One Day, One Job » design

Treehouse

Willy Franzen — Thu, 17 May 2012 14:38:42 +0000

What have you done in the past week to make yourself a better candidate for the jobs that you’re applying for? E-mail me at willy@onedayonejob.com and tell me. Seriously. Developing new skills isn’t just about being better qualified for a job–it’s also about showing employers that you’re constantly trying to better yourself and willing to invest time and money to do so. Companies love people who show a desire to grow into new roles. Luckily, there are more and more companies that offer online education with the purpose of actually teaching you applicable skills, not giving you a worthless piece of paper. One of these companies is Treehouse, which is based in Orlando, FL. Their “goal is to teach Web Design, Web Development and iOS, to everyone in the World who wants to learn.”

Climb Up to the Treehouse

I know this isn’t reassuring, but the stats say that most grads take many months to land a job. That’s more than enough time to learn some extremely valuable technical skills with Treehouse. Think you can’t afford it? Think again. Treehouse costs $25 a month (and they had a student plan at $9 a month, though I don’t see it on their Plans page). If you can’t scrounge that together, you’re not trying hard enough (and even then Treehouse offers a lot of their video content for free). I’ve actually used Treehouse to improve my coding skills, and it’s fantastic. The content is top notch, but it’s the code challenges that really help you make the most of it. There’s a reason that people pay for Treehouse when there are decent alternatives out there for free. Just like you (hopefully), Treehouse wants to keep getting better, which is why they’re hiring. Not all of their roles are a great fit for a new grad, but some are. Here’s what they’re looking for:

Video Teacher
Content Expert
Sales Rep
Lead Generator
Video Pro
Audio Pro

Whether you’re a good fit for these jobs or not, Treehouse could completely change your job search, so check them out.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Would you try Treehouse?

Shoptiques

Willy Franzen — Mon, 14 May 2012 16:40:55 +0000

I do as much of my shopping online as possible, but that’s because I don’t really enjoy shopping. It’s all about minimizing my time doing something that I don’t want to do. For some people online shopping is great for the opposite reason–it allows them to spend even more time shopping (at work, on the train, walking down the street, on the couch, etc.). The big problem with online shopping is that the experience feels a bit homogenized–you’re typically buying from major retailers or e-commerce companies. Shoptiques is a New York, NY based company that is trying to make online shopping better by bringing boutiques to the web. Why boutiques? Boutiques offer the ultimate shopping experience: “beautiful hard-to-find hand-picked fashion and knowledgeable advice from the owners who know so much about style and how to make you look beautiful.” Boutiques are anything but homogenized, but their business models don’t translate well to the web–at least they didn’t until Shoptiques came along.

Go Career Shopping

Shoptiques may seem like another e-commerce site on the front end, but once you start browsing through their selection, you’ll notice a difference. The bigger difference is behind the scenes. Shoptiques doesn’t hold inventory–they just facilitate the sale between you and the boutique that you’re buying from. When you order, Shoptiques e-mails the store with a prepaid shipping label. You pay Shoptiques, they pay the boutique after taking a fee, and the boutique ships your purchase. If you want more details, you can check out Shoptiques’ How It Works page. If you love boutiques and can’t wait to see more of them online, you have to take aloof at Shoptiques’ Careers page. Right now they have some great opportunities for new and recent grads including:

Social Media / Community Manager
Graphic Designer
Sales Representative
Customer Service

If you love shopping online and at boutiques, it would be hard to beat a job at Shoptiques.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Do you shop at boutiques?

Chloe + Isabel

Willy Franzen — Wed, 09 May 2012 15:59:07 +0000

There are essentially two completely different jewelry businesses. There’s the high-end business that is centered around gold, platinum, diamonds, and other gemstones (I know all about that having recently bought an engagement ring). Then there’s the fashion focused business that is more about completing an outfit. The latter is where Chloe + Isabel is focusing. They are a New York, NY based startup that targets 18 to 28 year old women with jewelry in the $18 to $200 price range. That’s not all that unique. What is unique is that Chloe + Isabel is approaching this market by combining direct selling with web-based social technology. Essentially they’re bringing affiliate marketing to a group of people who may not even know what affiliate marketing is.

You + Chloe + Isabel

I tend to be skeptical of direct selling “opportunities,” but I know that they can be great for developing entrepreneurial skills. I think Chloe + Isabel really gets it right with their online platform. You don’t need to make an initial investment in inventory to sell for them–you can just use their “personalized online dashboard” to put together your “own boutique shopping experience.” To get a better sense of Chloe + Isabel’s style, I recommend that you take some time to browse their jewelry. Then you probably want to read up on their Merchandiser opportunity and watch this video about it:

Even if direct selling isn’t for you, it will help you better understand how the Chloe + Isabel works. Once you start to get it, you can take a look at Chloe + Isabel’s Jobs page, where they list their non direct selling opportunities including:

Customer Care Representative (San Francisco, CA)
Sales Development Manager (San Francisco Bay Area, Utah, Florida, Texas, and Michigan/Illinois)
Graphic Designer
Web Designer
Ruby Developer
User Interface Designer

Whether you’re interested in a full-time job or want to do some direct selling, Chloe + Isabel has some great opportunities for new and recent grads.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Have you purchased anything from Chloe + Isabel?

Pop Labs

Willy Franzen — Mon, 07 May 2012 13:18:18 +0000

These days it seems that just about everyone claims to be an expert on things like social media and SEO, but very few people have a track record that shows a repeated ability to deliver results. Why is that? Because online marketing is really hard. We see stupid things go viral and think that anyone can do it, but we overlook the fact that getting someone to look at something is very different from getting someone to buy something. Pop Labs is an interactive marketing agency in Houston, TX that is known for getting results. I’m not just talking about for their clients either. Pop Labs nearly tripled their revenue between 2007 and 2010, which shows that what they’re doing works for them as well as for their clients.

Make It Pop

Pop Labs’ main focuses are SEO, Social Media, Conversion Optimization, and Advertising, but it’s really all about ROI. That’s why Pop Labs’ Case Stuides talk about numbers that can be directly tied to revenue. Pop Labs doesn’t have a long list of client names on their website (which is often how I judge big agencies), but that’s ok. It’s a lot harder to do good work for a “Consumer Services Retailer in Nevada” or a “National Marketing Information Provider,” than some big brand who already has resources that you can leverage. If you want to dig in and really learn about online marketing, then you should take a look at Pop Labs’ Jobs page. Right now they have some great positions for new or recent grads including:

Sales Executive
Business Development (San Francisco, CA)
Project Coordinator
Web Designer
Production Specialist
Marketing Specialist

These look like great opportunities to learn, so give them a good long look.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

What have you heard about Pop Labs?

