Feb 23 2023
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Applications for this vacancy are now closed. We have received 70 applications and will call candidates for interview during April. If you do not hear from us, then your application was unsuccessful. Thank you to everyone who applied. 

View our current vacancies

We are looking for a publishing intern for summer 2023. We may even recruit two.

Our internships are designed to allow you to get to know the company and us to get to know you. We use our internship programme as a means of recruiting new staff, and several of our current employees started out as interns. You can read about the internship experiences of some of them here.

While we can’t guarantee that an internship will lead to a long-term position with us, we can guarantee that the experience you gain will be relevant, useful and representative of what happens in a professional publishing company. And you get to meet nice people.

About us

We are a small business based in Perth, Scotland. We are fully employee-owned and currently have 17 employees. Our clients are worldwide.

Our bright and spacious office is located in a modern office building close to the centre of Perth. All employees can take advantage of our flexible working policy. More experienced staff also have the opportunity to work fully or partly from home.

We have been Investors In People continuously since 2005 and currently hold a Silver award for Investors In People and a Gold award for Investors In Young People. 

All employees, unless they opt out, are automatically enrolled in a contributory pension plan (to which the company also contributes 3% of qualifying earnings). 

We have a comprehensive training programme and there is a scheme for providing financial support for long-term distance learning courses. In most years we are able to take on one or two interns over the summer.

We are an equal opportunities employer. We welcome applications from all suitably qualified persons regardless of age, disability, gender reassignment, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, marriage or civil partnership status, or pregnancy or maternity status.

Find out more about working for us

About the job

The publishing internship will involve assisting one or more of our production teams to deliver publications on schedule to the required level of quality. Your tasks will be tailored to the specific skills you bring but are likely to include undertaking or assisting with:

  • styling and preparing files for copy-editing
  • collating proofs and proofreading
  • some journal project management tasks.

The internship will run for a period of up to 13 weeks during 2023 (start date to be mutually agreed, but probably late May or early June). This is a full-time post (37.5 hours weekly) based at our office in Perth.

You will be kept busy and your contribution will certainly be valued. We can promise that you won’t be bored.

We pay our interns a salary that is at least the real living wage. This year it is £1791.67 per calendar month.

About you

You must have or be studying for a degree in a science subject or related area and have an excellent command of English. Applications from postgraduate publishing students are welcome.

How to apply

If you are smart, resourceful, and interested, here is what to do:

  • tell us why you believe you would be suitable for this post
  • attach a full CV in MS Word or PDF format.

Send your application to Dr Lucy Harrier using our application form. Please let us know where you first saw this vacancy. 

Applications close at noon on Friday, 7 April 2023. All applications will be acknowledged. We will contact you if we wish to arrange an interview, which will include a short test.

FAQ: Some questions asked by previous applicants, with answers

  • Apply as soon as possible. If we receive strong applications then we may commence interviews sooner than the closing date.
  • Follow our requirements closely (and avoid our red flags!).
  • Submit as comprehensive an application as possible. If you don’t explain why you are suitable or supply a full CV you are unlikely to be interviewed.
  • Your cover letter is vital, as it tells us how good you are at conveying information – the core service we provide. It should have impeccable spelling and grammar. Tell us what you can offer, not just how you expect to benefit from the job.
  • Please try not to ask us questions that have been answered in this list.
  • Note that possessing a degree in a publishing or academic subject is essential.

The overall objective of the test is to assess your English-language abilities. You will be asked to make singular words plural (e.g. plural of millennium) and vice versa (e.g. singular of algae), distinguish between common confusables (e.g. averse and adverse) and improve, clarify or correct sentences containing errors. You will have 30 minutes.

As long as you possess or are working towards a degree in an academic subject we have no preference. For information, about half of our employees have a degree in a science subject (mostly life sciences but also engineering and mathematics) and the other half have a degree in a humanities subject (mostly English but also languages and history). Almost half have a PhD. A postgraduate publishing qualification will be advantageous.

Yes. Reasonable travel expenses from a UK address to our offices in Perth and back will be paid. At the interview you will receive an expense claim form.

Not in the internship, which is office-based. There is an option to work from home in other roles, once you have sufficient experience of the work, our processes, the software we use and the company. 

No. The nature of the writing, editing or proofreading work we undertake makes job sharing virtually impossible: you alone will be responsible for completing the projects you are assigned, and, in general, it is not possible to share this work with someone else.

Reduced-hours posts can be requested and management team will consider these in the light of prevailing and expected business environment and the impact on the business, clients and colleagues. We cannot guarantee agreeing to requests for such posts. This advertisement is for a full-time post.

We currently have 17 members of staff.

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