One Day, One Job » inventory control

Nasty Gal

Willy Franzen — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 17:30:24 +0000

One of the coolest things about the time that we live in is that the barrier to starting a business is essentially nonexistent. You can test your ideas on someone else’s platform, and if it works, then you build your own. Nasty Gal is a perfect example of this. The Los Angeles, CA based company began in 2006 when Sophia Amoruso “started an eBay store selling a highly curated selection of vintage pieces.” After finding success on eBay and validating the business, she started her own site where she could control the entire customer experience (and not pay eBay’s crazy fees). A lot of Nasty Gal’s stuff is pretty far out there–their home page has a huge picture of studded platforms that look like a medieval torture device–but it’s hard to argue with a brand that has nearly a quarter million Facebook likes.

Are You Nasty?

The key to Nasty Gal’s success is curation. Even though they’re in the business of selling and not editorial, they’re seen by many customers as a guide to what to buy. If it’s on Nasty Gal, it has to be cool–and that begs the question: What is a Nasty Gal? She’s “the coolest girl in the room‚ pulling off whatever wildly unique piece that suits the mood.” I’m certainly not a Nasty Gal, but maybe you are. And if you are, you’d be a great fit for a job at Nasty Gal. Right now they have a few opportunities that seem like they could be perfect for a new or recent grad. These include Accounting Clerk, Production Coordinator, Software Engineer, PR Coordinator, and Planning Analyst. Hope you’re nasty enough.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

What do you think of Nasty Gal?

Oriental Trading

Willy Franzen — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 14:25:58 +0000

It’s probably a little late to be planning a New Year’s Eve party, but I guess for a lot of people all it takes is a trip to the liquor store to prepare. But if you really want to do New Year’s Eve right, you need party hats, noisemakers, those popper thingies, and all kinds of other novelties. One of the best places to get those is Oriental Trading, an Omaha, NE based “direct merchant of value–priced party supplies, arts and crafts, toys and novelties, and a leading provider of school supplies and affordable home décor and giftware.” I remember getting their catalogs as a kid and thinking how awesome it would be to have not one stupid plastic toy, but a 1000-count tub of them. Oriental Trading has been around since 1932, and they’ve been able to stay competitive by quickly adapting to the changing ways people buy stuff.

A Favorable Trade

Oriental Trading may not sell high-end products like a lot of other long-lived mail order companies, but they’ve still “been recognized as one of the Top 50 Internet Retailers and one of the Top 50 Catalog Companies.” What I think is cooler is that The Omaha Chamber of Commerce named Oriental Trading as “one of Omaha’s Fastest Growing Companies three consecutive years.” I’m not sure how recently that was, but any time you can grow an already large, 80-year old company at an above average rate is impressive. If you’d like to help keep that growth going and you find that flipping through the Oriental Trading catalog is a good way to spend a few hours, then take a look at Oriental Trading’s Careers page. Right now they have some cool job opportunities for new or recent grads including Assistant Brand Merchant, Cost Analyst, Inventory Specialist, Payroll Specialist, Studio Sample Coordinator, and Senior Sales Assistant. Check out the job postings, and please forgive the HR people at Oriental Trading for using Comic Sans in their job postings.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Have you ever looked through the Oriental Trading catalog?

Cabela’s

Willy Franzen — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 16:57:28 +0000

Being a fly fisherman, I sometimes get frustrated with living in Chicago. Not only are there few opportunities to go fishing without a decent drive, but the winters are way too long (it’s supposed to be spring now, and it’s not). To get through the winter I’ll often visit fishing stores, look at websites, and read through catalogs. It’s not much, but it’s all I have. And Cabela’s provides all three options. The company is based in Sidney, NE, and they’re the “largest mail-order, retail and Internet outdoor outfitter in the world.” It all started in 1961 with a tiny classified ad that Dick Cabela placed in a newspaper because he wanted to sell some fishing flies that he purchased while visiting Chicago for a furniture show (since Nebraska is even less of a fly fishing destination than Chicago is). Despite a lackluster response to the original ad, Dick Cabela kept trying. The company grew organically, and now Cabela’s is dominating three major retail channels. The truly amazing part of the story is that Cabela’s has been able to maintain their commitment to customer service throughout all of the growth. I’m not a big customer (I try to support local shops), but I have quite a few friends who are extremely loyal Cabela’s customers because of the quality of products and service.