Instructure

Willy Franzen — Wed, 02 May 2012 14:20:32 +0000

When you’re a kid, you think that teachers have an easy job. They have good hours, lots of vacation with summers off, and they get to stand in front of a room and tell you what to do. As you get older, you start to realize that teaching also includes grading papers, planning lessons, communicating with parents, writing comments for report cards, and a whole lot more. A grade book just isn’t a good hub for managing all of this. Teachers need something industrial-strength, and that’s what Instructure provides with their Canvas Learning Management System. The Sandy, UT based company offers a suite of tools that enable teachers to spend way less time on administrative stuff, and more time teaching and working directly with students. They serve educators at all levels–from Kindergarten to some of the world’s top universities, which shows you just how flexible the Canvas platform is.

Follow Instructure

What do teachers want from a Learning Management System? Something that just works. Here’s Instructure’s video explanation of why the technology behind Canvas offers exactly that experience:

Go take a look at the product. You can sign up for an instant demo and get a feel for exactly how it works. There’s no better way to get to know a company than by using their product. If you like the feel of Canvas, then take a look at Instructure’s Careers page. Right now they have some great jobs for new or recent grads including:

UI/Web Designer
Database Admininstrator
Professional Services Software Engineer
Software Engineer
Marketing Web Developer
Marketing Writer
Search/Marketing Analyst

If you get excited about the nexus of education and technology, then a career with Instructure might be just what you’re looking for.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Do you have any experiences with Learning Management Systems?

Spongecell

Willy Franzen — Tue, 01 May 2012 12:45:52 +0000

Ads make the Internet go ’round. Most of the content that you consume (including what you’re reading right now) wouldn’t be possible without advertising. The problem is that most ads are annoying–they interrupt you from doing what you want to do–so you start to ignore them. As you ignore more and more ads, advertisers are forced to find new ways to catch your attention. Sometimes that leads to ads that are actually interesting, and sometimes it leads to ads that are more interruptive. Spongecell is a New York, NY based company that allows advertisers to “transform standard banner ads into dynamic flash ads with rich media-like functionality.” That may sound more interruptive, but the ads that Spongecell enables are no bigger than a typical banner ad–they just come to life when you hover over them with your cursor.

Be a Sponge

I’m really impressed with the different types of functionality that Spongecell offers in a standard ad unit. There are video, maps, social feeds, coupons, carousels, lead generation, and more. These ads allow you interact with them before you leave the page that you’re on, which immediately makes them more effective. You can see what the ads look like in Spongecell’s extensive gallery. They’ve worked with all kinds of big names to develop rich media ads that target a specific behavior, whether it’s watching a video or getting you to find a bank’s nearest location. If you don’t mind ads and you’re intrigued by what Spongecell is doing, then head over to their Jobs page. Right now they have some interesting positions open including:

Recruiting and HR Coordinator
Marketing Designer
Rails or HTML5 Developer (San Francisco, CA)
Interactive Production Designer
Interactive Production Designer (London, UK)
Sales Associate
Advertising Operations Analyst (London, UK)

These look like great jobs, so check them out.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Do you mind online ads?

Work Market

Willy Franzen — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 15:56:08 +0000

In college I studied Industrial and Labor Relations, which means that I spent four years focusing on the world of work. The curriculum covered everything from slavery and indentured servitude to unions and the movement of capital to find lower cost labor. The common theme was that the way that we define and think about work is constantly changing. Today’s trend is all about having a flexible workforce–people who can join on for a project form wherever they live and then move on to a new project with someone else. Work Market is a company that “give businesses access to an on-demand scalable work force along with tools to manage three categories of labor: employees, contractors and third parties.” Many businesses in this space focus on actually building the market where labor can find work, but Work Market takes it one step further and offers the software for businesses to build their own market.

Are You in the Market?

Work Market’s business is built on taking a cut of every assignment that they make happen. Their fees start at 9%, which sounds high, but is actually extremely competitive. The beauty of Work Market’s platform is that it covers everything that needs to be covered–things like background screening, tax compliance and filing, payment, competency validation, and lots more. We’re going to see more and more of this going forward–not only as a way to get work done but also as a hiring tool. Why use an interviewing process when you can have someone truly audition? If you like the approach that Work Market is taking, you can take a look at their Jobs page. Right now they have some great opportunities that could be a fit for a new or recent grad including: Client Service Professional, Visual / UX / UI Designer, Community Manager, and Operations Engineer. Check them out, or apply through the General Application.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Would you join Work Market?

GiveForward

Willy Franzen — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 16:26:25 +0000

Nearly 500,000 teaching jobs will be added in the next decade. If you’re considering a career in education, take a look at our guide to entry level teaching jobs.

At some point you’ve probably participated in a fundraiser to help pay for someone’s medical costs. You may have organized a car wash, bought a candy bar, run in a race, or just made a simple donation. It’s one way that we take care of people in our communities when they’re in need. The problem with fundraisers is that they can be an organizational nightmare. GiveForward is a Chicago, IL based company that solves this problem by offering people online fundraising pages. I met Ethan Austin, one of the company’s founders, about three years ago, and since then I’ve watched GiveForward help people raise more than $13 million and grow as a company at the same time. Every time I see him again, it seems like there’s a new success.

Moving Forward

When I initially heard about GiveForward, I assumed it was a non-profit. It just made sense, but GiveForward is a real business with a real revenue model. They take a 7% cut of all donations that come through their platform. That may sound a little steep, but when you look at how much value they provide to users (and realize how expensive credit card payment fees are), it makes a lot of sense. If you’re still not sure how GiveForward works, just take a look here or watch this video:

With such a simple product, it’s no surprise that GiveFoward has compiled a list of impressive success stories. I love it when companies can make money and provide tremendous social value at the same time. If you want to be part of the GiveForward team, check out their Jobs page. Right now they’re looking for a Front End Developer, a UI Graphic Designer, a Lead User Interface Designer, and a UI Developer. They don’t have any non-technical positions posted right now, but if you want an idea of what might be available in the future take a look at their team page or their internship postings.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Have you ever raised money for medical expenses?

