Usually our goal at One Day, One Job is to tell you about jobs at companies that you might not have considered working at before. We’re all about new ideas, but sometimes you just need help. You may be stuck researching a company that you’re dying to work for. Or you may be having a nightmare trying to navigate a corporate careers site. We’re here to help with today’s case study on ESPN.
When we first visited ESPN’s Careers (Join Our Team) Site, we were impressed by it’s looks, feel, and College Relations link in the navigation bar. Our sense of ease that this would be an easy company to research quickly faded when we realized first, that this section of the website had no content, and second, that it was mostly directed towards hiring interns (or would be if it had content, we should say). There was a link to their PA (Production Assistant, we think) training program, which also was a dead end. In the face of this disappointment, we rolled up our sleeves, put on our gloves, and started digging through ESPN’s job listings to figure out which positions were right for new college graduates.
One note before we tell you about the entry-level positions that we found at ESPN: clicking the Jobs link in Safari, our browser of choice, breaks the rest of navigation for the site. This is frustrating, but remedied by going back a few pages and trying again. Ok, one more note: ESPN’s job listings are messed up. We’re not sure what’s wrong with their Applicant Tracking System, but sometimes clicking a link to one job title will take you to another job. Whoops. Also, identical job titles can have vastly different qualification requirements - one job may be entry-level, and the other job with the same title might require 7 years experience. Generally, positions at ESPN with the word Associate in the title are geared towards the entry-level, but some require 10+ years experience. There are also many entry-level jobs that don’t have the word Associate in the title. Ugh. At least we did the hard part for you…
By the way, we put all the jobs into loose groupings. This is based on our understanding of the job descriptions, but we could be way off. ESPN does not group their jobs in this way. We just wanted to make it a little easier to find what you’re looking for.
Graphics/Design/Web: Animator, Associate Graphic Designer, Associate Web Developer, ESPN Fantasy Games - Web Designer, Creative Assistant, and Associate Photo Editor in Bristol, CT or in Washington
Production: Programming Content Associate, Associate Technical Producer, Multimedia Production Assistant, Graphics System Controller, ESPN International- TV Production Assistant, and Assistant Editor
Research: Research Analyst, Statistics Associate (probably our favorite of the bunch), Multimedia Research Analyst, Computer Assisted Reporter (this is also one of our favorites), and Director of Business Affairs
Other: Affiliate Marketing Coordinator and Promotions Coordinator
Almost all of ESPN’s jobs are in Bristol, CT or New York City; however, there are a few other locations where they are hiring. Despite the problems with the way ESPN lists jobs, most of their job descriptions are pretty decent. Even without great descriptions, it seems as though it’s much easier to imagine what it’s like to work for ESPN than what it’s like to work at most other companies. Maybe it’s all those SportsCenter commercials with the players, mascots, and tv personalities hanging out in the office.
Now, we don’t usually do this, but today we’re going to give you our perspective on applying for a job at ESPN. You can be sure that working for ESPN is high on the lists of many college students’ dream jobs. That means there’s going to be a lot of competition for these jobs. You need to stand out, so take a little risk when you apply. Include that wacky thing that you’re not quite sure belongs on your resume. Apply for a job that requires more experience than you have. Try cold calling or contacting your would be manager, if you can track him or her down. Be creative. Be unique. Be yourself. They are going to get hundreds of resumes from college students that all look pretty much the same. You need to stand out if you want to work at a company like ESPN.
Good luck! Now go research.
Links to Help You Begin Your Research
Note: On April 24th we revisited entry-level jobs at ESPN.
Da-da-duhhhhhh, da-da-duhhhhhh! (That was supposed to be onomatopoeia for the SportsCenter update music.)
Tags: Connecticut, design, editorial, entry-level jobs, journalism, New York, production, research, sports, television
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