Outfitting Your Job Search

If you love the outdoors, you probably already know all about Cabela’s. Their stores are massive shrines to everything that is great about being an outdoorsman. They have fish tanks, taxidermy, indoor mountains, archery ranges, and, obviously, lots and lots of products that you can buy. According to Wikipedia, their store in Kansas City had 4 million customer visits in a single year, while the store in Hamburg, PA covers a quarter million square feet. Obviously, the ultimate Cabela’s experience requires visiting one of their stores, but their catalogs and website are pretty good proxies if you’re stuck at home. And if you are stuck at home, you might as well take a look at Cabela’s Careers site too. You can check out their testimonials and culture quiz, or you can just head straight for their job listings. We’re going to pass over all of the retail positions (there are a ton of them), and only look at corporate jobs that might be suitable for new or recent grads. These include (all positions in Sidney, NE unless otherwise noted):

Cabela’s has one of the worst applicant tracking systems that I’ve ever seen. It’s “Powered by Kenexa,” and it’s completely unusable. I slogged through it so you don’t have to, so the positions above should give you a good idea of what kind of entry level opportunities exist at Cabela’s. There are more entry level postings than just these, but I can only bang my head against a wall for so long.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Do you shop at Cabela’s?

Necco

Willy Franzen — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 15:57:39 +0000

Want to be our Valentine? All you have to do is go to your career services office and declare your love for us. And if you’re really hot for us, why don’t you convince them to add a link to us from their website?

Happy Valentine’s Day! May you get many Justin Bieber valentines with “Love” crossed out and “From” written in. And if you’re really lucky, maybe there will be a few Sweethearts Conversation Hearts tucked into the envelope. I’ve never particularly enjoyed the taste of those little candies, but they’re still a lot of fun. You may or may not realize that these little hearts come from Necco, the company that also manufactures Necco Wafers, Mary Jane, Haviland, Clark, Skybar, Mighty Malts, Candy Buttons, Canada Mints, Squirrel Nut Zippers, and Slap Stix. The company is based in Revere, MA, and I didn’t realize that their name was an acronym for New England Confectionery Company until I drove by their factory in a cab from Boston Logan Airport.

Be Theirs

Necco is America’s “oldest multi-line candy company.” They were founded in the summer of 1847, and since then they’ve been behind some classic candy brands. One of the facts that I learned about Necco that fascinates me is that they Sweethearts Conversation Hearts are manufactured from late February through mid-January for the coming Valentine’s Day season. The company manufactures 100,000 pounds of the hearts every day, and stockpiles them for a six-week period in which they’ll sell out. That’s ridiculous. Luckily for Necco, most of their other products aren’t quite as seasonal. Anyway, Necco doesn’t have a Careers page, but I did find an Inventory Analyst position posted here. And if you’d like to inquire about other positions, you can try Necco’s Contact page. Now, the only question is whether you can craft your entire resume out of Conversation Hearts.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

What’s your favorite Conversation Heart saying?

Simon & Schuster

Willy Franzen — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 16:46:23 +0000

It’s hard to think of an industry that hasn’t been affected by the Internet in some way, but when you think about those that have seen the most change, publishing has to be at the top of the list. Not only has technology changed the way that we read, but it’s also changed what we read. In fact, I bought a Kindle to force myself to read more books, and half of the reading that I do on it is stuff that I sent to it from the web. However, books are still huge business, and the major brands in the book publishing business still seem to be surviving, if not thriving, in a forever changed book selling environment. Simon & Schuster is a great example (and if you’re looking for other entry level jobs in publishing, you may also want to check out Hachette, Sterling, Penguin Group, and Random House). The New York, NY publisher was able to hit their profit targets last year even though they fell short of revenue targets. This article on a letter from Simon & Schuster’s CEO will give you insight into how the company is embracing digital publishing while also expanding its focus on high growth areas like Children’s publishing. The Internet may just be what keeps the big name publishers alive.

Book It

The most recent data that I can find (mid-2008) had Simon & Schuster as the fourth largest trade publisher in the United States. Back then they represented just under 10% of the market share, and there’s a good chance that they’ve grown it since they’ve really started to embrace digital formats and social media marketing. Now, 10% of the trade books in the United States aren’t labeled as being published by Simon & Schuster—they have a wide range of divisions and imprints that specialize in specific interest areas and markets. Each of these acts as “its own publisher with separate editorial and publicity departments,” but they do share “common sales and business departments.” If you’re intrigued by what Simon & Schuster is doing to maintain (or improve) their position in the trade publishing industry, then you should check out their Jobs page—specifically the section on their Associates Program, which is aimed at providing “opportunities for entry-level candidates to gain hands-on experience in different functional areas in order to broaden knowledge of publishing and fast forward careers.” It’s a rotational program that offers focuses in Adult, Children’s Publishing (including but not limited to Editorial, Publicity, Marketing, Subsidiary Rights, and Managing Editorial), Digital, or Corporate Communications. It looks great, and they expect candidates on a rolling basis, so you don’t have to worry about deadlines or being from a target campus. There also some other positions posted on Simon & Schuster’s Jobs site like Human Resources Coordinator, Editorial Assistant (Gallery Books) – Adult Trade, Inventory Analyst (NYC and Riverside, NJ), Logistics Coordinator (Riverside, NJ), and Business Intelligence Analyst, so the Associates Program isn’t the only option.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Which books from Simon & Schuster have you read lately?