GNC

Willy Franzen — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 16:30:38 +0000

Considering a job in Sales but lacking experience? SinglePlatform is hiring and training 50 new grads.

Lifting weights is one of the best things that you can do for physical fitness. Strength training can have amazing effects on its own, but you can get extraordinary results when you combine your training with proper nutrition. There’s a next step if you really want to get serious: supplementation. There seems to be a supplement for everything, from gaining muscle to improving brain function. And if there’s a name that you think of when you think of supplements, it has to be GNC. They’re a Pittsburgh, PA based worldwide retailer of health and nutrition products that include vitamins, supplements, minerals, herbs, and more. If you’re looking to get more out of your body, there’s something at GNC that will at least claim to help you do it.

Supplement Your Job Search

The only thing that I’ve ever bought from GNC is whey protein powder. I’ll barely ever even taken an aspirin, so the idea of taking all kinds of pills, powders, and extracts doesn’t really appeal to me. However, if you’re going to do it, GNC is a good brand to trust. They’ve set “the standard in the nutritional supplement industry by demanding truth in labeling, ingredient safety and product potency, all while remaining on the cutting-edge of nutritional science.” That’s a big deal when you hear about things like pro athletes testing positive for banned substance because they took supplements from a shady supplier. There’s absolutely no doubt that GNC is a world leader with more than 7,000 locations (they use a franchising model) and billions in revenue. GNC is exactly the kind of company that most people know about but never consider working for. Now is your chance. If you take a look at GNC’s Careers page, you’ll see that they have a few positions suitable for a new or recent grad including:

There are also opportunities at the retail/store level listed separately, so you may want to check those out too.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Do you use any supplements?

Coursera

Willy Franzen — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 15:11:48 +0000

Do you love local businesses? Help them get discovered with an Inside Sales job at SinglePlatform.

You’re not going to like this. You’ve paid a lot of money for a fancy education, and now some of the best universities in the world are giving it away for free. You still have to pay to get the piece of paper, but if you’re just looking for the knowledge, then you need to check out Coursera. They’re a Mountain View, CA based startup that is “partnering with the top universities in the world to offer courses online for anyone to take, for free.” So far they’re working with Princeton, Stanford, Berkeley, Michigan, and UPenn. It doesn’t get much better than that. What makes Coursera unique from things like MIT’s OpenCourseWare is that these classes are specifically created to be consumed online.

Stay the Coursera

On Coursera class size is only limited by demand. Coursera is designed to scale education to the point where hundreds of thousands of people can take the same course at the same time. Although there is some self-direction, the courses on Coursera are just like college course. They’re only given during a specific timeframe, and you get video lectures, course materials, homework, graded exercises, and even exams. It’s not intended to be casual learning. The one big question about Coursera is: What’s their business model? Despite their .org domain name, they are a for-profit company that just closed a $16 million round of venture capital funding. I’m not too worried as Coursera already has the platform and partnerships for success, but I’m certainly curious. If you want to be part of growing the business, take a look at Coursera’s Careers page. Right now they have some great opportunities for new or recent grads including:

Coursera has the potential really big, so grab this opportunity to get in while it’s still in its early stages.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Which course on Coursera do you want to take?

Dwell

Willy Franzen — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 15:02:15 +0000

I hate stock photography–especially the kind that you find on many career related sites. It’s usually a group of moderately attractive, racially diverse people who are smiling while dressed in business suits and holding folios. It’s not real. These photos create an unrealistic view of what a work environment looks like. In the world of home design, the analog is the fruit bowl. Whether you’re looking through real estate listings or a home decor magazine, chances are that you’ll see lots of fruit bowls–and they’ll be in odd places like bathrooms and bedrooms. Dwell is a magazine that defines itself by focusing on real life, something that “has been conspicuous by its absence in most design and architecture magazines.” Fruit bowls are ok, but only if the owners eat fruit. And so are other things you may not see in similar magazines–things that “demonstrate that a home is truly livable” by showing “it as it is lived in.” Dwell is based in New York, NY and San Francisco, CA, and although they consider themselves Modernists, they’re “nice Modernists.”

Dwell on This

You can get a feel for Dwell’s take on Modernism through their Fruit Bowl Manifesto on their About page, but to really understand it you should pick up a copy of their magazine or at least check out their website. While the focus is on homes, they cover everything that can be part of the context of a home–products, places, people, events, ideas, and more. It’s usually pretty hard to get a grasp of the business behind a magazine, so I highly recommend that you take a look at Dwell’s Media Kit–it will give you some serious insight into how the business operates. Once you’ve done that, head over to Dwell’s Jobs page. Right now they have mostly internships posted, but there’s a Brand Specialist (they don’t say where it’s located) position that looks like it could be a good fit for new or recent grads. It’s more about ad sales/account management than branding from what I can tell, but there’s nothing wrong with that.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Do you read Dwell?

Hatchlings

Willy Franzen — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 13:00:17 +0000

I love Easter. I get pretty amped about the candy, which is why in past years I’ve featured Just Born Quality Confections, Jelly Belly, Russell Stover, and the PMCA at Easter time (and Mars, The Hershey Company, NECCO, Charles Chocolates, and Vosges at other times of the year). But in my family it’s really all about the cash. We have an annual Easter Egg Hunt that is high stakes–elbows have been thrown. The eggs with candy are the duds. The heavy ones are ok because they have dollar coins. But the ones that you really want are light–they have bills in them. Over the past few years, I’ve been able to make Easter Egg Hunts pretty profitable, but it doesn’t come close to what Hatchlings has done. They run “the world’s largest egg hunt” via Facebook, and apparently the Des Moines, IA based company has been able to generate significant advertising revenue through their app.

Come Out of Your Shell

I found out about Hatchlings when I came across this blog post on Hacker News. It’s a plea from Hatchlings to get Google to reinstate their AdSense account. They got banned (and stiffed on ~$40,000) for no particular reason. Reading the post will give you some insight into how the business works, and so will this article. There isn’t much information on the company’s website, so you have to actually give their app a whirl to learn more. It’s nearly impossible to find Hatchlings’ Careers page but they mentioned in their blog post that they were hiring so I persevered and dug it up (like I will with Easter eggs on Sunday). Current openings include Server Wizard / Optimization Genie, Marketing Director, PHP Developer, and iOS Developer. They’ve had past openings for a UI/UX Designer and Community Manager, so there could be future opportunities in those areas.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Does your family have an Easter Egg Hunt?

