One Day, One Job » hospitality management

Hotel Tonight

Willy Franzen — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 18:03:26 +0000

Want to try Hotel Tonight? Use this link to get $25 off your first booking.

I don’t know if it’s just me, but I either book hotel rooms way in advance or the day of. When I reserve a room in advance, I’m usually looking for more than just a place to sleep. Price is still important, but it’s not the most important thing. But when I need a room for tonight, I want a place that meets my minimum standards for the lowest price. As long as I can get a good night’s sleep without being bitten by bedbugs or woken up by a domestic dispute, I’m happy. It’s the latter situation that can be frustrating for bargain hunters. You know that the hotel is at 12% capacity, but they still won’t give you anything better than the AAA rate. As long as they can cover the cost of cleaning the room, they should be willing to take you. Hotel Tonight is a San Francisco, CA based company that is making it easy to get rooms for up to 70% off at the last-minute.

Job Today?

At least for now, Hotel Tonight is completely app based. You can’t even search for a hotel on their website. They want you to whip out your phone (Android or iPhone) when you need a room and book from there. Every day they launch new deals at noon local time, so that’s the best time to check the app (some stuff does sell out). I spent a little time playing around with the app, and the deals look good, but they’re not mind blowing. If you stay somewhere expensive you can save a few hundred bucks, but a more basic hotel room might only come with $10-$20 in savings. Still, Hotel Tonight will help you find a good deal with almost no hassle, and it provides a great yield management tool for hotel owners. If you’re interested in the intersection of technology and hospitality management, then take a look at Hotel Tonight’s Jobs page. Right now they have some great opportunities available including:

Take a look at the jobs. Hopefully one of them will be a good fit.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

What’s your favorite hotel?

Tablet Hotels

Willy Franzen — Mon, 23 May 2011 15:59:38 +0000

Travel search engines are great. You can find the best rates for a place to stay in almost any location. The only problem is that the results can be a bit overwhelming. You have to do some serious research to make sure that the hotel that you picked isn’t a fleabag (or do we call them bedbug bags now?). And since it’s not uncommon to find a room in a luxury hotel for a price that is comparable to the price of a room in a lower tier chain, you might as well stay somewhere interesting and unique. So why not just limit your search to a curated list of luxury properties? That’s exactly what Tablet Hotels does. They’re a hotel booking site that offers access to great rates at a “tightly edited selection” of hotels. The company is located in New York, NY, and they’ve been around since 2000, so they’re experts when it comes to booking rooms at an affordable rate at some of the nicest hotels in the world.

Get Tabbed

Obviously the online travel booking business is extremely competitive, so Tablet Hotels can’t just stand out by having a small list of cool hotels that you can book. That’s just not enough. They’re doing a few things to make them stand out. The first is the Tablet Hotels Price Guarantee, which pretty much explains itself. The next is their review system, the Tablets Hotel Meter, which “is a running average of the ratings given to a hotel by registered Tablet Hotels users who have actually stayed at the hotel.” That means that nobody is gaming the reviews. Finally, there’s Tablet Guides and the other editorial content that Tablet Hotels puts out. By making the travel booking experience fun and interesting, Tablet Hotels ensures that customers keep coming back to them. I first heard about Tablet Hotels from a former reader who is now working there. She e-mailed me to tell me about a paid internship that they’re offering, but I noticed that the company’s Contact page mentions that you should contact them at jobs@tablethotels.com if you’re interested in a job. Since there aren’t any listings, you should use LinkedIn to figure out where you might fit in, and then pitch them on it.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Have you ever used Tablet Hotels?

Rosen Hotels

Willy Franzen — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 15:00:09 +0000

Cornell students! I’m on campus right now for the Entrepreneurship@Cornell Celebration. I’ll be here through Monday, so e-mail me at willy@onedayonejob.com if you like to meet up and pick my brain about careers or entrepreneurship.

So far I’m loving being back in Ithaca to connect with fellow Cornell entrepreneurs. I’ve met a ton of great people and learned about some really cool things that other alumni are working on. Yesterday I got to watch the finalists in the Cornell Venture Challenge pitch their businesses to investors and sit in on a panel about social entrepreneurship, but the best part was actually the keynote. I almost skipped it because I usually find those kind of talks boring, but I wanted to learn about Cornell’s “Entrepreneur of the Year” Harris Rosen. He is the President & COO of Rosen Hotels, and he is a fascinating guy. He came from meager beginnings in New York City, and somehow made it to Cornell. After going through a few jobs, he bought “a bankrupt 256-room Quality Inn in Orlando in 1974.” His company now owns 7 successful hotels in Orlando, FL that combine for 6,300 rooms. It may not be a massive chain like Marriott, Hilton, or Hyatt, but the business that Harris Rosen has built is just as impressive, if not more so.

Take a Trip to Orlando

Harris Rosen could live happily owning a single hotel, and he’d actually prefer it that way. But he blames the “entrepreneurship gene” for pushing him to keep expanding. Still, he takes a reserved approach to growth. He never borrows money, and he always invests in himself. More importantly, he invests in his people and his community. He has been a pioneer in both health care and education, and he’s found a way to make both key aspects of growing his business and keeping it stable. I usually don’t like to focus on founders so much, but Harris is so impressive and so essential to the culture of Rosen Hotels, that you need to understand who he is to understand the company. Here’s a little bit more info on him. If you love Harris’ story and are excited about the hospitality industry, then you need to check out jobs at Rosen Hotels. I’m not going to go through the listings, but they have a ton of jobs available that could be suitable for a new or recent grad–these range from Assistant Junior Golf Pro to VIP Concierge. Browse through the listings and see what interests you. And if you get a job there, you can rest easy knowing that you’re working for someone who firmly believes in “doing the right thing.”

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Have you stayed at any Rosen Hotels?

