by Willy Franzen on March 2, 2010
I got a tip on this one from a fellow Cornellian (which is cool because a few of my friends from Cornell work at Rosetta). If you ever find a company that you think that we should feature, e-mail me at willy@onedayonejob.com. We feature a lot of interactive marketing agencies because they’re usually pretty big on hiring young talent whether it be at the intern or entry level. Rosetta stands out because of their size and sophistication—they almost seem more like a consulting firm than a marketing agency, at least in the way that they present themselves. For instance, they recently become a “top ten interactive agency” by means of an acquisition. That seems so different from the image that most agencies try to portray, but it’s working. Through “dedication to client work within Consumer Products & Retail, Healthcare, Financial Services, Consumer Technology & Media, B2B, and Travel & Hospitality industries” Rosetta “has created enduring partnerships with [their] clients including Scholastic, Coach, Borders, Johnson & Johnson, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Nationwide, Marriott and Microsoft.” Those are huge names, so you know Rosetta, which is headquartered in Princeton with offices in New York, Cleveland, Boston, Chicago, and Denver, is capable of delivering results.
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by Willy Franzen on February 25, 2010
If I ever make a ridiculous amount of money, the first thing that I’m going to do is buy a private jet—or at least a share in one. It seems like the ultimate way to travel. I’ve been on private planes before, but they had propellers and I was sitting next to or right behind the pilot (not nearly as classy). NetJets is a company that allows wealthy individuals and businesses to buy shares in private jets (since who really needs an entire jet to himself or herself?). They also have a subscription service called MarquisJet that lets you get a guaranteed number of hours of private jet use. It may not make private air travel affordable or cost effective, but it certainly puts it within reach for a lot more people. NetJets is by far the market leader, and they’re also a Berkshire Hathaway company. You know if Warren Buffett is investing in it, it has to be pretty good. NetJets is based in Columbus, OH, but quite obviously they operate all over the world.
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by Willy Franzen on February 8, 2010
You thought that you were done with test prep, but now the economy is in a rough spot and the job market is kind of weak. You’re thinking about grad school, and that means doing the standardized test thing all over again. Luckily, things have changed since you took the SAT or ACT. The one size fits all approach of classroom instruction is out, and “adaptive learning” delivered through an online platform is in. Knewton is a New York City based startup that is one of the leading innovators in the test prep market. They seem to be mostly focused on the graduate school test prep market, although they do offer an SAT prep course too (PrepMe is a similar company that focuses only on pre-undergraduate test prep). Knewton is not only focused on improving the quality of test prep results, but they’re also working hard to make test prep more affordable and more interactive.
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by Willy Franzen on February 5, 2010
It’s every teen’s worst nightmare. You finally reach that magical age where the state says that you’re ready to drive a car. Your parents reluctantly hand over the keys to the family station wagon. You get a lecture, but you’re going to escape. You’ll finally have the freedom that you’ve been waiting for all your life. But there’s a catch. Your parents have installed a camera in the car to assess your driving and mitigate risk. It’s from a San Diego based company called DriveCam. To you it’s a terrible idea. You hate being spied on. You know you’re a good driver with your state mandated 20 hours of experience behind the wheel. What you probably don’t know is that car accidents are the leading cause of teen death. You’re too caught up in having a sense of freedom to care that this device has reduced the risk of reportable crash by 70% over the course of 2 million miles.
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by Willy Franzen on February 3, 2010
I’m a big proponent of making personal finance part of the job search. By managing your money wisely (even if you barely have any left), you’re creating a project for yourself that you can use to demonstrate to employers how you’ll be an effective employee. When I need information on personal finance, I always look to Ramit Sethi, the founder of a website called I Will Teach You To Be Rich and the author of a book by the same name
(he also just launched a course on how to make money freelancing and he’s doing a free webinar tonight at 7 PM PST – affiliate links). One thing that he strongly recommends is using online banks that offer high interest rates and great easy to use features. One of these banks is ING Direct, which is headquartered in Wilmington, DE. While you may have noticed that most banks are on a real estate binge as they try to gain customers, ING Direct is doing the opposite. They operate almost entirely “in the cloud.” Since they “believe saving money should be as simple as having a cup of coffee,” they do have cafés in New York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Wilmington, Chicago, St. Cloud, and Honolulu where you can ” sip a latte, surf the Internet for free and talk to [them] about how [they] can help you Save Your Money.” And by keeping a low overhead, ING Direct is able to offer better interest rates and fewer fees, which gives them a huge advantage in winning over customers.