Drchrono

Willy Franzen — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 16:26:37 +0000

Reasoning Mind is an education focused non-profit that uses the web to teach kids math, and they’re hiring 30 new grads as Program Coordinators. Learn more about these amazing entry level opportunities.

The health care situation in the United States is a mess. It’s hard to disagree with that, but it’s easy to disagree about how we can fix it. I think that technology is a big part of the answer. I don’t mean medical technology (though that will certainly help)–I’m talking about administrative technology. I know it’s not nearly as exciting, but if doctors can run their practices more efficiently, they’ll be able to deliver better care at a lower costs. That’s a big deal. Drchrono is a Mountain View, CA based company that is using the power of the iPad to change how medical practices are run. They’ve developed a software-based patient care platform that does everything from patient check-in to managing electronic health records to billing. It may not sound like it’s going to turn around the health care situation, but it’s a start.

What’s App Doc?

While I have to guess that most people use their iPads for Angry Birds and not much else, it’s really cool to see how this device is enabling industry changing software to be built. The problem used to be finding a way to deliver the software. Apple solved it. Now it’s just about making the software work in the context of how most medical practices operate. That’s exactly what Drchrono is doing. You can read about the platform here, and you read about its benefits here. Another key to Drchrono’s success is that it helps physicians qualify for the HITECH Act, which offers “$44,000 or more in economic stimulus incentives for adopting a Certified EHR.” That’s a big incentive. If you’re excited about what Drchrono is doing, then take a look at their Jobs page. Right now they have quite a few opportunities posted including:

There are lots of cool jobs available, so take a look at the job descriptions and consider applying.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

What do you think of Drchrono?

Greatist

Willy Franzen — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 15:32:45 +0000

Behavioral change is hard. Really hard. Whether you’re trying to be more diligent about networking or trying to lose a few pounds, you have to understand your own psychological shortfalls. If you try to make 20 changes all at once, you are going to fail. That’s why I really like how Greatist approaches health and fitness. They are aiming to inspire “the world to make one healthier choice per week.” It doesn’t sound like much, but it really adds up. And once you’re committed to one healthy choice a week, it gets a heck of a lot easier to make another one… and another one. Greatist is based in New York, NY, and they pursue their mission by providing health and fitness related content on their website. There are a million other sites that do this, but Greatist has a unique approach, a targeted market of the “young, savvy, and social,” and drastically growing traffic. Those are all really good signs.

Are You the Greatist?

Here’s a brief video that will give you an overview of what Greatist is and how they’re different from other sites (e-mail readers may need to click though to the post):

If you’re looking for more, you can read Greatist’s Health and Fitness Manifesto. The problem I see for Greatist is that monetizing health and fitness traffic usually means you need to peddle scammy, infomercially type stuff–or at least accept advertising for it. It’s what sells. Greatist once again is taking a different approach. They plan on making money through their own products. Take a look at their Bootcamps page to get a sense for how they’re approaching this. If you dig it, head over to Greatist’s Jobs page. They’re currently looking for a Contributing Writer, a Staff Writer, a Contributing Photographer, a PR/Communicatons/Brand Champion, a Technical Leader, and a Lead Designer. Greatist’s founder is a recent grad, so don’t be afraid to apply for any of these positions.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Do you live a healthy lifestyle?

HY Connect

Willy Franzen — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 14:38:34 +0000

One of the best ways to land a job is to show an employer what you’ve done. That’s hard when you don’t have any experience, and that’s why I recommend that every job seeker pick up some sort of project to put who they are into product form. Getting a job is a lot like landing an account for an agency, which is why HY Connect leads with their work. When you get on the Milwaukee, WI and Chicago, IL based company’s home page, you see the best of what they do best. While looking at an advertising campaign can tell you a lot, it doesn’t tell the whole story. HY Connect offers “integrated advertising, public relations and media solutions,” which means that their Services page includes a remarkably long list of things that they do well.

Say HY

Although you get a good taste of HY Connect’s work on their home page, it’s important that you really dig in and get a feel for how they work and how they’re different from other agencies. You can start by looking at all of their work and continue by going through their case studies. You’ll see that they’ve worked with names like Yamaha, Peapod, Comcast, and The Museum of Science and Industry (my favorite Chicago museum). Once you really have a feel for HY Connect’s work, you’ll probably want to read up on their process. All of this information should help you better understand your value proposition to them. Once you have an idea of where you could fit in, then it’s time to check out HY Connect’s Jobs page. (I know it feels backwards, but it works. I promise.) HY Connect has some great job opportunities for new and recent grads including:

Research Analyst – SEO/SEM (Milwaukee, WI)
Web Developer (Chicago, IL)
UX Planner (Chicago, IL)
UX Planner (Milwaukee, WI)
Media Associate (Chicago, IL or Milwaukee, WI)

These look like awesome positions so look them over and figure out which ones make the most sense for you.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

What do you think of HY Connect’s work?

Vox Media

Willy Franzen — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 15:17:07 +0000

Are you an enthusiastic, reliable college grad who loves working with kids? SmartSitting is looking for full and part-time nannies and babysitters to join their network. They connect experienced childcare providers with the best jobs in NYC. Learn more by visiting SmartSitting.com. You can also view current opportunities and apply to join their network.

This weekend I spent an equal amount of time watching sports on tv and playing sports outside. That didn’t leave a lot of time to read about sports online, but I’ll guarantee you that a lot of sports sites saw a ton of traffic this weekend (and will continue to see it over the next few weeks). One of those sites is SB Nation, which is a site that is focused on “reinventing the media model with profitable, high-quality, innovative coverage from passionate, talented creators.” SB Nation used to be a company on its own, but it’s been so successful that a larger company called Vox Media has been built around it. They’re based in Washington, DC, and they also run The Verge, a technology news site, and will be launching a gaming focused site soon. Word is that they just closed a big round of funding, and the expectation is that they’ll use the cash to build out into more verticals.