Fontainebleau

Willy Franzen — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 17:40:24 +0000

A few weeks ago I was able to escape Chicago just after the blizzard and spend a weekend in Miami Beach. My girlfriend’s company had a region-wide annual retreat, and significant others were invited–all expenses paid! I had a great time, mostly because I was with good friends and the weather was great. (I also got to go fishing. I caught a 70 lb tarpon and as I got it to the boat a 400+ lb shark came out from under the boat and ate it.) Another thing that made the trip great was the accommodations. We stayed at Fontainebleau in Miami Beach, FL (no need to say it with a French accent, Fountain Blue is ok), and they took care of many of the weekend’s events. The resort was beautiful, the staff was great, and the location was quite an upgrade from Chicago in February. My only complaint was that Fontainebleau’s grounds are so expansive that you do a lot of walking, and sometimes you get lost. Still, it was an awesome trip at an awesome resort (I even got a massage).

Take Your Talents to Miami Beach

When I went to the Fontainebleau website to learn more, I realized that most hotels are more focused on providing information that customers want than providing information potential employees want. They don’t have an About page, and their History page won’t load for me, so I check out Fontainebleau’s Wikipedia entry, which calls the resort “one of the most historically and architecturally significant hotels on Miami Beach.” It appears that Fontainebleau is an independent resort since they’re owned by Fontainebleau Resorts. Fontainebleau Miami Beach is the company’s only open property; however, they are working on opening another one in Las Vegas. If you’re interested in the hospitality industry, and you love the idea of being in Miami Beach all year round, then you should check out Fontainebleau’s Careers page. They have a lot of openings, and quite a few seem well suited to a new grads. I’m not going to list out all of the positions, but there are opportunities in Sales & Marketing, Concierge, Spa/Fitness/Salon, Food and Beverage, Culinary, and more. Promotion from within is big in the hospitality industry, so don’t overlook jobs just because you think that you’re overqualified for them.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Have you stayed at Fontainebleau?

TastingTable

Willy Franzen — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 16:08:43 +0000

Since it’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, you may want to check out our post on The King Center from 2009. It also happens to be my anniversary with my girlfriend, which means that we’ll be going to a fancy dinner tonight. I try to stay up on the Chicago food scene as much as I can, and one way that I used to do that was by subscribing to TastingTable (though I must admit that I eventually unsubscribed even though the e-mails are really good). They send “a free daily email that delivers the best of food and drink culture to adventurous eaters everywhere.” The company is based in New York, NY, and beyond their national e-mail list, they also offer e-mail lists for New York City, New York Specials, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and Chef’s Recipes with lists for Boston, Philadelphia, and Portland coming soon. In the national e-mail they send “one delicious idea about dining, wine, cocktails, cooking or restaurant personalities” every day, while in their local editions they’ll “alert you to a must-try dish at a forgotten restaurant, a hot new bar that deserves its buzz, under-appreciated cook shops and neighborhood food purveyors who may otherwise go unnoticed.”

A Tasteful Career Choice

I don’t know about the rest of you, but college was when I really started to appreciate decent food. After a couple of years of dining hall food (even at Cornell where it’s supposed to be good), pizza, wings, and other college staples, I started cooking on my own and trying some of the ethnic restaurants that I was previously too scared to try. I even found an online guide that gave me the inside scoop on Ithaca’s food scene. Since there has been a huge upswing in the amount of foodie-focused online media. TastingTable is a perfect example. They provide quality content for a very specific audience, and they’re able to monetize that content with ads targeted to a food-loving audience. (I know a lot about this business model.) You also have to like that Bob Pittman, “most successful investor in newsletter space,” is one of TastingTable’s backers (he also backed DailyCandy and Thrillist). If you like what you see at TastingTable, check out their Jobs page, which doesn’t seem to be linked from anywhere on their site. Right now they have a number of open positions that could be good fits for new grads including Editor, Food Editor, and Sales Account Manager. Don’t be scared off by the titles, the experience requirements are lower than you might expect. Right now all of the job seem to be based in NYC, but I imagine that they also sometimes have opportunities in their other cities.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Do you subscribe to TastingTable?

Macy’s

Willy Franzen — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 15:37:20 +0000

Happy Thanksgiving! In past years we’ve taken a look at jobs at Pilgrim’s Pride, Jennie-O, and Plimoth Plantation and Colonial Williamsburg. This year we’ve been influenced by the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, so we’re going to take a look at entry level jobs at Macy’s. They’re headquartered in both New York City and Cincinnati, and they are “one of the nation’s premier retailers, with fiscal 2009 sales of $23.5 billion.” The company operates more than 810 stores across 45 states. Over the past decade or so they’ve absorbed a number of other retailers, but the Macy’s brand has reigned supreme—and I bet the popularity of today’s parade has had at least a little something to do with it.

A Parade of Job Opportunities

Obviously with a company as large as Macy’s, there are a lot of different places and ways that you can find information about them. I’m going to leave most of that up to you since I have a football game to get to, but once you start thinking about a job, you’ll want to skip over MacysJobs.com and go straight to MacysCollege.com for the company’s entry level opportunities. They offer Executive Development Programs in Store Management, Merchant, Product Development, Finance/Accounting, Human Resources, Logistics Management, Information Technology, Credit Operations, and Food Management. It looks like most of their on campus recruiting events are over; however, you can still apply for a multitude of positions all across the country by following the instructions here. So take a look at Macy’s, and then go stuff your face.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Do you shop at Macy’s?

