The Spectator runs the UK’s only double-blind internship scheme. We don’t ask for a CV, we don’t use your name. We don’t care where (or whether) you went to university, we anonymise your application. We give each applicant a city name, mark out of 100 and give offers to the best ones. You’ll come in for a week of your choosing. It’s a useful window into journalism and gives us the chance to meet new talent. When jobs come up, as they do in various fields, we look to hire past interns.
About a third of our editorial staff came through this way: online (Gus, John and Max), broadcast (Cindy and Oscar), management (Lukas), data (Michael), Ukraine (Svitlana – we made a job for her), social (Margaret) and tech (Fabian, a former chef). Full list below. This year, we’re adding marketing and tech. No other publication goes to such lengths to find interns, which is perhaps why those who make it on our shortlist are often snapped up by other publications.
We anonymise after the best intern one year was Dan Hitchens. He is indeed son of, nephew of. But he is also a superb journalist, as is often the case with those with writing in the family – from Auberon Waugh to Dominic Lawson.
We don’t use CVs because we regard that means of recruitment as stale and unfair, reflecting not much more than whether you were good at exams aged 18. Many brilliant journalists did excel at school and university, but others – like Frank Johnson, a former Spectator editor – took different routes. Looking at The Spectator’s senior editors now, one left school aged 16 and another is an alumnus of Eton and Oxford. None of that stuff matters here. Only talent does.
We typically get 200 applications for about 12 places. So why apply against such odds? It’s fun, fair and genuinely open: Katherine Forster, a 48-year-old mum who had never had a full-time job, came through on our scheme and ended up at the Sunday Times and is now a television reporter. Fabian Carstairs was a chef before he joined our tech team. When Svitlana Morenets arrived, displaced by the war in Ukraine, she knew no one in Britain. She’s sitting next to me now as a staffer, and has been nominated for Young Journalist of the year at the UK Press Awards on Thursday. Their breaking into UK journalism would only have been possible through the Spectator scheme, perhaps the most meritocratic of any publication.
If you have applied before, then please do so again: James Heale, now our political correspondent, applied three times. Email entries to internship@spectator.co.uk, deadline 31 May.
Choose a category (or more than one if you like) and for each one do three or more of the following:
Magazine and online comment
Broadcast
Steerpike Political Mischief
Marketing
Tech
Complete at least two of the following tasks (if you have to ask what any of the terms mean, this one isn’t for you).
Data journalism and research
(If you can do python, say so on your application as we’ll probably select you straight away)
There is an advantage to sending your application in early as we start processing and even making offers quite early. The internship pays (although not very much) and we cover transport and even accommodation if needed. We do ask that you only apply if you’re available for employment in the next two years. Remedial support is provided for PPE students.
And some previous interns:
Currently at The Spectator…
Out, and into the world…
The Spectator’s 2024 no-CV internship scheme is now open
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16.04.2024
The Spectator runs the UK’s only double-blind internship scheme. We don’t ask for a CV, we don’t use your name. We don’t care where (or whether) you went to university, we anonymise your application. We give each applicant a city name, mark out of 100 and give offers to the best ones. You’ll come in for a week of your choosing. It’s a useful window into journalism and gives us the chance to meet new talent. When jobs come up, as they do in various fields, we look to hire past interns.
About a third of our editorial staff came through this way: online (Gus, John and Max), broadcast (Cindy and Oscar), management (Lukas), data (Michael), Ukraine (Svitlana – we made a job for her), social (Margaret) and tech (Fabian, a former chef). Full list below. This year, we’re adding marketing and tech. No other publication goes to such lengths to find interns, which is perhaps why those who make it on........
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