Have a Voice

If you’re thinking that Vox Media’s approach looks similar to that of Gawker Media, you’re right. They’ve entered some of the same core verticals, and they’ve hired people from Gawker and other major online media companies to build out their properties. This is something that you see a lot in the industry. A company builds a platform that is very successful, and they replicated it over and over again. The SB Nation About page gives a really good run down on how this all works, so I highly recommend that you read through the whole thing. If you’re excited by the business model and love online content, then check out Vox Media’s Jobs page and The Verge’s Jobs page (there’s some overlap, and the SB Nation’s redirects to the Vox Media page). There are a number of positions worth considering for a new or recent grad including:

Designer (New York, NY)
Developer (Washington, DC)
Traffic Analyst (Washington, DC)
Business Editor – The Verge (New York, NY)
Designer – The Verge (New York, NY)
Laptop/Table Reviewer – The Verge (New York, NY)
Mobile Reviewer – The Verge (New York, NY)
Production Editor – The Verge (New York, NY)
Reporter/Editor – The Verge – East Coast (New York, NY)
Reporter/Editor – The Verge – West Coast (San Francisco, CA)

Vox Media offers an amazing opportunity to get into a rapidly growing industry. Take a look at these positions and see if any make sense for you.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

What have you heard about Vox Media?

Outdoor Research

Willy Franzen — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 16:41:18 +0000

This weather is insane. Yesterday it hit 80 degrees in Chicago. The 10-day forecast would be awesome for June… and it’s mid-March. As a result, all I want to do is be outside. But to be honest, even when the weather sucks, I still usually want to be outside. With the kind of gear that companies like Outdoor Research put out, there’s no excuse no matter what the weather. Outdoor Research is based in Seattle, WA, and they’re focused “on creating functional solutions for human powered adventure.” The company was founded in 1981 by a physicist named Ron Gregg. He was unhappy with how his gear performed on one of his outdoor adventures, so he decided to make a better version. They started with handwear, headwear, and gaiters, but after finding success in those areas started developing new product lines.

Do Your Research

What differentiates Outdoor Research from a lot of other companies in the space is that they take a deep dive into very specific niches, or as they say, “We do weird well.” The video on their Our Story page does a great job of explaining how they do this and what they mean by performance. It’s not just about serving markets like alpinism, backcountry skiing / riding, hiking, backpacking, ice climbing, rock climbing, trail running, and paddling. It’s about considering all of the situations that those activities occur in and designing gear that will perform in the situations they’re intended for. If you love that approach, then take a look at Outdoor Research’s Jobs page. Right now they’re looking for a Front-end Web Developer and a Product Developer – Apparel, but the best posting is definitely for I’ll do anything to work at Outdoor Research!. I think it’s pretty self-explanatory.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

How are you enjoying the weather?

Voxy

Willy Franzen — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 16:20:33 +0000

My last foreign language learning experience came in tenth grade French class. I found it mind numbingly boring even though we used French in Action, which was supposed to be a wonderful method for learning the language. If you can’t keep a student engaged, he or she will never learn the language. That’s why Voxy might be worth checking out for those of you who have had trouble learning languages through other methods. They’re based in New York, NY, and they offer “an exciting, award-winning way to learn a language from life.” How do they do this? They use web and mobile technologies to teach you a language while you’re doing things that you’d normally do–reading articles, playing games, or walking around your city. Not only does this make learning more fun, but it also makes it more useful. What you learn is based on the context of your life, so you’ll actually know why what you’re learning is useful.

Learn from Life

My one beef with Voxy is that their home page has a Get Started section with buttons that say “I Speak English,” “Hablo Español,” and “Eu Falo Português.” When I click the one that applies to me, the section just turns blank, so I can’t give Voxy try. Still, what I can see in their What Is Voxy? and How & Why It Works sections is impressive. When I see technology like what Voxy is offering, I can’t help but think that kids growing up today should be about 10x smarter than the generation before them (but then I remember all of the fun distractions that come with the same technology). If you’re loving what Voxy is doing, take a look at their Jobs page. They have a ton of opportunities posted, though they call most of them internships. I usually wouldn’t post these, but Voxy interns are “full-time, paid employees with mission critical responsibilities and roles.” These are perfect opportunities for new grads, and they include:

There’s a ton of entry level opportunity at Voxy, so take a look at these positions and figure out which of them make the most sense for you.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Will you try Voxy?

Eastbay

Willy Franzen — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 16:51:34 +0000

I remember when getting a new catalog in the mail made for an exciting day. My favorite catalog had to be Things You Never Knew Existed, but most of the ones I got were focused on baseball or fishing. I don’t know why I remember this, but I was always jealous of a friend who got the Eastbay catalog. It was filled with all kind of sporting goods and apparel, and for some reason I never thought to sign up to get it. While Eastbay, which is based in Wausau, WI, still has a catalog business, they’ve unsurprisingly moved a lot of what they do online. To me the coolest thing about Eastbay is their story. According to Wikipedia, they were founded in 1980 to “to meet the performance needs of local high school and college athletes within Central Wisconsin.” By 1995 they had grown big enough to go public. A few years later they were bought out by Woolworth’s, which became Foot Locker, Inc. It just shows how big a company can get even if they start by serving a small niche market.

Head to Eastbay

Eastbay is obviously in a tough spot considering that they have to compete with behemoths like Zappos and Amazon for customer orders. While Eastbay doesn’t provide a lot of information about their business besides a simple About page, but you can tell that their competitive advantage is their very strong focus on sports. They also seem to do a lot of work directly with teams. The best way to get a feel for Eastbay is just to browse through their product selection, and maybe even try buying something. If you like what you see, take a look at Eastbay’s Jobs page. Right now they have a number of opportunities that seem suitable for a new or recent grad including:

If those don’t work for you, you can also apply to be a model.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Did you ever get the Eastbay catalog?

MediaMath

Willy Franzen — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 15:51:42 +0000

I’m extremely excited for the season premiere of Mad Men on March 25th. It’s one of the best shows on tv, and you can actually learn some meaningful business lessons from watching it. One of the downsides of the show is that it overglamorizes the idea. Maybe it’s because the show is set in the 60s and things were easier then, but an idea isn’t enough for success today whether you’re talking about a startup or an advertisement. MediaMath is a New York, NY based company that has “built the tools that enable and empower [a] new breed of marketing professional”–the Math Men and Women. Ideas will always be important in advertising, but data and analytics are how you turn ideas into successes. MediaMath’s “TerminalOne platform allows agencies and advertisers to plan, execute, optimize, and analyze marketing programs across the digital landscape.”

