by Willy Franzen on December 8, 2008

We’ve just had another weekend of looking at excellent entry level jobs at non-profits, so it makes sense that we’re going to look at jobs with a company that serves non-profits today. Blackbaud is a technology solutions provider for non-profit organizations that specializes in “fundraising, relationship management, financial management, education administration, website management, direct, marketing, ticketing, prospect research, consulting, and training.” That’s a lot to do, but Blackbaud is a big company – they have over 22,000 non-profit customers and almost 2,000 employees. They seem to growing at a good rate, and they even have locations in 5 countries.
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by Willy Franzen on December 1, 2008

You may have noticed that we occasionally run sponsored posts from companies who want to draw more attention to their jobs. We haven’t done that lately because we have more exciting things to tell you about like the job search training course that we’re working on, our partnership with VisualCV to help you build a killer online resume, and our soon to be announced contest where we’re giving away $6,000+ in HP and Microsoft products. When we do run sponsored posts, it’s always a pain in the butt to get paid. We have to fill out all kinds of forms and jump through lots of hoops to get a check sent. It’s quite annoying. Enliven Software is a startup based out of East Lansing, Michigan that makes the billing process a lot easier for small and medium sized companies. They’re aiming to be the “leading provider of secure, paperless electronic invoicing, online payables and electronic payment solutions.” Our Accounting function isn’t quite advanced enough to need their software yet, but I hope one day that I’ll be able to do all of my invoicing, billing, and getting paid online.
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by Willy Franzen on November 28, 2008

Happy Black Friday! May you not get in a fist fight over a discounted video game system or flat screen tv. Today is the official start of the holiday shopping season, and legend has it that it is also the first day of the year that major retailers “go into the black.” For those of you not familiar with accounting terminology, that means that they finally become profitable. Whether or not this is true depends on the retailer, but you have to wonder why a store wouldn’t just open up for November and December and sit dormant the rest of the year if it’s really that bad. Anyway, last year we talked about a major Black Friday retailer, Amazon.com, and their jobs, and today we’re going to go the other way and look at a major accounting firm, Ernst & Young. They might not be the first company that you think of on Black Friday, but you can be sure that they spend a lot of time analyzing the results. And, of course, they do a ton of entry level hiring.
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by Willy Franzen on November 27, 2008

Happy Thanksgiving! Thank you for reading and helping to make the first year of One Day, One Job a great success. Last year we told you about jobs at Plimoth Plantation and Colonial Williamsburg, which are still a great option if you want to be reminded of Thanksgiving every day when you’re at work, but this year we’re going to take the easy way out and talk about turkey. I was first introduced to Jennie-O when I tried some of their turkey bacon. It’s good, if you haven’t had real bacon in a while. Since my Thanksgiving cooking philosophy is that bacon makes everything better (especially when it’s put on top of the turkey and doused in maple syrup, seriously, try it), I’ll let Jennie-O provide the turkey, but I’m getting the bacon somewhere else. In the three or four years that I’ve been familiar with the Jennie-O brand, I’ve noticed that they’ve revved up their branding efforts. You’ve probably seen some of their tv commercials, which are pretty funny, but you may have overlooked the fact that they’re working hard to expand recognition of their employment brand with college students.
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by Willy Franzen on November 22, 2008

I’m in the lucky position of having a girlfriend who has an 8 year old sister. That means that I have a built in excuse to continue to do “kid things,” even though I’m way too old to do them on my own without seeming creepy. Mini golf and bowling are certainly staples, although it’s not too weird for 20-somethings to do those (bowling with bumpers is another story), but one of my favorites is going to children’s museums. Not only do they provide a lot of fun, but they also always seem to teach me something. It’s amazing to see complex concepts explained with simple exhibits and toys. I also particularly enjoyed the “screaming booth” at one museum because I was able to max out the decibel meter. Now, the Boston Children’s Museum may or may not have a screaming booth, I don’t know, but they do have some exciting jobs for new college grads. That means that you can have a built in excuse to continue to do “kid things” just like I do.
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by Willy Franzen on October 29, 2008

One of my favorite movies is Trading Places
. I was introduced to the movie by my Econ 101 professor when he played a clip in class, and it still amazes me how much fun it is to learn about the world of high finance and commodities markets from Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd. These days it seems that entire markets are as volatile as the concentrated frozen orange juice market was in the movie, but that just makes things more interesting. Trying to play the markets right now might be fun, but there aren’t a ton of companies in the financial industry hiring right now, and you don’t need that stress anyway. If you’d still like a front row view of the daily excitement that is capitalism, then you should consider a job with the CME Group, “a combined entity formed by the 2007 merger of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) and the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT).” Instead of playing the market, you can be the market.
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by Willy Franzen on October 19, 2008

