A BBC scheme to develop a diverse talent pool of journalists ends next week.

The BBC Journalism Talent Pool is designed to speed the recruitment of journalists by finding and assessing talented people from a range of backgrounds in advance of vacancies.

It attracted more than 580 applications when it began as a pilot in Wales, Yorkshire, East Midlands and two departments in London last year.

This time, the scheme will cover pretty much all of the UK.

Most of the 19 people picked for the initial pool have secured work in BBC newsrooms or with programme teams – either permanent positions, fixed term contracts or shifts.

The talent pool is managed by Paul Deal, who is based in the BBC College of Journalism in White City.

One of the journalists who benefited from the scheme was Sunita Bhatti, who worked on local papers in Yorkshire before becoming a broadcast journalist.

She said: “Getting into the talent pool has been fantastic, the team have been so supportive, from highlighting job opportunities to arranging meetings with editors in other newsrooms. The most valuable help I’ve had from the talent pool team is making me believe in my own skills.”

The deadline for applications is June 1.
For more details go to www.bbc.co.uk/jobs/jtp