Thomas Keller Restaurant Group

Willy Franzen — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 15:42:23 +0000

You know what’s awesome? Having one of your restaurants on The S. Pellegrino World’s 50 Best Restauarants list. You know what’s even more awesome? Having two of your restaurants on the list. That’s the case for Thomas Keller Restaurant Group and its eponymous chef Thomas Keller. Per Se in New York City came in at #10, while The French Laundry in Yountville, CA came in at #32. Additionally Thomas Keller Restaurant Group owns and operates Bouchon Bistro, Bouchon Bakery, and Ad Hoc Restaurant (which are all in Yountville as well). I had the pleasure of dining at the latter for Brunch a few weeks ago, and it was fantastic (especially because we got dessert after breakfast in the form of fancy, but simple ice cream sandwiches). Thomas Keller is probably the biggest name in American fine dining, and he deserves it—he lives up to all the hype, which is hard to do when you have that much hype. Although each of Keller’s restaurants has a unique feel and purpose, they all share “the common desire to provide memorable experiences for every guest that visits.”

50 Best or Bust

Maybe it’s an age thing, but it seems that more and more people I know are becoming “foodies.” I’m shocked at how many people I know who have stepped out of a more traditional career path to go to culinary school. Just because you majored in Accounting or Business or History or Basket Weaving doesn’t mean that you can’t follow your stomach to something else. You might even want to consider an opportunity with Thomas Keller Restaurant Group. Their Careers page shows a wide range of options that include positions in Kitchen, Dining Room, Administration, Management, Private Dinging, Bakery Retail, and Beverage. Some of the job titles—Food Runner or Busser for instance—may not be exactly what you were hoping to do with your degree, but you have to remember that these are some of the best restaurants in the world. You’ll have to work your way up, and you’ll be doing it in the absolutely best environment possible. There are some more glamorous positions available, but they’ll probably require some pretty strong prior experience. Browse through the jobs at all of Thomas Keller’s restaurants and see what suits you. You may also want to read some of the staff stories to get a feel for what it’s like to work for Thomas Keller.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Have you ever dined at one of Thomas Keller’s Restaurants?

The Balsams

Willy Franzen — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 15:27:21 +0000

One of my least favorite things about the “real world” is that summer doesn’t automatically mean vacation. Unless you’ve gone into teaching, you’re expected to keep showing up for work every day like it’s the middle of February—even if it’s totally beautiful out. The good thing is that “real world” summer usually lasts from May through early October (at least here in Chicago). Even though you have to keep going to work, your summer isn’t regimented by school’s start and end dates. Anyway, we all know that summer is really all about vacation, and for many that means hitting up a resort like The Balsams in Dixville Notch, NH. In the summer you can play golf or tennis, go kayaking or mountain biking, take a hike, or just relax. In the winter there’s skiing, sleigh rides, snowshoeing, snow mobile races, and I’m sure fireplaces to warm up near. It’s an old school New England inn with modern luxuries and fine dining. I’ve never been there, but I know the style—and I like it.

Take a Trip to The Balsams

Hopefully you’re not mad at me for getting you all excited about the prospect of a luxury vacation when you are freaking about graduating without a job and trying desperately to avoid a permanent vacation of prolonged unemployment. Obviously, the reason that I’m telling you all about The Balsams is that they have job opportunities; in fact, they have a job/internship opportunity that lets you enjoy all of the luxuries of a vacation at The Balsams while getting paid to do it. They’re looking for an “Inn-Bedded Resorter” to live The Balsams life for a summer and report on it. For 2 months you’ll get $2,500, a room in the hotel, 3 meals a day, and free reign of the resort. Your job will be to liveblog/tweet/facebook your life with a variety of technological and social media tools at your disposal. How can you not get excited about a job application that asks you about your proficiency in areas like Fly Fishing, Dancing, Alpine Skiing, Making Cocktails, and Bird Watching? It’s pretty much the ultimate opportunity for someone interested in PR and Social Media. However, if you’re more into the Hospitality Management side, there are plenty of other opportunities available at The Balsams. You just need to check their for all of the info and the application. There’s even a Culinary Apprenticeship Program. If you have vacation on your mind, check out The Balsams and see how you can find a way to stay with them.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Have you ever stayed at The Balsams?

Appalachian Mountain Club

Willy Franzen — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 13:17:54 +0000

I don’t know if you’ve ever spent anytime on the Appalachian Trail, but if you haven’t, you should. The trail stretches from Georgia to Maine, while the range of mountains touches as far south as Alabama and as far north as Newfoundland. It’s 1,500 miles of natural beauty that is prime territory for naturalists and adventurers. Back in 1876 there was a club called the Appalachian Mountain Club started in Boston for people who enjoyed the range. Now the club consists of more than 12 chapters and 100,000 members—it’s the “nation’s oldest outdoor recreation and conservation organization.” They’re still based in Boston, and they’ve developed into a non-profit that promotes “the protection, enjoyment, and understanding of the mountains, forests, waters, and trails of the Appalachian region.”

Outdoor Enthusiasts Wanted

The work that the Appalachian Mountain Club varies greatly. They fight for conservation, educate people on safe outdoors practices, maintain trails, and put on more than 8,000 trips a year. It’s a great organization that spans many different interest groups—it’s not just the hikers or the birdwatchers or the fisherman. It’s for everybody who loves being outdoors in the Appalachians. The scope of their work is really impressive, and if you want to be a part of it, you should check out the AMC’s Jobs page. Full-time opportunities include Web Production Associate and Senior Online Marketing Associate (it’s pretty entry level if you have a background in online marketing), which are both based in Boston, along with Hospitality Coordinator in Bretton Woods, NH and Storehouse Supervisor in Gorham, NH. There are also seasonal opportunities in Trail Crew type positions in Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and New Jersey. The application instructions vary by position, so look at the specific postings for details.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Have you spent any time in the Appalachians?

Blue Entertainment Sports Television

Willy Franzen — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 15:36:53 +0000

Be sure to check out our new contest, Maghound Your Way to a New Job. We’re giving away two one-year subscriptions to an awesome new magazine subscription service that can help you find a job.

