Golin will pay one intern to travel for two months in bid to promote a more diverse industry
PR and digital agency Golin has launched an internship that provides one candidate with the chance to travel for two months while earning London living wage, followed by a traditional three-month internship at the company’s headquarters, in a bid to promote a more diverse industry.
The project, dubbed ‘Unternship’, aims to make the communications sector more representative, since jobs in this field are predominantly filled by the affluent middle classes, research suggests.
The agency receives 1,000 CVs every year for its internship programmes and nearly three-quarters of those are students from either top schools or Russell Group universities.
To attract a more diverse range of talent, prospective candidates will be asked to pitch a multimedia bite-sized idea for their two-month adventure, to pull away traditional recruiting done by CV.
The Unternship is open to anyone aged between 20 and 40, graduate or non-graduate, who is interested in breaking into the communications industry.
The successful candidate will be given a travel budget and paid equivalent to an annual salary of £18,500 and receive £1500 upfront to help plan their journey. The two months of travel will be followed by a three-month internship within one of Golin’s creative teams working on creative concept generation, video, animation, copywriting or web design.
Golin managing director Bibi Hilton, said: "We recognise that diversity is a key ingredient in boosting our creative output. It makes great business sense for us to encourage applications from a wide range of people who can inspire different ideas and fresh perspectives for our clients."
"PR graduates are currently coming from a disproportionately small section of the population as only 7% of children go to independent school, but those children make up 39% of pupils at Russell Group universities. Our CEO Fred Cook started his career by talking his way into a cabin boy job on a Norwegian tanker. We hope the Unternship will foster that spirit and appeal to a wide range of candidates, whatever their age or background."