Do Your Math

Mad Men wouldn’t be nearly as popular if Don Draper looked like the guy on the Math Men site. Data insights aren’t sexy, but they sure as heck work. Just look at MediaMath’s Case Studies. These case studies are short and sweet. They don’t tell you all about who their client is and try to impress you with big names. They simply state the problem, the solution, and the result with a bar graph–it’s the Math Men way. If you like that approach, then dive into the TerminalOne Platform and learn more about MediaMath’s technology, then head over to their Careers page. Right now they have a few positions you may want to consider including User Experience Designer, Yield Analyst, Software Engineer in Test, UI Developer, and Account Planner. Let me know if you become a Math Man or Math Woman.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Do you watch Mad Men?

Buzz Referrals

Willy Franzen — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 17:38:30 +0000

Everybody wants their stuff to go viral on the Internet. The problem is that it’s way easier to do with funny pictures than it is with useful things like articles and products. If you can’t get the natural word of mouth flowing, you need to incentivize (bribe) people to spread the word. I’m sure that you’ve participated in some sort of referral program before (I love Gilt’s program), and hopefully earned some sort of reward. I’ve seen so many companies use referral bonuses to accelerate their growth, and it’s often amazingly effective. Surprisingly, most of these businesses build their own technology for referrals. Why do that when you can pay Chicago, IL based Buzz Referrals to do it for you? They’ve developed a platform that easily plugs into an existing site and creates “referral programs and buzz worthy promotions that drive new customer acquisition and increase engagement.” (Would any of you participate in an ODOJ referral program?)

Generate a Buzz

If you want to get a better feel for what Buzz Referrals offers, you should read their How It Works and FAQ pages. They’ll give you a better sense of how the product actually works. I was reminded of Buzz Referrals when I was writing about SitterCity yesterday (they use it to get new customers), but I’m sure I heard about them before considering they were part of Excelerate Labs’ Class of 2011 (it’s a Chicago startup incubator). This is all relevant because Buzz Referrals just raised $600k to grow their business. That may not sound a lot when you hear about companies closing rounds of funding in the double digit millions, but it should be enough to help Buzz Referrals get their product out to many more customers. And that’s exactly what their Jobs page shows they’re looking to spend money on. Right now they’re hiring an Inside Sales Representative, a Marketing Coordinator, and UX Designer. All of the positions look like they could be great for a new or recent grad, so check them out.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

How many friends have you referred to One Day One Job?

YipIt

Willy Franzen — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 17:35:50 +0000

I did an interview with The 99% (they have nothing to do with Occupy Wall Street) on job search and entrepreneurship that was published today. Read it, share it, Facebook it, Tweet it.

How can you not love daily deals? Great stuff at a great price. Unfortunately, everybody and their brother thought it was a good idea to knock off Groupon and start a daily deals site. This irritated merchants who were getting pitched incessantly, and it overwhelmed consumers with all of the options. While many of the copycats have died off, one company avoided a similar fate by taking a very different approach to riding the daily deal wave. YipIt is based in New York, NY, and they’re a daily deal aggregator. Every month they gather more than 30,000 deals from more than 800 sites and share them with their audience. They make money through advertising and affiliate fees paid by the daily deal sites, but there’s more to the story.

Get the Yips

We’re all familiar with aggregators. They pull together interesting stuff, and make it easy to consume in one place. YipIt does this, but there’s far more value in aggregation than most people realize. By scraping all of the daily deal sites for information like who the merchant is, what is being sold, and how many have been sold, YipIt has collected a gold mine of data. They know more about the daily deals market than just about anyone, and with publicly traded companies like Groupon, Yelp, Google, and Amazon participating in this market, this data is extremely valuable to the financial community–and also to the companies that operate in the daily deals space. It’s pretty brilliant that YipIt has been able to build essentially one product and market and monetize it in two very different ways. If you’d like to be a part of this and you have some serious quantitative/analytical chops, then check out YipIt’s Data Product Analyst position which is posted on their Jobs page. It looks like a really cool opportunity. Their other positions are in Web Development and User Interaction Design, but they require more experience.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

What have you heard about YipIt?

HealthTap

Willy Franzen — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 17:23:46 +0000

Admit it! You’ve used the Internet to self-diagnose a medical problem, and you probably used WebMD. For some of you it was to convince yourself that you’re not going to die tomorrow, and for some of you it was probably the opposite. It’s great having access to so much information, but it’s kind of dangerous when you a) can’t verify its accuracy and b) have no idea how to use it properly. Running to the doctor for every little issue is ridiculous, so there needs to be a better way to get medical information online. Luckily my little sister (who is awesome because she went to art school and then decided she wanted to go to med school, so she’s doing a postbac now) let me know about HealthTap. They’re a Palo Alto, CA based company that provides “free online and mobile answers from thousands of the best physicians in the U.S.” It’s kind of like Yahoo! Answers for medicine, but the people responding to your questions aren’t complete morons.

Get Tapped

There’s no doubt that there’s a demand for free medical advice online. But would doctors actually be willing to answer questions for free? HealthTap has proven that the answer is a resounding yes. Humans want to share their knowledge–just look at the endless reviews on sites like Yelp and Amazon–but professionals are usually more hesitant to give away their expertise for free. That’s why HealthTap sweetens the deal for docs. Their software helps “physicians better serve existing patients, find new ones, and build their reputation by demonstrating their expertise online.” If you were looking for a dermatologist, wouldn’t you consider the one who gave you great answers to your questions about a rash on HealthTap? I would (if I had a rash). Beyond helping doctors reach new people, HealthTap also provides a platform for doctors to provide something like a FAQ. That means that they spend less time answering the same simple questions over and over.

If you’re interested in the intersection of health care and technology, then a job at HealthTap would be an awesome fit. Here’s their video on why you should work for them:

The available positions most suitable for new or recent grads at HealthTap are pretty technical right now as they include Frontend Software Engineer, Backend Software Engineer, Mobile App Developer, and IT and Operations Engineer. The Interactive Writer / Copy Writer / Editor position looks pretty cool, but it seems like they want pretty significant experience. If you’re not a techie, you may want to try reaching out to jobs@healthtap.com to see if there’s any way you could fit in.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Would you use HealthTap?