In continuing with my obsession over jobs at Inc. 5000 companies (which fits in perfectly with our latest giveaway), we’re going to take a look at Blue Entertainment Sports Television today. They’re a Louisville, KY based “full-service sports and entertainment management, event and production company.” They’ve taken the unified agency approach that you often see in Marketing and Advertising, and have applied it to sports. That means that their areas of work include representation, marketing, promotion, hospitality and events. Their strategy seems to be pretty solid considering that their revenue has grown 4,685.3% over the past three years to $22.9 million.

Are You the BEST?

Blue Entertainment Sports Television is fortuitously named, as their acronym is BEST. I guess you’re well on way to living up to that name when your clients include Magic Johnson, Reggie Bush, Victoria Azarenka, Shawn Marion, Bryan Brothers, and Caroline Wozniacki. Blue Entertainment Sports Television is actually a relatively new brand that came from the combination of preexisting brands SFX Tennis, SFX Events, SFX Media, Game-Seven Sports Marketing, Team Championships International, Blackwave Sports, Humarks, and Worldwide Football and Management Group. There’s actually a case study on the rebranding, and it seems to be correlated with huge revenue growth.

Although BEST doesn’t get specific about what kind of jobs they offer, they do make a call for résumés on their Contact page. To get a feel for what kind of jobs they might offer new college grads, you should browse through their LinkedIn Company Profile and take a look at what types of positions their current employees have. You can apply for a job at BEST by sending a cover letter and résumé to careers@experienceBEST.com. You should also note that they have quite a few offices beyond their headquarters in Lousiville, KY including domestic offices in Denver, CO; Los Angeles, CA; New York, NY; and Washington, DC and international offices in Australia, Austria, Canada, Argentina, and Poland.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

What have you heard about BEST?

AirBnB

Willy Franzen — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 14:36:48 +0000

Good startups create tools that people use. Great startups change the way people do things. Take eBay for example. Yes, people have always bought and sold junk, but eBay enabled people to buy and sell junk all across the world. By expanding the market for your junk, eBay made it worthwhile to sell stuff that would otherwise be collecting dust. San Francisco’s AirBnB hopes to be the eBay for space. Now, they’re not talking about outer space. They mean that spare bedroom that you never use. They want you to rent out your extra space, and they will help you find someone to rent it (read their FAQ for how it works). It could completely change the way that people on a budget travel… or it could be a total flop, but you have to love the idea.

Office Space Available in San Francisco

So far, rooms are available via AirBnB in 870 cities and 73 countries. That’s pretty impressive, although I’m still not sure about staying with someone I don’t know. What I am sure about is that if AirBnB offers you some office space in San Francisco, you should take it. About a month ago they posted on their blog that they were looking for a Really Smart Software Engineer to be Employee #1 (excluding the founders of course). It’s hard to say whether this job has been filled yet, but it’s still posted on AirBnB’s Jobs page. Considering the fact that AirBnb is already “pizza profitable,” even if the spot of Employee #1 is taken, I’m sure that AirBnB will be hiring again in the near future. You can apply for a job with them by reaching out to them at jobs@airbnb.com.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Are you going to give AirBnB a try?

Charlie Trotter’s

Willy Franzen — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 14:56:16 +0000

When I moved to Chicago last year, just days before my 24th birthday, my parents decided that they wanted to treat me to a truly amazing Chicago experience to start off my life in the city right. They took me and my girlfriend to a dinner at Charlie Trotter’s, one of the finest restaurants in Chicago and the world. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the name, Trotter’s is usually found somewhere on Restaurant Magazine’s list of the Top 50 Restaurants in the World (although they seem to have dropped off the list this year).

When I dined at Charlie Trotter’s I chose the Grand Menu, which is an 8-course tasting menu. Although the menu is constantly changing, I had the pleasure of enjoying: Prince Edward Island Oysters with Sea Water & Pickled Daikon; Chilled Snow Lake Trout with Roe, Watercress & California Crayfish; Four Story Hill Farm Quail with Spring Onions, Chanterelle Mushrooms & Chorizo; Grilled Nantucket Bay Scallop with Boudin, Pig’s Tail & Fennel; Forty Eight Hour Braised Short Rib with Lobster Mushrooms & Fermented Black Garlic; Concord Grape Sorbet with Grape Leaf & Parsnip; Honey Crisp Apples with Cider Granite & Ginger Jelly; and Black Mission Figs with Shaved Fruit Cake, Marcona Almonds & Pedro Ximenez. It was an amazing meal that took food to a level that I didn’t know it could reach.

Trot Out Your Best

Yes, Charlie Trotter’s is obscenely expensive if you look at it as just a dinner, but there’s so much more to the experience than just eating. What you have to understand about Charlie Trotter’s is that everything is perfect. Your food will never be cooked improperly. If you tell them that you don’t like cheese, they will prepare you something without cheese. Your water glass will never be empty. You are experiencing something at its highest level. It’s like Albert Pujols’ swing, Yo-Yo Ma’s music, or my fly fishing (just kidding)—Charlie Trotter is one of the best at what he does. And that’s why you should consider a job with him. If you are able to land a job at Charlie Trotter’s—and it won’t be easy—you will be a part of something that is pure excellence. Even if your future isn’t in hospitality, you will gain an appreciation for performing to the highest expectations. That will translate to any job, just like working at the best consulting firm, investment bank, or ad agency. And if you want to stay in the culinary field, then there’s obviously no better place to start than Charlie Trotter’s.

Just ask Grant Achatz, the chef at 10th ranked Alinea (also in Chicago). He got his butt kicked during his try-out at Charlie Trotter’s, but he’s clearly better for it. This isn’t some company that you can just send your résumé to and hope that they take you, but if you meet the below criteria, you should give it a shot:

No matter what level of education or job experience you may have, we are always seeking to meet individuals who have a great attitude, are willing to commit themselves to learning, are passionate about food and wine and have a great work ethic. All of these attributes are of equal importance to us during the application process at Charlie Trotter’s.