Bluefly

Willy Franzen — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 16:57:36 +0000

I’m a big fan of buying stuff online, so I’m shocked when some of my friends tell me that they still buy everything at real brick and mortar stores. It’s so old fashioned. It used to be just books and electronics, but over the past years I’ve even started buying clothes and even shoes online. Companies like Bonobos and Gilt Groupe make online clothes shopping super easy, but they’re relative newcomers compared to Bluefly, which was was founded in 1998 in New York City. They’ve made a name for themselves by offering high end fashion brands at great values, and they’re as much a fashion company as they are an e-commerce company. Bluefly is pretty small—under 100 employees—considering that the company’s stock is publicly traded on the NASDAQ, but that’s not surprising considering that they made it through the late 90s and early 2000s.

Fly Jobs

I’ve never bought anything from Bluefly, but I’ve known of them for a long time. They don’t provide a lot of background info on their About page, but if you do a little Google searching you can get their story from places like Wikipedia and Google Finance. Another good way to get to know Bluefly is to read through some of the press coverage that they’ve received, which you can find on the company’s About page. If you like what you see and are excited at the prospect of a career at the crossroads of fashion and e-commerce, then you’ll want to move on to Bluefly’s Jobs page. Right now they’re looking for a Merchandising Assistant, a Web Designer, a Domestic Inventory Control Associate, and a Data Warehouse Developer. There’s some pretty good variety here, so give Bluefly a nice long look.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Do you ever shop at Bluefly?

American Eagle Outfitters

Willy Franzen — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 13:00:55 +0000

When I think of outfitters, I think of an adventure. I think of a business that is going to prepare me to fishing, hunting, canoeing, horseback riding, camping, or something along those lines. Apparently my definition is accurate, but the broader definition of an outfitter, at least according to Wikipedia, is “a shop or person that sells men’s clothes.” I guess that makes Bonobos and Gilt Groupe my two favorite “outfitters.” It also means that Pittsburgh, PA based American Eagle Outfitters was accurately named, at least until they started selling women’s and children’s clothing in addition to their men’s line. Maybe that’s why use see them using AE much more often than AEO. I’m sure you recognize the clothes, and you probably have seen one of American Eagle Outfitters 950+ stores in the last shopping mall that you visited. Their brand is all over the place, so it’s hard to miss.

Fly Like an Eagle

American Eagle Outfitters’ target market is “15 to 25 year old girls and guys” who are looking for “high-quality, on-trend clothing, accessories and personal care products at affordable price.” It’s a pretty tight niche, but it’s one that they serve well. In addition to the main American Eagle Outfitters brand, there are also Aerie, which means bird’s nest and offers intimates for 13-25 year old females, and 77kids, which is a reference to AE’s oft-displayed year of founding and is targeted to kids aged 0-14. I guess this means that most of you are close to growing out of the American Eagle Outfitters lines, but that doesn’t mean that you have to be completely done with them. There’s always the chance for a job.

AEO’s Careers site is called LiveYourLifeLoveYourJob.com, and it provides a ton of information on what it’s like to work at American Eagle Outfitters. It’s a really well done site, but it’s done in Flash so I can’t link you to specific pages. If you take a look at the College Recruiting part of the site, you can check out American Eagle Outfitter’s Training Programs which are offered in four areas: Corporate Training, Assistant Buyer Training, Planning & Allocation Tracking, and College Trek (Retail Management). Not all of these programs are listed on AEO’s Job Search page right now, but you can be sure that they will soon as we dive into campus recruiting season. If none of those programs appeal to you, you can always check out other Corporate opportunities or even consider something at the retail level. For instance, right now they’re trying to fill the following positions: Executive Staff Assistant (NYC), Fit Model (NYC), Help Desk Analyst, Production Assistant – Denim (NYC), Paralegal – Real Estate, Associate Merchandise Planner – 77kids.com, Production Assistant – Undies (NYC), and Production Assistant – Men’s Graphics (NYC). Take a look, and see what fits.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Do you wear American Eagle clothes?