GREE

Willy Franzen — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 17:29:06 +0000

There’s no doubt that Japanese companies have been and continue to be leaders in the gaming industry. Nintendo, Sega, and Sony are some of the names that you’re most likely to recognize, but it’s very clear that the old guard of gaming is facing stiff competition from upstarts like Zynga and ngmoco that are focusing on mobile and social gaming. While Japan has historically been big on console gaming, they’re not missing out on this trend. GREE is a Japanese that is fervently entering the U.S. market in order to grow a business that generated $1.7 billion in revenue last year. GREE is unique in that their U.S. based branding has been more about hiring than games. They’ve opened a San Francisco, CA office that they’re promoting heavily with billboards, referral bonuses, and even Google AdWords campaigns. They also acquired a company called OpenFeint to speed along the growth.

They’re Huge in Japan

While I love it when companies put a big emphasis on employment branding and recruiting, I’m a little annoyed by how difficult it is to dig into GREE’s business. Their website’s header includes some cool looking game characters, but there’s absolutely no information available about the company’s games. All the site really says is that their goal ” is to make mobile social gaming meaningful by building the best mobile social gaming ecosystem for users and developers worldwide.” The only tidbits of information come from GREE’s News page which mentions that they’re teaming up with Ubisoft for a new Assassin’s Creed mobile game and working with Gameloft on a “Gang Domination” game. You can also head over to OpenFeint’s site to learn more about their games. If you like what you see, then you’ll be thrilled about how many positions are posted on GREE’s Careers Page. Here are the jobs that seem best suited for new or recent grads:

Art, 2D Game Artist
Junior Web/Graphic Designera
UI/UX Designer, Mobile Games
Business Operations Associate
Strategy Associate
Android Engineer
IT Service Delivery Specialist
Software Engineer – Front End
Software Engineer, Game Backend
Software Engineer, Mobile Device Porting
Software Engineer, Mobile Games
Software Engineer, Mobile Integration
Software Engineer, Platform
Web Developer
Recruiting Coordinator
Junior Copywriter
Marketing Coordinator, Platform
Bilingual Executive Assistant (Japanese)
Customer & Community Specialist
Game Integration Engineer
Production Coordinator/Assistant
Executive Assistant

Like I said, GREE is extremely serious about expansion in the U.S., and that’s why they’re hiring so many people right now. There are a lot of jobs to wade through, but the variety of options is pretty wide.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Do you play any GREE games?

Inspirato

Willy Franzen — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 15:48:21 +0000

Mid-February is a great time for a vacation. It’s typically still really cold, but it’s late enough in the winter that you can reasonably expect that it might feel like spring when you get back home. Unfortunately, I’m not going anywhere anytime soon, but if I was, I’d really like to use Inspirato. It’s a super high-end vacation club that offers members access to amazing residences in fantastic locations. The company is based in Denver, CO, but they have long-term leases on properties in places like St. Barts, Paris, Patagonia, Jackson Hole, Kenya, and Tuscany. For a meager $15,000 initiation fee and a $2,500 annual fee, you can access any of these properties. You still have to pay a nightly rate, but it’s well below what’d you pay if you were renting a similar property on your own (the average nightly rate is $650).

Choose Your Destination

I know this will shock you, but Inspirato’s initiation fee is way below most vacation clubs–like an order of magnitude. It’s still not a possibility for most people, but they’ve significantly expanded the market for these types of services, and that has allowed them to grow extremely quickly. They’re targeting people with net worths in the $800,000 to $10 million range–so it’s super rich, not super super rich people. Inspirato already has more than $50 million in funding, which means that they should be able to add more and more great destinations. Their membership has grown to over 1,200, and they expect sales to increase significantly in 2012. All those stats came from this WSJ article on Inspirato, which does a great job of explaining how the business works. If you aspire to one day be a member of Inspirato, you might want to start by working for them. They use Facebook for their Careers page, which is annoying because it breaks the back button. However, there are some great positions worth checking out including:

Technical Business Analyst
Social Media Coordinator
Business Intelligence & Database Support Specialist
Destination Concierge, Vail and Beaver Creek
Graphic Designer
Sales Analyst
Web Designer
Destination Concierge – South Beach, FL

These positions tend to have higher experience requirements than jobs I usually write about, but Inspirato looks awesome, so it’s worth taking a look at these positions and trying to figure out how you can fit in.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Which of Inspirato’s destinations would you chose?

OpenSky

Willy Franzen — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 14:23:16 +0000

Yesterday I came across Fast Company‘s list of The World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies. I love lists like these not only because they’re an interesting read, but also because they’re a fantastic source for company ideas. Unfortunately, this list in particular is always a little disappointing in terms of the latter–mostly because I’ve already written up a lot of the companies. That’s why it took me until #49 on a list of 50 to find a company to tell you about. Luckily, OpenSky looks pretty cool. They’re a New York, NY based company (with another office in Nashville, TN) that is changing the online shopping experience through a focus on curation (that’s a big buzzword lately). They’ve hand selected some of “the brightest stars in food, healthy living, style and design” to provide product recommendations. You can “add” any assortment of these experts to customize your shopping experience.

The Sky’s the Limit

Personalization in online shopping isn’t anything new. There are tons of companies that gather data about you, and then try to sell you things that they think you’ll buy. The problem is that the recommendations tend to be the same kind of things over and over. OpenSky is different because they don’t base recommendations on what you’ve purchased or indicated that you like but on your selection of people whose style you like. This adds an element of creativity and randomness that other recommendation engines can’t provide. And people must love it. OpenSky has over 1 million members and does $500,000 in sales weekly. Those are really big numbers for a young company, which means that they’re hiring to keep themselves growing. Right now their Jobs page shows a few interesting positions including Customer Service Representative, Graphic Designer, and Freelance Retoucher. There are a few other positions like Healthy Living Buyer and Project Manager, but they require some previous experience.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Have you used OpenSky?

H.BLOOM

Willy Franzen — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 16:28:03 +0000

I’m in the doghouse. I’m the guy who forgot Valentine’s Day. Luckily, it’s not with my fiancée–I took good care of her yesterday. It’s with you. I didn’t give you a Valentine’s Day post after in past years telling you about jobs at places like eHarmony, Tiffany & Co., OpenTable, ProFlowers, Necco, Vosges, and even the American Heart Association. Flowers are the tried and true way of getting out of the doghouse, but a beautiful bouquet isn’t going to do it when that’s the status quo for Valentine’s Day. How about a flower arrangement every week? That might do it, and that’s exactly what New York, NY based H.BLOOM offers. They are a “flower service.” If you don’t know what that is, you can learn more here. Essentially it’s a subscription to flowers. Subscription based business models are all the rage these days, so it’s no surprise that someone is applying it to the floral industry.