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by Willy Franzen on January 31, 2010
I don’t usually do this, but this is important. I find many of the non-profit jobs that I feature on One Day, One Job on Idealist.org. It’s the best resource for non-profit jobs on the web, and it’s a non-profit itself. The organization is in trouble right now, and they need money. If they’ve helped your job search in any way, go to their home page and make a donation—I just did. Even $5 will help.
If Aspen is known for anything, it’s known for skiing and affluence. In 1945 Walter Paepcke, a Chicago businessman, was so inspired by the town’s natural beauty that he wanted it to be known for something else—”as an ideal gathering place for thinkers, leaders, artists, and musicians from all over the world to step away from their daily routines and reflect on the underlying values of society and culture.” He started by organizing events in Aspen like “a celebration of the 200th birthday of German poet and philosopher Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,” and then he founded The Aspen Institute. It started as a “forum based on the writings of great thinkers of the past and present,” but now it’s evolved into something more. It is now a non-profit organization that fosters “values-based leadership” and provides “a neutral and balanced venue for discussing and acting on critical issues.” It’s certainly an ideas-focused organization, and it is now headquartered in Washington, DC with offices in Aspen, CO and on the Wye River on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.
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by Willy Franzen on January 27, 2010
I have to admit that the “jobs” that I’m most concerned with today is Steve Jobs. I can’t wait to find out what Apple is announcing today, and I wish that I had some relevant jobs to bring you. I don’t, but I did come across a really cool list yesterday called 5 Butt Kicking Companies You (Probably) Never Heard Of. The list is exactly what it promises, as it features 5 later stage startups that are growing rapidly and hiring lots of people. The first company on that list is Palantir, a Palo Alto, CA based company (with another office in McLean, VA) that “is working to radically change how groups analyze information.” They were founded by former PayPal employees and Stanford computer scientists. Right now the company is focused on two verticals: Government and Finance. Both areas deal with massive amount of data and information, so it makes sense that Palantir is starting with them.
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by Willy Franzen on January 24, 2010
I live across the street from what was formerly the world’s largest building—the Merchandise Mart in Chicago. It’s massive at 4,000,000 square feet, which is extremely impressive considering it was opened in 1930. What’s even more impressive is that, with some debate, the Merchandise Mart is now the world’s largest “green” building. It is LEED-EB Silver certified, and apparently the retrofitting that they did to achieve this certification has cut utility bills by 10%. Upgrading one of the largest buildings in the world to be more energy efficient and environment-friendly is a daunting task, luckily the LEED Certification process provided the owners of the Merchandise Mart with guidelines to work to. The organization behind LEED is the U.S. Green Building Council, which is based in Washington, DC. They are a non-profit that is “committed to a prosperous and sustainable future for our nation through cost-efficient and energy-saving green buildings.”
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by Willy Franzen on January 23, 2010
You thought that you were done with standardized tests. No more #2 pencils and filling in bubbles for you. Guess again. A career with the Princeton, NJ based Educational Testing Service would take you right back to Junior year in high school with all the standardized tests. They are “a private, nonprofit organization devoted to educational measurement and research, primarily through testing.” They’re behind AP Tests, the PSAT, the SAT, the TOEFL, the GRE, and plenty of other tests that you may have taken during your academic career. Their aim is to “advance quality and equity in education for people worldwide by creating assessments based on rigorous research,” and I’d say they’re doing a pretty good job. A lot of people have a strong distaste for standardized tests, but it seems that we are yet to find a better way to measure and compare achievement across groups. I was surprised to learn that the ETS is a non-profit organization, but it’s probably better for the people who take the 50 million tests that the organization administers annually.