Cobalt

Willy Franzen — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 16:09:06 +0000

Check out this week’s sponsor, New York City Teaching Fellows. They’re seeking new grads with no prior teaching experience or background in education to help make a difference in NYC’s public schools.

When I last bought a car in 2001, the best way to go about it was to stop by dealerships to see what they had in their inventory. I remember using the Internet to some extent, but it wasn’t all that helpful. Although I haven’t purchased a car since, I’m pretty sure that the web is playing a much larger role in the car buying decision process these days. That’s why Cobalt, a Seattle based company, is doing so well. They’re in the business of automotive marketing, and they made the Inc. 5000 last year with 134.0% three-year revenue growth to $168.4 million. Cobalt works with both dealers and manufacturers to “increase their retailing effectiveness and profits.” The company has been around since 1995, and it consists of three key subsidiaries: Dealix, UsedCars.com, and IntegraLink.

Drive Your Career in the Right Direction

The big reason that Cobalt has been so successful is that they were ready for the transition to digital marketing from the start. A lot of people in the automotive industry weren’t ready for a change in their business model, but luckily they have Cobalt to rely on for marketing. More than two thirds of auto manufacturers and one half of dealers in the US use Cobalt’s services in some capacity. Cobalt is a lot like a fully-integrated marketing agency in terms of the areas in which they work, but their business doesn’t appear to be quite as client focused (for instance they run a UsedCars.com—a destination site). If you’re intrigued by what Cobalt does, then you’ll want to take a look at their Careers page. It goes into a lot of detail about what it’s like to work at Cobalt, and then it will direct you to take a look at their job postings. There are lots of opportunities for new or recent grads including: Data Normalization Clerk (Columbus, OH), Technical Customer Support (Columbus, OH), Website Technical Support (Lynnwood, WA), Online Marketing Specialist (Lynnwood, WA), Technical Inside Sales (Redwood City, CA), Operations Analyst – Inventory (Seattle, WA), UI Web Developer (Seattle, WA), Build and Release Engineer (Seattle, WA), and Sales Operations Specialist (Seattle, WA).

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

When is the last time that you bought a car?

Hallmark

Willy Franzen — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 14:38:31 +0000

This morning I realized which company we should have featured to celebrate my birthday yesterday. Luckily, my birthday celebration is going to be a 2 week event that will culminate with our giving away an iPod Touch to one lucky reader who spreads the word about us to his or her friends. Although we announced the contest last night, we’re really kicking it off today, so I think that we should focus on my birthday again and talk about entry level jobs with Hallmark. Here’s how Hallmark describes itself:

Some companies make things. Good things, but, you know…things. Hallmark is another kind of company. We play a unique role in defining and expressing friendship and family and love – and we’ve done it for nearly 100 years.

I usually just shake a card to see if a check falls out – just kidding. I actually got a talking Hallmark card that couldn’t have been more perfect for me. My mom may have had to walk through the store opening every single card to find it, but she did. It has made me laugh over and over. You have to love Hallmark.

Apply by Greeting Card?

Hallmark is a family-owned company headquartered in Kansas City, MO, and they make more than greeting cards. Their other businesses include partyware, gifts, gift wrap, ornaments, decorative items, picture frames, albums, scrapbooks, e-cards, magazines, and cable television. They also own Crayola (which makes Silly Putty in addition to crayons), William Arthur, and a number of other subsidiaries. Hallmark is a major company with a significant college recruiting program. They have a section of their Careers site devoted to college students, but the navigation is extremely confusing. Their Working Here section consists of one paragraph, and links out to pages on Benefits, Culture, and Kansas City. There is also a Career FAQs section, which is actually very helpful.

Hallmark has a limited Campus Recruiting schedule, so unless you’re at one of the few schools that they visit, your best bet is to apply for a job online. The links to their actual job listings seem to break half of the time, but if you’re persistent, you can usually get it to work. You can either look at opportunities in Hallmark’s Creative Division or in their Corporate Headquarters, Operations, and Manufacturing Divisions. Hallmark’s Creative Division only has one job listing right now that looks to be entry level – Web Designer – but they seem very open to portfolio submissions. You can apply online and include your portfolio without picking a specific job, so that seems like the best way to try and get a creative job with Hallmark. The Corporate/Operations/Manufacturing job listings allow you to search for “College-Full Time,” so it’s easy to look up which entry level positions Hallmark is hiring for (we can’t link to them, because their applicant tracking system won’t let us). Right now there are 5 job titles posted – Job Planner, Accounting and Financial Analyst, Inventory Controller, IT Analyst, and Line Supervisor – and all of them are located in Kansas City. It seems likely that Hallmark has multiple openings for each of these positions. We don’t see any contact info, so it looks like you’ll have to apply for the jobs online, but if you can find an address, we think that it would be cool to apply by greeting card. Hallmark also has retail job opportunities, but we’re not going to get into those. Remember, with Hallmark if you get an interview, a thank you card is an absolute must. It’s their business!

