and the summarization of various findings. The person may be required to assist and coordinate with additional administrative functions incidental to office activities, providing assistance and responding to requests for information.

The individual needs to be highly organised and may possess a qualifying degree course in publishing. Knowledge of Quark 6 and PhotoShop 6 will serve as added qualifications.

Accuracy, an eye for detail, strict and timely adherence to schedules forms a crucial part of this profession. Thoughtime-consuming, prospective aspirants can reap rewards handsomely. The opportunities to grow too are many. An assistant can learn the ropes fast and graduate to senior positions, become a Publisher, get into consultancy or with ample resources set up his/her own publishing business.

Concentration forms the crux of a Researcher’s function. While research of any type involves gathering, processing and analyzing information about a particular industry, it demands a demonstrable enthusiasm and interest in brands and advertising in the media industry and hence aspirants must have a knack to track emerging market trends, compile reports, statistics, and develop and maintain information sources.

A Researcher has to be well informed about his area of specialisation and to this end must constantly upgrade his knowledge about the same. With technology almost replacing paper work, a Researcher needs to be proficient in computer skills too. Other key duties include conducting statistical analysis on all relevant data and providing data summaries for all comprehensive reports. He/She needs to be insightful, creative, possess excellent writing and presentation skills to be able to review, compile, re-hash and edit all the work they undertake for the organisation they work with.

Because of the nature of the role, a Researcher should be a good relationship person and have the ability to develop and maintain relationships with clients and others on a perennial basis.

Research is an ongoing activity and hence demands a strong numeric and problem solving orientation, proper attention to detail, strategic insight, and excellent oral as well as written communication skills. A bachelor’s degree in the desired area of research is essential and aspirants must have sufficient exposure to both quantitative and qualitative methods of analysis.

The position calls for a lot of hard work and involves complete dedication to the role. Rewards are good and dependent on the individual’s research accomplishments.

The primary job of a writer is to provide content. From a functional perspective, writers are indispensable people in almost every industry. From Science to Technology, Arts to Entertainment, their presence is felt everywhere. Writers are generally classified as nonfiction writers,creative writers, technical writers / science and medical writers, to name a few

Creativity and curiosity go hand-in-hand with all writers. Individuals should have ample knowledge about a wide range of subjects. Expression of ideas on varying subjects/incidents/occurrings should come naturally to them from across all industries. For this, an innate passion for the profession is essential.

The ability to effectively put across messages, exhibiting lucidity of language and projecting correct emotions make the perfect combination for a writer’s final product.

Though working hours (if employed) may be long, it is definitely one of the most stimulating and rewarding professions.

With the media becoming more bold and aggressive, a writer’s profession has gained immense status and respect, and one can start off on an attractive compensation package at the entry level itself.

Normally, writers are required to possess Universitydegrees. A liberal arts background is desirable, but some employers prefer a degree in communications, journalism, or English. Because of the vast areas of specialisation, it becomes imperative to specialize in a particular subject area for which a corresponding degree becomes important. Familiarity with computers is another desirable attribute for writers in contemporary work environments.