You can submit your résumé to Matt Merges at Matthias@charlietrotters.com for culinary positions and to Christian Giles at Christian@charlietrotters.com for service positions. Just make sure that you bring “your A game.”

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Have you ever dined at Charlie Trotter’s?

Priceline.com

Willy Franzen — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 14:39:36 +0000

My first introduction to William Shatner was watching Rescue 911. Little did I know that his body of work extended far beyond narrating a show about real life heroes. I imagine today’s children will have an equally narrow view of William Shatner’s career, as they’ll know him as “Priceline Negotiator.” (Can you read those words without hearing the corresponding tune? I can’t.) Anyway, the whole idea behind William Shatner’s newest role – besides his doing the commercials in return for stock – is that Priceline.com will negotiate the best deals on travel-related items like hotels, car rentals, and airline tickets. They also have a “name your own price” model that used to be the core of their business, but now Priceline has widened its focus to discount travel in general.

Entry Level Job Negotiator

Don’t you wish you had someone like William Shatner to negotiate your entry level job for you too? Ok, that’d be a little weird. Sometimes learning negotiating skills is better than having someone do the dirty work for you. I think that I’m glad that the way we find jobs online is different from the way that we find travel deals online. With that said, you can go to the same place for both if you’re interested in a job in travel or e-commerce. Priceline.com has a number of jobs that seem like they might be well suited to new or recent college grads. In their Grand Rapids, MI office there are jobs for a Japanese Translator and Customer Service Executives, while at their Norwalk, CT headquarters they’re looking for an Associate Regional Revenue Manager – Hotels. You can figure out how to apply from the job descriptions that I’ve just linked to. Priceline.com doesn’t have an About page, so there’s not a ton of information about who they are and what they’re about as a company, so you might want to do a little Googling to get more info.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Do you use Priceline.com to book your travel?

Starwood

Willy Franzen — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 15:42:12 +0000

Having a girlfriend who is a consultant, I’m often subjected to hours of consultant-speak. It’s not really English, as it consists mostly of acronyms. One thing consultants seem to talk about a lot, even though they don’t have an acronym for it, is the American Express Starwood Preferred Guest Card. It’s apparently by far the best credit card for the consulting lifestyle (especially when you work for a firm that almost exclusively puts you up in Starwood hotels). Since I’ve been hearing the Starwood name a lot, and I’ve had a few people recommend their Jobs to me, I thought it was time to take a look at what kind of entry level jobs are available with one of the world’s largest hotel and leisure companies. In case you’re not familiar with the Starwood brand, they’re the company behind Sheraton, Four Points, aloft, W Hotels, Le Meridien, The Luxury Collection, Element, Westin, and St. Regis. All of them are nice places to stay, and a few of them are about as trendy as you can get when it comes to hotels – check out aloft.

Be a Star at Starwood

Starwood gets hospitality. They also get entry level recruiting. They make it dead simple for college students and new grads to figure out how to land a job with them. They have a College Recruiting page that outlines the 4 ways of getting a job with Starwood. You can go through Campus Recruiting or apply online, and you can apply for their Management Training Program or opt for Direct Placement. The Management Training Program seems to be geared towards students who are graduating from hospitality programs, but that’s not explicitly stated as far as I can tell. The program lasts 6-18 months and concludes with placement as an Assistant Manager or Manager in the hotel where the trainee trained. Applications for the Management Training Program haven’t been opened yet, but they say that you will be able to apply online in early 2009. If you go to one of the schools on this list, you’re better off talking to your Career Services office about when Starwood will be on campus than waiting for the online application to be posted.

If the Management Training Program isn’t for you, there’s another option. You can check out Starwood’s Career Paths and apply for Direct Placement. You have to go through a general job search function where you can narrow down from the 1,650 jobs posted by location, hotel, or job title. This is the one area where Starwood’s Careers site stumbles a bit. The job search function isn’t very good. Unless you enter specific criteria, you’re going to be inundated with results that are going to be hard to scan. Still, if you want a job in a posh hotel in an exotic location, that’s the best way to find one.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Have you stayed at any Starwood Hotels?

Levy Restaurants

Willy Franzen — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 15:50:27 +0000

Yesterday I told you how my move to Chicago has extended my baseball watching season, but I’m not sure that I mentioned that I have tickets to today’s Cubs game! I’m pretty excited about it, although I’m not excited about the fact that it might get into the 40s tonight during the game. October baseball is not for fair weather fans – the types who might prefer a catered event at the stadium to a real baseball game. Whether you’re a fair weather fan, an insanely devoted fan who just wants to be as close to your team’s stadium as possible at all time, or even if you just enjoy fine dining, a job with Levy Restaurants might be something worth thinking about. They’re a company that is all about hospitality and dining experience, and they happen to do catering/events at some pretty amazing venues – Wrigley and U.S. Cellular Field included.

The Levy Difference

A caterer doesn’t get the right to cater at top flight sports venues with out offering a fantastic experience. Levy Restaurants attributes their success to what they call “The Levy Difference.” There happens to be a video on their website with the same name, so we’re going to recommend that you watch that before you dig deeper into internships with Levy Restaurants.

