What if you could shape how Australia's fastest-growing private university shows up when prospective students ask AI where to study?
Not in traditional search results, but in ChatGPT responses, Perplexity citations, and Google's AI Overviews. The new battleground where brand authority is being built right now, and most institutions haven't even realised the game has changed.
This is that rare digital PR role where you're not "doing SEO" or "writing SEO content." You're building genuine visibility infrastructure across every surface where your audience actually searches - from Reddit threads to YouTube recommendations to the answers AI generates when someone asks "best universities for X in Sydney".
The Role
You'll be the first dedicated Digital PR Producer at a private university that moves like a startup. No bureaucracy. No six-month approval cycles. Just a smart, fast-moving marketing team (35 people strong) that understands digital, and digital PR isn't an afterthought. It's how modern discovery works.
Last year, they focused on learning analytics and project management. This year? AI, agents, and how GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation) intersects with everything you already know about earned media. You'll work within a tight 4-person team with a Manager who's a strong advocate for L&D, and have the full backing to test, iterate, and prove what works.
The best part? You're driving this function and building something no one has done before. No "this is how we've always done it." Just purely creative, the strategy, and the freedom to make it happen.
What You'll Be Doing
You'll execute the off-page SEO and digital PR strategy across all university web properties. That means monitoring brand mentions, identifying backlink opportunities, pitching stories to publications, managing Google My Business listings, leading the online reviews strategy, and working closely with the Communications team to understand what makes a story pitch-worthy versus what gets citation traction in generative engines.
You'll also be the person monitoring Reddit threads about the institution, managing online reputation signals across Trustpilot and education review platforms, responding to Google Reviews in a brand-appropriate way, and keeping UTM parameters clean so attribution doesn't fall apart.
You won't be writing long-form website copy (there are copywriters for that), but you absolutely need strong content instincts. Ideally, you've come from a publisher or journalistic background and understand what makes a story land versus what gets ignored.
There's no "framework". If you want to crack an open-source research distribution or build linkable asset frameworks, do it. If it drives backlinks, boosts domain authority, or gets the brand showing up in the right AI-generated answers, and you want to test how it works, it's up to you if you want to drive it forward.
You'll Thrive Here If You Have:
* 2+ years in digital PR, content outreach, or off-page SEO, ideally from a publisher, editorial, or journalistic background
* Comfortable with SEO platforms like BrightEdge or SEMRush
* Strong content instincts (you don't need to write long-form copy, but you need to know what works)
* Detail-oriented without being precious about process
* Genuinely curious about how search and discovery are evolving with AI
What You Get
* Flexibility & Balance - 3 days WFH
* Growth & Learning - Dedicated 1 hour/week for learning and upskilling
* Knowledge - Free access to study a degree at the university
* Culture - fast-paced environment (think startup energy and not bureaucracy
* Team - Team of genuinely good people who back each other
If you've been doing digital PR at an agency and you're tired of volume-over-quality metrics, this gives you the space to build something that compounds. If you're in-house somewhere that treats digital PR as "nice to have," this is a team that understands it's mission-critical.
You'll work on meaningful stories, build genuine media relationships, and position an institution that's genuinely helping people build better futures. And you'll do it at the exact moment when how students discover universities is fundamentally changing.
Ready to join an Education Institute that has a cutting-edge? Let's talk.
Think you need to be flawless to land your next role? Truth is: perfect candidates don't exist.
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