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by Willy Franzen on January 18, 2010
Happy MLK Day! For last year’s holiday we featured jobs at The King Center, so check those out. Today’s company has nothing to do with MLK, so instead of trying to make a tenuous connection, I’m going to jump right in. Datran Media is a New York City based digital marketing technology company. They help “advertisers, publishers and agencies manage their branding, acquisition, retention and monetization campaigns across multiple channels.” They started as an e-mail marketing company back in 2001, and since then they’ve expanded into a number of different business areas. Datran Media has worked with huge names like NASCAR, eHarmony, The Ad Council, and Microsoft. To get a better feel for what Datran Media does, you may want to check out these case studies of award winning campaigns that they’ve done for the PGA Tour and Sony.
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by Willy Franzen on January 15, 2010
Even though it seems that the economy is crawling its way to recovery (I’m seeing more entry level and intern opportunities than I did last year), we have a long way to go before the finance industry gets back on its feet. Yes, the stock market is doing well, but don’t let that fool you—things are still a mess. One company that should do well during this time is Argus Information & Advisory, a company based in White Plains, NY. They “assist financial institutions in making marketing and risk management decisions.” That’s going to be a big business for years to come. I’m just hoping that bad advice from Argus wasn’t part of the reason we ended up where we are. Whether that’s the case or not, I imagine that the demand for services that help “manage the tradeoffs among price, product, risk, and customer behavior along the customer lifecycle to increase profitability” will be in high demand.
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by Willy Franzen on January 6, 2010
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.
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by Willy Franzen on December 14, 2009
If there’s ever a time for retail stores to be firing on all cylinders, it’s right now. Consumers are often very sensitive when it comes to making purchases, so it’s no surprise that a substandard retail experience can cost companies money. It may be an employee with a rotten attitude or a poorly laid out store. It could be that the employees are uninformed about the products that they’re selling or they may not be offering the promotions that they should be. Whatever it is, Louisville, CO based Market Force Information will find out. They’re “the leading customer experience information and insights partner for multi-location businesses.” Through their “integrated suite of mystery shopping, direct customer feedback, on-site merchandising and analytics services,” they can tell a company why one of their stores is underperforming or identify ways that all stores can improve.
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by Willy Franzen on December 7, 2009
Remember that time that you predicted the walk off home run during the baseball game or the fact that your friend would get back together with his girlfriend for the 7th time? Of course you do. It was proof of your psychic abilities. Remember the time that you made a similar prediction but were wrong? Of course not. When you only count your wins and not your losses, it’s easy to have a perfect record. Politicians take advantage of this all the time. The truth is that there aren’t a lot of people out there who are good at predicting things, whether it’s weather, the economy, sports, or any number of other things. Nouriel Roubini may be an exception. He could be insanely “lucky” with the fact that his descriptions and predictions of the current financial crisis were dead on, but you have to give him credit for the amount of detail included in his predictions, like when he said “the United States was likely to face a once-in-a-lifetime housing bust, an oil shock, sharply declining consumer confidence and, ultimately, a deep recession.” He’s very obviously a brilliant guy, and he’s also the founder of New York City based Roubini Global Economics, a company that provides “a uniquely tailored look at the logic of the global economy” for its clients.
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by Willy Franzen on December 3, 2009
A year or two ago I read an interesting book called Why Not?: How to Use Everyday Ingenuity to Solve Problems Big And Small
(affiliate link) about invention and innovation. It was a good read, and it put all kinds of new ideas in my head. One of the stories in the book is bout how the author and Yale professor, Barry Nalebuff, and one of his students, Seth Goldman, teamed up to start Honest Tea, which now seems to go by the name Honest Beverages. They were doing a case study on Coke and Pepsi in class, and both Barry and Seth agreed that most retail beverage options were either way too sweet or way too watered down. They wanted something in between, and it happened that Barry had just returned from studying the tea industry in India when Seth e-mailed him to continue the conversation that started in class. They kept running with the idea, and soon after Honest Tea was born. In 1998 the Bethesda, MD based company had 3 employees and $250,000 in sales, and last year those numbers rose to 87 employees and $38 million in sales.