Just because you’re graduating college doesn’t mean that you have to be done with educational development. Even if you haven’t studied education for a second, you must have picked up something with 17 years in the educational system. At the very least you’ve lived in a thriving society, and you understand how education, health, civil society and economic development are the keys to a better life. Maybe you take these things for granted, but once you see what the non-profit Academy for Educational Development is doing, you’ll get a better understanding for how innovative solutions can help solve critical social and economic problems. AED has programs that focus on 7 specific areas – Education, Enterprise & Economic Development, Environment & Energy, Health, HIV/AIDS, Leadership & Democracy, and Youth – and they also take 7 different approaches – Behavior Changes, Gender, Partnerships, Research & Evaluation, Social Marketing, Technology Applications, and Training. It may sound like they have their hands full, and they do. AED is running “more than 250 programs serving people in all 50 U.S. states and more than 150 countries.”
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by Willy Franzen on October 18, 2008

Surprise, surprise. We’ve selected yet another one of the Wall Street Journal’s Best Small Workplaces to be featured on One Day, One Job. That’s three in a row for those of you who are counting. We can’t express enough how helpful lists like these can be to your job search. Almost as helpful as Rainforest Alliance is to saving the rainforest. They’re a non-profit organization that “works to conserve biodiversity and ensure sustainable livelihoods by transforming land-use practices, business practices and consumer behavior.” How do they do this? By working directly with farmers, workers, business leaders, NGO’s, governments, scientists and local communities to change the way that they do agriculture to make land use more socially and environmentally responsible while maintaining its economic viability.
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by Willy Franzen on October 13, 2008

Ok, it may be politically incorrect to celebrate Columbus Day, but it’s just about the only holiday that I had off in college. Maybe it just happened to be a convenient weekend for Fall Break, but I still can’t believe that I didn’t have class on Columbus Day, but did have class on Labor Day (when I went to a School of Industrial and Labor Relations). Anyway, Christopher Columbus wasn’t much of a navigator. He had no idea where he was going, and he tried to take the long way around the world. Still, his ineptitude was the reason that he “discovered” the Americas. Had Garmin been around in the 1490s, Columbus never would have ended up where he did. Then again, the existence of a company built on GPS technology would have changed a lot of things for famous explorers five centuries ago. (Much like the existence of iPods – like the one we’re giving away – would have changed the world for musicians back then.)
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by Willy Franzen on October 7, 2008

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.
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by Willy Franzen on October 2, 2008

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.
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by Willy Franzen on September 17, 2008

Periodically the news is riddled with stories about how the airlines are teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. Lately the focus of doom and gloom commentary has shifted to finance and insurance companies, but that doesn’t mean that the airlines are doing any better. There’s one company that is seemingly never in the conversation about struggling airlines – Southwest Airlines. If you’ve ever flown Southwest, you probably know why. They do things differently, and it makes flyers happy. Even though it seems like almost no one can succeed flying commercial routes, Southwest continues to impress. A One Day, One Internship reader tipped us off to some amazing internship opportunities at Southwest Airlines, so we thought that we’d look at their entry level jobs today too. Air travel isn’t going anywhere – it’s too important to us, so don’t write off an entire industry because the other losers can’t get their acts together.
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by Willy Franzen on September 11, 2008

Artists and record labels are starting to realize that live music is a great way to stay profitable. Although the digital download business is seeing amazing growth, the idea that people should pay for songs has pretty much gone out the window. If you can fill up a venue with adoring fans (who paid an arm and a leg for tickets) and sell them t-shirts, posters, and whatever else people buy at concerts, you can still make a lot of money. If this trend continues Live Nation should be primed for success, they have the “most live concerts, music venues and festivals in the world and the most comprehensive concert search engine on the web.”
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by Willy Franzen on September 3, 2008

We haven’t been able to find any hard statistics to back it up, but we’re pretty sure that a lot of people use their dog’s name for their passwords. Just look at Paris Hilton, whose cell phone supposedly got hacked because someone was able to find her dog’s name on her MySpace page. That story has since been discredited, but it can be a fable for the 21st century. Instead of “The Boy Who Cried Wolf,” we will tell our kids “The Girl Who Used Her Dog’s Name As Her Password.” So, if you’re trying to guess someone’s password (which you shouldn’t be), their dog’s name is a great first guess. If you don’t know their dog’s name, guess “Max.” Apparently 1% (which is a lot) of dogs in the U.S. share that name. Marc Pincus really blew it when he decided to name is social gaming network startup after his dog. Nobody would have ever guessed Zynga – he wasted a great password.
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by Willy Franzen on September 2, 2008