Now that you’ve watched the movie, let’s take a look at Levy Restaurants’ entry level job offerings. Their job descriptions don’t offer a lot of detail, but we’re pretty sure that a number of their jobs can be considered entry level. If you look at all of their current job openings, you’ll see quite a few Assistant Director of Operations positions (Conseco Field House – Indianapolis, IN; Live Nokia Theater – Los Angeles, CA; Qwest Field – Seattle, WA; Sprint Center – Kansas City, MO; and STAPLES Center – Los Angeles, CA). Any job title that includes “assistant” has a pretty good chance of being a well suited to new college grads. There are also an Accounting position at Lambeau Field (Green Bay, WI) and a Marketing Coordinator position at Chase Field (Phonenix, AZ) that may be worth looking at. Finally, there are a number of jobs as Sous Chef (many locations). These require significant culinary knowledge, but may be considered entry level for you if you just graduated from culinary school. Levy Restaurants is based out of Chicago, IL, but has locations all across the country, so be sure to check out their list of venues to see where they might be hiring in the future. They don’t provide an HR contact or an e-mail address, so the only way to find out more information about jobs with Levy Restaurants is to apply online directly from the job descriptions.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Have you ever experienced the Levy Difference? What’s it like?

hip consulting group

Willy Franzen — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 13:43:01 +0000

The idea for today’s post came straight from a reader and friend. She graduated a few months ago and has been looking for entry-level jobs in event planning since. She told us about one company that she was really excited about, but asked us not to post about it until she was either working for them or had landed another job. She recently landed a job doing exactly what she wants to do (big congratulations to her), so we’re free to tell you about hip consulting group, a boutique event management firm. They definitely offer internships, and they seem amenable to hiring new grads, so they’re definitely worth a look for anyone who has an interest in event planning.

Get Hip

hip consulting does everything when it comes to events. Whether it’s a corporate meeting, a customer appreciation event, or an employee incentive program, they’ll take care of it. They help clients select a site, register attendees, produce creatives and A/V, brainstorm ideas, and much, much more. The key to their success is attention to detail, so you can be sure that they’ll be willing to do what it takes to make sure an event happens without a hitch. They must be doing things right considering they were named one of Entrepreneur Magazine’s Hot 500 Fastest Growing Businesses in America. They started with an initial investment of $50,000 in 2000, and did $6.5 million in sales in 2006. That’s some serious growth. With that growth has come hiring – from 2006 to 2007 they grew their numbers by 50% to 30 employees. Hopefully, they’ll continue that pace, and you’ll be part of the plan.

Our one issue with hip consulting is their website. It looks great, but it’s all in Flash. That means that we can’t link to specific pages, and we can’t search the content of their site in Google. Their Careers page says that they’re always looking for new team members, and that’s about it. From what we can gather about them, the jobs that they offer are most likely to be in the areas of marketing, hospitality management, video production, and graphic design. There may be other opportunities, but it’s hard to discern when they don’t post specific job openings. They offer internships, which is always a good indicator that they hire at the entry-level as well (we also did some LinkedIn research and saw that they’ve taken interns on full time after graduation). If you’re a new college grad who wants to get into event planning and wants to work for a CEO who loves fly fishing (I had to throw that in!), then hip consulting looks like a great place to look into. They’re located in Centennial, CO, and they invite you to send a resume and cover letter to careers@gethip.biz.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Know of a cool company that you want to share with us after you ensure that you’ve landed a job? Just e-mail us at info@onedayonejob.com.

Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises

Willy Franzen — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 14:18:30 +0000

Waiting tables isn’t what most new college grads want to do with the degree they (or their parents) just spent 5 to 6 figures on. In most cases that makes sense, but with the Chicago based Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises even jobs waiting tables can lead towards a career in restaurant management. LEYE is a restaurant empire – they have over 70 restaurants and somewhere in the neighborhood of 5,000 employees. Restaurant management is tough when you have one location to watch over, but somehow founder and CEO Richard Melman has been able to repeatedly launch and then manage successful restaurants.

I’m Uncoordinated and Would Drop the Food

It’s ok if waiting tables isn’t something that you can or want to do, Lettuce Entertain You has other job opportunities for new grads too. LEYE has jobs in Management, Corporate, and, of course, in their restaurants. Despite your lack of coordination, let’s look at the restaurant jobs first. LEYE’s restaurants include Antico Posto, Hub 51, Reel Club, Ben Pao, Joe’s Seafood, Prime Steak & Stone Crab, R.J. Grunts, Big Bowl, L2O, Scoozi!, Brasserie Jo, L. Woods, Shaw’s Crab House, Cafe Ba-Ba-Reeba!, Maggiano’s, stripburger at Cafe Ba-Ba-Reeba!, Chi. Flat Sammies, The Magic Pan Crepe Stand, Tru, Di Pescara, Mity Nice Grill, Tucci Benucch, Don & Charlie’s, Mon Ami Gabi, Twin City Grill, Eiffel Tower, Nacional 27, Vong’s Thai Kitchen, Everest, Osteria Via Stato, Wildfire, foodlife, Petterino’s, Wow Bao, Frankie’s 5th Floor Pizzeria, and Pizzeria via Stato. They all offer hourly positions, which you can search by job title on their website. These jobs include just about anything that you could do in a restaurant.

LEYE also has a fantastic internship program. They hire a significant number of their new managers through this program, so it seems possible that a new college grad from a hospitality management program (and who interned at another restaurant) could also have a shot at being a manager in a Lettuce Entertain You restaurant. Finally, LEYE also has corporate positions. Right now they have jobs in HR and Graphic Design that require some experience, but nothing that goes beyond what you would expect for an entry-level hire. Usually companies with strong internship programs do significant entry-level hiring, so it should be possible for you to find a great first job with Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Have you dined at an LEYE restaurant? What’d you think?

Clear

Willy Franzen — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 13:25:56 +0000

It seems like security lines at airports are either hit or miss. You’re through in a few minutes, or you’re waiting somewhere in the neighborhood of an hour to be x-rayed, questioned, prodded, and possibly poked. There’s probably a middle ground too, but you never seem to remember those experiences. You’ll often hear people say that they’d pay a lot of money to not have to wait in security lines. Well you can buy a private jet and avoid security completely, or you can invest $100 a year in a Clear Card. It won’t actually allow you to skip the security line, but it will definitely speed up the process. Someone should invent a “Clear Resume” that gets you an interview without all the hassles of cover letters, job applications, and screening phone calls.