Let Your Career Bloom

H.BLOOM is one of the few companies that I’ve come across without an About page. That’s a little odd, but I wouldn’t worry too much about it. It just means that you have to work a little harder to understand how their business works. The best way to start is pretend that you’re buying one of their collections. You’ll see that the process is pretty simple and it offers a ton of options–you can even order custom arrangements if you’re willing to spend more than $150 per delivery (flowers are expensive!). Right now H.BLOOM delivers in a few major metro areas: San Francisco; Washington, DC; Chicago, IL; and New York, NY, but I’m sure that their list of zip codes will continue to expand. H.BLOOM also appears to offer jobs in all of these markets. Right now their Jobs page shows these postings:

Account Executive (San Francisco, CA)
Account Executive (Chicago, IL)
Account Executive (New York, NY)
Part-Time Floral Designer (Washington, DC)
Part-Time Floral Designer (New York, NY)

All of the positions are listed as mid-level, but I could see a new grad with the right background being a good fit for any of them. There’s also a ton of potential for H.BLOOM to offer more positions in different areas, so keep your eyes on them. Am I out of the doghouse yet?

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Would you sign up for a flower delivery subscription?

Wayfair

Willy Franzen — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 16:03:50 +0000

I’ve made a point of being more active in Cornell’s entrepreneurship community, so I like to think that I do a good job of keeping tabs on which other companies have been started by fellow alums. That’s why I was shocked to learn that the #2 online retailer of home furnishings and housewares was not only a company that I’d never heard of before, but a company founded by two Cornell grads. It’s called Wayfair–they’re based in Boston, MA and did $500 million in sales last year. The reason I hadn’t heard of them is that they were known as CSN Stores until last year (they were founded in 2002). CSN Stores was focused on building out 200+ product specific properties with generic domain names like Bedroomfurniture.com, Cookware.com, AirHockeyTables.com, and AllBarstools.com. Last year they decided to get serious about branding and started pulling all of their sites into the Wayfair brand.

Find Your Way

If you’d like to read a more in-depth version of the Wayfair story, check out this write up from GigaOm. It provides a lot of interesting details, but I actually think the Wayfair site is even better. Their About page is beautifully designed and packed with information, and the same can be said for the company’s Careers page. It’s also nice that they have a Campus Recruiting section that includes this video (you may need to click through to view it):

The campus recruiting page also includes four positions targeted towards 2012 grads: Business Analyst, Business Intelligence Analyst, Category Management Associate, and Software Engineer. Additionally, they have a ton of job postings for immediate hire:

Category Analyst / Entry Level Buyer (Sydney, Australia)
Jr. Designer/Web Production Artist
Customer Service Consultant (Sydney, Australia)
Bilingual Sales & Service Consultant (Galway, Ireland)
Customer Service Consultant (Ogden, UT)
Email Sales and Service Consultant (Ogden, UT)
Inbound Sales Consultant (Ogden, UT)
Sales Consultant (Ogden, UT)
Junior Web Operations Engineer
Software Engineer
Analyst, Email Marketing – Private Sale

There are a ton of great opportunities at Wayfair, which was named one of Glassdoor’s 2012 Best Places to Work, so browse through the postings and see if any of them are appropriate for you.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Have you purchased anything from Wayfair?

Internet Brands

Willy Franzen — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 18:07:03 +0000

In case you missed our e-mail from last week, Kembrel loved the response from our post about them so they’re offering a free VIP card (usually 20 bucks) to all ODOJ readers and $5 in store credit. Sign up here.

On Monday we took a look at Vertive, a company that builds internet properties to help people save money. Today we’re going to look at a company with a similar model of building and buying websites, but a much broader approach. Internet Brands is based in El Segundo, CA and started as CarsDirect.com in 1998. It was a successful brand for them, but in 2005 they realized that the platform they had built could be applied to other verticals. Now Internet Brands operates more than 100 websites that reach over a billion visitors every year. Amazingly, they’ve been able to generate almost all of this traffic organically (without buying advertising). This is all because of the platform that they’ve developed and the ability to share resources across brands. Internet Brands is a case study of how economies of scale can work on the web.

Get Branded

The best way to get a better feel for Internet Brands is to explore their… brands. There are a lot of them, but they typically fit into one of nine verticals: Automotive, Careers, Health, Home, Legal, Licensing, Money, Shopping, and Travel. Chances are that most of the brands will be new to you, but I found a few that I was familiar with. Unlike Vertive, Internet Brands doesn’t shed much light on how they operate. Even the Internet Brands Careers page is filled with mostly generic stuff like “Do you have energy, drive and ambition?” and “Do you have a strong sense of where you are going and how to get there?” Would any job seeker answer no to those rhetorical questions? At least Internet Brands makes up for it with a ton of job postings. Here are the ones that look well suited for an entry level job seeker:

That’s a lot of jobs. Hopefully a few of them will catch your interest.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

What have you heard about Internet Brands?

Vertive

Willy Franzen — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 16:54:07 +0000

Having written profiles on more than 1,500 companies, I start to see the same stories over and over again. Some business models are just better than others, and those are the ones that seem to keep popping up. One of the most effective models these days is based on providing a free online resource to help save people money and using affiliate programs to monetize the traffic. Sites like Slickdeals, Fatwallet, Savings.com, ShopAtHome.com, CouponCabin, and WhaleShark Media have all taken that approach and succeeded. Vertive is another. They’re based in Austin, TX, and they were founded “to provide search engine marketing consulting and affiliate marketing services.” They eventually started building their own web properties, and that turned out to be way more profitable than consulting. Vertive’s biggest property is Offers.com, but other properties include DailyDeals.com, CouponCodes.com, and Subscription.com.

Get an Offer from Vertive

Because their properties are separate brands, the Vertive.com website is solely dedicated to providing information about the company. Luckily, the information is by no means generic. Vertive actually offers a pretty good look at how their business works. The section title How We Do It is especially good at describing Vertives’ approach to performance marketing. They also provide some good information on what it’s like to work at Vertive. If you like what you see, then you’ll want to check out Vertive’s Jobs page. Right now they have a good number of opportunities that are suitable for new or recent grads including:

Even if Vertive isn’t a good fit for you, it’s worth spending the time to learn about their business. The performance marketing model is… performing extremely well lately. It’s time that you understand how it works.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

What have you heard about Vertive?