There has never been a better time in history to find great reading material for free. The Internet is full of excellent content on nearly any topic. The coolest innovation has been blogs, which have changed the top down approach that used to dominate media publishing. Now, it’s quite easy to have a conversation with the author whose work your reading, whether it be through comments, e-mail, IM, Twitter, or some other preferred form of communication. This has led to more engaged audiences and, sometimes, a much quicker development of ideas. The only way to continue this trend, though, is to make sure that web authors are well compensated for their hard work. That’s where Federated Media Publishing comes in. The New York Times has proved that charging for access to content doesn’t work and that running engaging advertising is a much smarter business move. Federated Media doesn’t work with The Times, but they are working with a wide range of conversational media properties to monetize visits from highly engaged online readers.
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by Willy Franzen on August 28, 2008

Back before cell phones had color screens and GPS, digital service just meant that you were able to send and receive text messages. I was convinced that it was important to have a dual band phone – analog and digital. I was often off fishing in rural areas where digital cell service was nonexistent, so I figured that it was better to have crappy service than no service. We’ve certainly moved into the digital age of cell phones, but there are still all types of different cellular networks that require different frequencies and hardware to operate on. Vanu is a Cambridge, MA based company that is building a software based radio access network. What does that mean? Instead of requiring cellular providers to invest in new hardware for every network that they operate on, they can use a single reusable hardware platform to operate on multiple networks. Although the science behind what Vanu does goes right over our heads, we think that it sounds pretty slick. We featured Vanu’s internships yesterday on One Day, One Internship, and we realized that they also have some exciting entry-level job opportunities, so we’re talking about them today.
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by Willy Franzen on August 10, 2008

Did you spend any time abroad when you were in college? Did you love it? If you answered yes to those questions, then you can probably see the value in World Learning, a non-profit organization that “fosters global citizenship by connecting over 3,000 young ambassadors annually across cultural differences and social barriers.” They do this through three programs that they offer – The Experiment in International Living, SIT Study Abroad, and SIT Graduate Institute. World Learning also runs International Development Programs in 20 countries to “work with communities to design and implement development programs that address some of the main obstacles to human development.” If you terribly miss your abroad experience and want to help other students gain similar experiences, a job with World Learning might be the perfect solution to your post-graduation job search.
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by Willy Franzen on July 27, 2008

A child’s first sign of teenage (pre-teenage?) rebellion often begins at the radio dial. The parent’s up-to-this-point unchallenged decision of what to listen to while in the car is called into question, and all hell breaks loose. If there are multiple kids in the family (or even just in the car), the negotiation can quickly becom more heated than a multi-lateral peace process in a war-torn nation. The parent will fight hard to maintain his or her right to National Public Radio, but the kid will persist in his or her challenge to hear something that feeds a suddenly “eclectic” taste in music. Often the parents cede this battle in hopes of winning in the future (bad idea!), which results in the parent’s driving the kids around the mini-van listening to rap music that would be a lot more offensive if the parent knew what some of the words meant. Eventually the rebellious tykes will grow up and realize that they too want to be more cultured, and they slowly, but surely come around to listening to NPR. Or maybe some kids just never speak up. They like NPR from the start. Maybe those are the ones who end up taking entry-level jobs at NPR.
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by Willy Franzen on July 23, 2008

Considering that it’s July, you probably don’t have hockey on your mind right now, unless, of course, you’re sweltering in a room without air conditioning dreaming of the cool air inside the rink. The offseason is a time for National Hockey League Teams to address their needs, and that isn’t only about the personnel who wear ice skates. It looks to us like summer is a big hiring time with NHL teams, so while most people are focused on baseball and the Olympics, you should get back into that hockey mindset and try to find a job with an NHL Team.
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by Willy Franzen on July 15, 2008

When you hear how McMurry first started, it’s easy to understand how they have maintained a customer-centric view for almost 20 years. McMurry began as a marketing department within a large company – the same group that they now serve. This is where Preston V. McMurry Jr. created Vim & Vigor, a custom marketing magazine for his health-system employer, in 1984. The magazine didn’t make money for the company, but McMurry decided to buy the magazine. This led to the formation of his own company in 1989. McMurry is now a full service marketing communications firm with multiple locations. They used to be the clients whom they serve, so they’re not full of it when they say “full service.”
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by Willy Franzen on May 26, 2008

Happy Memorial Day! First and foremost, this is a day to remember those who have given their lives to protect our freedom. Help us send a big thank you out to all of those who have ever served in the armed forces, while we remember those who are no longer with us. We considered writing about careers in the military today, but it seemed a bit out of our realm. If that’s something that interests you, then you should take a look at Today’s Military to get a better sense of the options that are out there. Instead, we’re going to stick with a Memorial Day tradition that we’re much better acquainted with – the barbecue. As the official beginning of summer, Memorial Day is the perfect time to fire up your Weber-Stephen grill.
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by Amy Gordon on May 15, 2008