Jobs in the Clear

The whole idea behind the Clear Card is pretty simple. We found out about it from Guy Kawasaki who is recommending it as a great Father’s Day gift and has a code that will allow you to get a free month added to your membership when you sign up. You allow them to collect some biometric data to verify your identity and submit an application to the TSA (don’t worry about Big Brother getting your fingerprints and iris scans, Clear has a stellar privacy policy). You get your card and get expedited through security. That’s all.

Clear is actually a part of a company called Verified Identity Pass, Inc., but they seem to be using the Clear brand quite a bit. For instance, the Verified Identity Pass Careers link redirects to the Clear Careers page, where you will find a few entry-level job opportunities. Clear is looking for Assistant Operations Managers in Atlanta and San Francisco. These jobs are geared towards people who have a background in hospitality management, and require a couple years of management experience in a customer service setting. Usually we wouldn’t consider that to be entry-level, but we know of plenty of students who have that kind of experience from campus jobs, internships, or volunteer work. Clear asks applicants to send a resume, cover letter, and salary requirements to careers@verifiedidpass.com with the job title in the subject line.

Clear is based in Palm Coast, FL, but doesn’t have any entry-level opportunities there at the moment. Keep an eye out, though. Clear appears to be growing quickly, as you’d expect for a company that offers such a useful service. We hope that more entry-level hiring is part of their growth plan.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Have an airport security line nightmare story? Share it in the comments.

Mina Group

Willy Franzen — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 12:33:20 +0000

Most CEOs have resumes that include business school, many of years of experience, and boring lists of financial accomplishments. How would you like to work for a company where the CEO’s proudest accomplishments are his being named Bon Appetit Chef of the Year and International Food and Beverage Forum Restauranteur of the Year? Michael Mina of the Mina Group is just that CEO – Chef Executive Officer (sorry, that is a horrible pun). Making deals, like any CEO should, Mina formed a partnership with Andre Agassi, the tennis star, in 2002 that has resulted in the launch of a line of high end concept restaurants.

Say Goodbye to Ramen (at Least Cooking It)

The Mina Group manages restaurants in California, Nevada, New Jersey, Florida, Michigan, and Arizona. Here’s a full list of the restaurants with menus, photo galleries, chef profiles, and reservation information. We do know that they participate in on-campus recruiting at at least one school with a Hospitality Management program. Beyond that, their About page says that they are always looking to hire restaurant managers, chefs, line-cooks, sommeliers, servers, bartenders, hosts, and any other people who are seeking employment in a restaurant related position.

Individual positions are not listed on the Mina Group website, or anywhere else on the web (there’s one or two exceptions), so the best way to go about finding a job is to ask for one. Send an e-mail to hr@minagroup.net with a cover letter describing your qualifications and what type of position you’re looking for and a resume.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Do you know what positions are best for new college grads who want to work at the Mina Group? Leave a comment and let us know.

Orvis

Willy Franzen — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 12:00:56 +0000

If you consider going fishing after work and being in bed by 10 a night well spent, then working at Orvis will be perfect for you. Ditto if you enjoy helping your co-workers train their dogs on your lunch break. How do I know? I spent the summers after my sophomore and junior years as an intern in the Human Resources Department. Why did I pick Orvis? Because I am a life long fly fisherman and I love their products.

Distinctive Country Living

Orvis has been around since 1856, which apparently makes them the oldest continuously operating catalog company in the country. They have an extremely rich history, which is still a significant factor in the way the company operates today. You should be familiar with this history because it will help you write an impressive cover letter and interview well. The single best resource on Orvis’ history is The Orvis Story, but that costs money, and if you get an internship, then you can use Orvis’ generous 50% employee discount to buy it. So what about web resources on Orvis’ history? There’s this page on the history of Orvis, a timeline of Orvis’ accomplishment, and a very detailed Wikipedia entry on Orvis.

Orvis’ storied history is based on sporting traditions (mostly hunting and fishing), and with that has come their modern focus on distinctive country living. As much as they are known for their fly fishing equipment, Orvis is not just a sporting company; however, their product selection is targeted at people who enjoy the sporting life. Orvis also puts a huge emphasis on environmental conservation, so they are constantly involved with projects that protect the resources, like cold water fisheries, that drive their business.

Drop Them a Line

Orvis doesn’t have an entry-level hiring program by any means, but they are certainly an employer that is friendly to young people (as long as those young people enjoy the outdoors). A few positions that we identified as being well suited for a new college grad are: Web Liquidations Merchandise Specialist, Application Developer / Analyst Merchandising Systems, and Web Developer. It appears that Orvis would prefer candidates with experience for these positions, but there’s no reason that you can’t impress them enough to get hired.

Beyond their regular job listings, Orvis also lists positions at Orvis Endorsed Operations on their Job Openings Page. These aren’t actually Orvis jobs, but they do offer the opportunity to work for an amazing resort at a big name destination. A lot of these jobs are as fishing guides, but a few are in hospitality management as well.

What Vermont Has to Offer

Orvis’ corporate office is in Sunderland, VT on the edge of a 377-acre natural black bear habitat. The office is absolutely beautiful and fits perfectly with both the surroundings and Orvis’ mission. There’s a small gym on-site, hiking trails, a casting pond, and a cafe with great food. With that said, it’s in the middle of nowhere – the Orvis office doesn’t even have a zip code. The Manchester area of Vermont is not the most happening place. Yes, they have outlet shopping, but beyond that it’s all about the outdoors. Restaurants are closed by 9, and gas stations close by 10. So if you’re out fishing after that, you’re not going to find anything to eat except what’s in the refrigerator.

Orvis also has a service center in Roanoke, VA and retail locations across the United States; however, the jobs that best suite new college grads will be mostly located in Vermont. Like I’ve said, Orvis isn’t for the city slickers, but for the right people it’s a dream come true. If you’d like to know more about working at Orvis, feel free to contact me by leaving a comment. I’ll be more than happy to answer any of your questions.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Looking for an internship at Orvis?

