I have been noticing that there is a lot of anxiety about Conde Nast’s internship program, and I just wanted to take a moment to tell you what I learned last summer.
Yes, it was an absolutely wonderful experience. Let me not suggest it was anything less than amazing. But I feel like there’s some things college students should know before they attempt to apply there.
Most quote the number of selected interns as 80ish out of 5,000ish. Yes, there were around 80 official interns, but they were spread out all over the company (finances, advertising, marketing, human resources, etc.) There were only about 25 editorial interns (so, 0.5% of those who applied).
Of course, that needs to be narrowed down a bit too. Of the 25 of us, there were at least 3 celebrity’s kids, 5 kids whose parents worked on the corporate side or for a related media corporation, and 3 interns selected from the ASME program. So, now we’re talking maybe 10 editorial interns actually selected based on merit, out of the 5000 that applied (or 0.2%)
Furthermore, many established magazines have relationships with some colleges (like, for instance, Columbia’s J-school) and will only take interns from those schools. So it would be literally impossible to get a paid summer internship with these magazines unless you attended those schools. Let’s say that accounts for another several of the interns.
In the end, you’re looking at 5 or fewer editorial interns who are chosen on merit (that is, without connections). FIVE, out of five thousand. Who knows why those 5 get chosen. You can’t imagine their resumes are really that much better than the other 4,995 applicants.
So, my advice would be to apply to the magazines individually, NOT through the CNP internship program on the website. One can still do that, you just won’t be paid (though I suppose you’re not getting paid this summer, anyway). Don’t beat yourselves up for something you simply cannot attain.
P.S. If there any other current CNP employees or former interns around here, I would imagine they could verify my experience. Trust me when I say I am not lying or exaggerating about a single item here.
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Interesting and refreshing
Interesting and refreshing to hear from an insider source about the truth within this program - the posts about it lately have been bugging me a bit too. There are in fact better ways to get into CN, but for what it’s worth I actually DO know someone who got into the program based on just merit. So definitely apply, but just don’t expect to get it, haha.
Also the fact that they accept celeb’s kids is such a tell for how the business model of CN appears to be skewed lately. How does hiring someone on that basis give the company great interns to work with each summer? What about all of the college kids who are actually dying to work hard and don’t feel ENTITLED to it like some celebrity? How is hiring celebs helping Conde and the industry in the long run - it seems so odd that they would act in such a way about who they hire, and makes me look down on them quite a bit.
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I agree with what you’re saying in terms of numbers, but that having been said, we’ve had some pretty bad (lazy, spoiled) summer interns that were not valuable assets…so the process has flaws and I don’t think that only the most incredible people make it in…even those doing it on their own merits.
I'm REALLY glad someone finally said this.
I ended up snagging an internship at CN by applying to an individual opening at a particular magazine, and I know how these large-scale internship programs actually work.
Truth be told, it’s a shot in the dark, and there are much more productive things you could be doing with your time than waiting around to hear if you are one of the chosen 5-10 applicants without, as the OP said, a “connection.”
There are thousands upon thousands of people just like you vying for a couple editorial internships - there’s no harm in trying, but at the same time, you might want to focus your efforts on other ways “in.”