It was no big surprise that I decided to play volleyball in college. After all, my parents met on the volleyball court, and my first toy was not a doll or a teddy bear, but a mini Molton volleyball too big to even fit in my hands. When I graduate in a week, I will officially be retired from college athletics. As I enter the working world in the fall, for the first time in my life, I will be forced to fit volleyball into my schedule, rather than fitting my schedule around volleyball. Unfortunately, in consulting “on the beach” means working out of the home office, where volleyball is not an approved activity. Had I known that I could have made volleyball my work and my play, like it is for employees of the AVP, I may have taken a different career path. It’s too bad One Day, One Job wasn’t around during my job search.
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by Willy Franzen on April 16, 2008

We don’t like politics. We’re already sick of this election. We don’t care who made a verbal gaffe yesterday. And we certainly don’t understand how double-digit leads in the polls can evaporate and reappear based on a few words here or a few words there. We just don’t care (don’t confuse that with not caring about the direction of our country), but a lot of people do care. They want constant information, not only about what’s happening, but also how the American people are reacting to breaking news. The media provides the news on the mud slinging, but someone has to keep the pulse of the nation. Much of that responsibility falls on pollsters like Gallup. You can be sure that you’ll be hearing that name a lot over the next 6 months.
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by Willy Franzen on April 13, 2008

When did it become cool for companies to use the term “rock star” in reference to high potential recruits? It seems like everyone these days is looking for a rock star this, or a rock star that. At first, it was cool that employers compared top talent to those who have reached the ultimate level of fame; however, the term has lost it’s edge now that its use has become so widespread. In any case, if you think that you’re a rock star, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum is a place where you should fit right in.
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by Willy Franzen on March 4, 2008

Buying your first car and getting your first job have a lot in common. They’re both relatively uncomfortable and unfamiliar processes that are filled with false formality and lots of back and forth. To be successful at either, you need to put yourself in the driver’s seat (ugh, sorry for the pun) and take control of the situation by ensuring that you’ve done your research and that you know exactly what you want. If only recruiters and HR representatives would work as hard as a car salesman to sell you on why you should work for their company. CarMax, being in the auto sales business, has figured this out. Just like they make car buying easier and less stressful with “No-Haggle Pricing,” CarMax also makes finding your first job easy with an exceptional entry-level hiring program.
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by Willy Franzen on February 17, 2008

As Chef from South Park so poignantly said, “There’s a time and a place for everything, and it’s called college.” Sometimes college students do stupid things, and sometimes they get caught. Even some of the most successful people in the world got in trouble for things like underage drinking, public urination, or throwing a party that got a bit too loud. These are the types of things that can cause mild embarrassment and a few short-term headaches, but probably won’t ruin your life (as long as you don’t add them to your resume). During the past decade there has been a new indiscretion that has become popular with college students. Like the others, it seems victimless (which is debatable), but the repercussions of this offense can be much more serious. What is it? Copyright infringement.
Creative Commons is a non-profit organization that addresses many of those issues that college students face when it comes to understanding how copyright works. Now, Creative Commons isn’t going to get you off the hook when you get served a DMCA notice by the RIAA or anything like that, but they are helping to spread the ideology of openness when it comes to intellectual property. What do they do exactly?
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by Willy Franzen on February 16, 2008

Rocks and Minerals, Romance Quarterly, Preventing School Failure, Demokratizatsiya, Behavioral Medicine, and Historical Methods. No, this isn’t an excerpt from one of those spam e-mails with random words that don’t make any sense, but a small sampling of titles put out by Heldref Publications. As a non-profit publisher, Heldref Publications aims to provide a forum for scholarly discourse in the approximately 50 titles that they publish. These titles are geared towards academics in a wide range of fields, as you probably gathered from our first sentence. Those fields include “research and practice in K-12 and higher education, world affairs and political science, history, world literatures old and new, the arts, popular culture, psychology, social sciences, health, and the environment.”
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by Willy Franzen on February 7, 2008

We report, you decide. The #1 name in cable news. For those who aren’t familiar with these slogans, we’re talking about Fox News. We know people tend to love or hate Fox, often dependent on political views. We’re not trying to get involved in any controversy, we’re just trying to tell you where great opportunities for new college grads are. To this date our post on entry-level jobs at CNN has been our most popular. Obviously there are a lot of people interested in journalism, television, and production, and Fox News has a multitude of entry-level opportunities in these fields.
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