OpenTable

Willy Franzen — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 13:00:18 +0000

Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, and you told your sweetheart that you’d make a reservation and take care of the dinner plans. You forgot/procrastinated. You’re one of those people who is petrified by phone interactions. For some reason the simple task of picking up a phone and dialing a restaurant to make a reservation intimidates you to no end. Shoot, you stared at the phone for 3 hours before you built up the courage to call your date to ask him or her out in the first place. Why can’t you just make a reservation online?

If you’re going to be an effective job searcher, you should probably try to get over this phobia before your first phone interview. Calling around for reservations might be good practice, but we understand that Valentine’s Day can be stressful enough. We’ll let you off the hook just this once. You can use OpenTable.com, a site that lets you make reservations at some of the best restaurants in the country with the click of the mouse. All you need to do is enter your location and the date and time you’d like to book, and they’ll show you what’s still available in your area. It might even save you from completely blowing Valentine’s Day.

OpenTable is a dot-com veteran that has survived conditions that put most Internet companies out of business. The New York Times describes OpenTable’s ups and downs quite well in an article from last Summer:

It took three years for OpenTable to seat its one-millionth diner. But now, the company seats two million diners every month. And Zagat, the restaurant rating service, has adopted OpenTable for reservations made through its site, zagat.com.

OpenTable survived because of a very smart business model. You may only recognize them as an online restaurant reservation service, but their real business driver is the software that they sell restaurants to manage reservations. This software interacts directly with OpenTable.com and provides a full reservation management solution, whether the reservations are made in person, over the phone, or online. In case you missed it, the key point is that OpenTable has built a brand with loyal consumers who now demand that restaurants offer OpenTable.com service. For a restaurant to provide this service, they have to buy in to OpenTable’s reservation management software. It’s brilliant – using customer brand recognition to drive the sale of B2B software.

OpenTable currently has only one position that requires minimal previous work experience. This job is as a Field Operations Specialist. The good news is that there are quite a few openings in a variety of locations: Frankfurt, Germany; Miami, FL; Madrid, Spain; Vancouver, British Columbia; Paris, France; San Diego, CA; Las Vegas, NV; St. Louis, MO; and Charlotte, NC. This job is heavy on travel and requires some technical know-how, as you’ll be troubleshooting OpenTable systems in restaurants. You’ll also need to be a customer service star, since you will be the face of the company at the customer sites. There are also some administrative and sales positions available at OpenTable, but they require more experience than the Field Operations Specialist Job. These jobs could be worth a look for a college grad with exceptional hospitality management or outside sales experience.

Now go save Valentine’s Day by making a reservation on OpenTable.com.

Note: On April 24th we revisited entry-level jobs at OpenTable.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Don’t forget to show us that you love us by becoming a Facebook Fan, subscribing by RSS, or signing up for our daily e-mails. Make us feel special on Valentine’s Day.

Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts

Willy Franzen — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 13:00:10 +0000

At this point in December, we hope most of you are done with exams and home for Winter Break. This is a great time for you to relax, subscribe to One Day, One Job, and start looking for great job ideas. Your Mom will probably want you to figure out what you want to do after college by spending 8 hour days cruising job boards, working on your resume, and calling her friends so that you can “network.” We think you should go on vacation – even if it’s just a day trip somewhere. Expose yourself (not that way, perv) to complete strangers in places you’ve never been before. Strike up random conversations. See a cultural attraction that fascinates you. Eat a new type of ethnic cuisine. Observe everything that you experience in the context of your job search.

Now that you’re going on vacation (come on, do it!), one job idea should smack you in the face immediately. The hospitality industry intrigues many college students because it represents an adventure. Even though the thought is completely unrealistic, how can you not like the idea of being on a permanent vacation? Don’t get us wrong – working in a hotel or resort is not a vacation, but the same things that make vacations appealing (new places, new people, and friendliness) will make a job in hospitality management exciting every day. It truly is a career path that can take you anywhere in the world, even if where you want to go lacks the economic development needed to support most other industries.

If you’re going to work in a hotel or resort, it might as well be top notch. Why not the Four Seasons? They offer a wide range of opportunities for new college graduates. Most jobs at hotels, resorts, and in hospitality in general don’t require very much experience or education to get started. You can pretty much pick an area of interest from Four Seasons’ hotel divisions and a location and begin an adventure. Even if your goal is to eventually own or manage a hotel, starting at the bottom will give you the hands on experience with customers and guests that you’ll need to be successful. We’re not big on paying dues, but in hospitality management it’s truly an essential part of the experience. There is one exception – if you have spent the past four years in a hospitality management program or have work/internship experience in the hospitality industry, you can probably jump ahead (since you’ve already started paying your dues) by applying for Four Seasons’ Corporate Management Training Program. We’re not sure how strict they are about it, but it appears to be limited to students from University of Denver, N.S.M.H. – Seattle, Niagara University, Cornell University, UNLV, the Culinary Institute of America, Ryerson University, International University of Bad Honnef, Oxford Brookes University, and Emirates Academy of Hotel Management.

If you attend one of those schools, you should be able to get more informations on career opportunities at Four Seasons from your Career Services office. For the rest of you, the best way to get a job is to contact the Four Seasons location that you’re interested in directly. Their Employment page does have a job search function, but it only returns position titles and locations with no other details. It looks like Four Seasons recruiters are willing to talk with you about your career plans, so why not take them up on the opportunity?

Four Seasons has 74 properties in 31 countries. So, whether you’re looking for an adventure after college or a career in hospitality management, they offer great entry-level opportunities. And just in case you were worried about what it’s like working for them, Four Seasons has been named one of Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For 8 years straight (most recently they were ranked #53 in 2007 and #27 in 2006).

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Are you going somewhere fun or interesting over your Winter Break? Tell us about it.