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

What’s the best Hallmark card that you’ve ever seen?

Tiffany & Co.

Willy Franzen — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 13:00:37 +0000

Did you forget about Valentine’s Day? Did you accidentally put your ex-girlfriend’s name on the card that came with the flowers you sent your new girlfriend from ProFlowers? Did you forget to use OpenTable and end up having to take your valentine to McDonald’s? Have you still not changed your Facebook status to “In a Relationship,” even though it’s been 4 months? If so, you’re in the doghouse. Instead of focusing on the trouble you’re in and writing about jobs at a company that makes dog houses (we couldn’t find any, anyways), we’re going to talk about a company that has great entry-level jobs and might even help you get out of the dog house. How does a guy get out of the dog house? Jewelry. And for the girls, we apologize that we’ve been writing our intros from the male perspective this week, but we hope it won’t affect your outlook on the companies we’ve told you about.

Tiffany & Co. not only makes and sells fine jewelry, but they also have a wide range of open entry-level jobs. If you’re not familiar with Tiffany & Co., you should know that they have been one of the country’s premier jewelers and designers since 1837. If you want to learn more, you can check out the links at the bottom of this post, but we’re going to assume that most people who would be interested in jobs at Tiffany & Co. are well aware of the brand and its identity. Below are some of the jobs that we found on Tiffany’s Careers site that look to be appropriate for a new college graduate.

Jobs in New York, NY: Replenishment Analyst, Silver Sales Professional, Gift Sales Professional, Assistant Sales Manager, and Coordinator (Associate Producer), Interactive Media.

Jobs Elsewhere in the US: Merchandise Assistant (Dallas, TX), Inventory Control Coordinator (Pelham, NY), and Business Sales Coordinator (San Francisco, CA).

If none of these positions interest you, but you’re dying to work for Tiffany, then you can submit your resume for general consideration (this page allows you to create a profile and then submit your resume).

Now you may have noticed, that we’ve pretty much avoided talking directly about Tiffany’s Careers Site. That’s because it’s basically impossible to find, and once you find it, it’s a nightmare to navigate. We first looked for jobs at Tiffany & Co. by visiting their Home page and their About page. After a quick look, we found nothing career related. So we did a Google search for “Tiffany jobs.” That turned up the usual smattering of job board listings and search results from job search engines, but there was nothing from Tiffany & Co. in the first few pages of result (who looks farther than that?). We then tried looking for “Tiffany careers,” which finally turned up TiffanyCareers.com.

We thought we had finally found what we were looking for, but then TiffanyCareers.com redirected to another site on the domain of the company that Tiffany uses for their applicant tracking system. This page then links back to the main Tiffany.com site. You might not even notice that you’re jumping from site to site, but we do, and so do the search engines (and they don’t like it one bit). It’s the reason that it’s so hard to find information about Tiffany’s employment opportunities in Google. Put really simply, Google trusts Tiffany.com for information about Tiffany & Co., but it doesn’t trust TiffanyCareers.com or the site from their applicant tracking system provider, so they don’t rank well. After confirming that Tiffany & Co. actually has a Careers page, we went back and finally found a link to it on their About page; however, the link only shows up when you put your cursor over the Our Company section. From our standpoint, it looks like Tiffany & Co. hides their jobs on their web site and from Google; maybe they just don’t want to hire anyone.

Sorry that we’re ranting about search engine optimization again, but we feel that making an example out of Tiffany & Co. will help them and other employers understand how frustrating it can be to search for jobs online. Hey employers, make your jobs easy to find! Ok? Thanks.

One last thing, if you look at Tiffany’s listing of all job openings, you might think that it’s only one page long. There are actually 11 pages of job listings. We missed this the first time through, so we thought you might make the same mistake. Despite our gripes about the usability of Tiffany’s website, we still think that they’re an entry-level employer worth looking at. They have quite a few jobs and they are a company at the top of their industry. We’re sorry we had to be so negative about Tifanny’s web site, but we hope that this post will help you find what you’re looking for when it comes to entry-level jobs with Tiffany & Co.

Note: On April 24th we revisited entry-level jobs at Tiffany & Co.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Take a look at the Tiffany & Co. Careers site for yourself and let us know if you agree with us about the usability issues. What do you like about the site? And what do you think could be done better? Leave a comment.