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by Willy Franzen on November 13, 2009
Happy Friday the 13th! If you let your belief in bad luck and superstition affect you on a daily basis, then you’re setting yourself back in the job search. It really won’t do you any good. With that said, there are millions of people who suffer from paraskevidekatriaphobia—the fear of Friday the 13th. One of the biggest symptoms of this phobia is an unwillingness to travel on Friday the 13th. There’s some debate as to whether this actually has a significant effect on the travel industry, but I’ve heard that you can get pretty good deals when the 13th day of a month falls on a Friday. Since I’m not a big fan of superstition—especially when it comes to the job search—we’re going to fly in the face of paraskevidekatriaphobia and take a look at jobs with Orbitz Worldwide. If you don’t already know, they’re a Chicago based online travel company. In late 1999 they were formed through a partnership between 5 major airlines—Continental, Delta, Northwest, United, and American—to compete with Expedia and Travelocity.
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by Willy Franzen on November 6, 2009
If you haven’t checked out our post on Personal Finance and the Job Search, do that now. We’ve just added a special one day offer to get our job search training course Found Your Career for free.
Exactly a month ago we featured Charm City Cakes of Food Network fame, even though they’re not hiring. It was my birthday (so today is my 1/12 birthday!), and I wanted to talk about what to do when a company has zero interest in hiring anyone. If that post didn’t work for you, we have another way to get closer to the Ace of Cakes—working for Scripps Networks. They’re the parent company behind tv networks that include HGTV, Food Network, DIY Network, Fine Living, and GAC. Unlike Charm City Cakes, Scripps Networks is openly hiring, and a number of their positions seem perfect for new college grads. If your tv is often tuned into one of those stations, then you need to see what Scripps Networks has to offer.
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by Willy Franzen on October 15, 2009
Once you start interviewing for jobs, you realize how important it is to stay well informed. Whether it’s staying up on the industry that you want to work in or just keeping up with current events, you need to be able to speak (somewhat) intelligently about a wide range of topics. Chit chat and small talk play a big part in the impression that you make, so don’t try to use the fact that you “live in a bubble” at college to explain away your ignorance. Instead, you should subscribe to the The Daily Beast. It’s a cheat sheet for current events that covers a wide array of topics. Some would call it a news aggregator, but they like calling what they do “curating.” The site was created by Tina Brown, who was formerly the editor at Vanity Fair and The New Yorker. The Daily Beast, which is based out of New York City, launched just over a year ago, and has been able to garner a huge amount of traffic pretty quickly. I guess it might have something to do with their IAC backing.
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by Willy Franzen on September 10, 2009
The other night I wanted to read a book before bed, but I had moved the lamp from my bedroom into my living room because our hard to reach light fixture’s lights burnt out. It took all of 30 seconds to move the lamp back to my bedroom, but it was a pain in the butt. If only I had a LightWedge—a product made by the company of the same name that will illuminate your book for you. It’s a stupid simple idea that beats the heck out of wearing a headlamp in bed. Oh yeah, and the Newton, MA based company is making a ton of money. Inc. magazine recently came out with their list of the 5,000 fastest growing private companies in the US, and Lightwedge came in at #1,609. That may not sound great, but when you see that they increased from $3.9 million in revenue in 2005 to $11.6 million last year, you have to be impressed. I always say that the best way to job search during a recession is to look for the companies that are growing, and there’s no better way to find those than Inc. magazine’s list.
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by Willy Franzen on September 9, 2009
It’s funny how well respected brands that have been around forever will get swept up in a fad. Some, like Abercrombie & Fitch, will make it part of a new identity, while others like Burberry will enjoy the popularity but maintain their core image. Burberry is a British company that has been making quality garments since 1856, but they became especially trendy in the early 2000s, if I remember correctly. While most brands are recognized for their logo or a specific product, Burberry is known for their plaid. In fact, unless you’re a tartan freak, “Burberry Check” is probably the only plaid that you recognize by name. Over their 150 years Burberry has moved more towards luxury goods than outdoor garments, which is best evidenced by their new ad campaigns with Emma Watson of Harry Potter fame.
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by Willy Franzen on August 27, 2009
Yesterday I was amused by a friend’s Facebook status that said: “just had a revelation: Obama sounds like Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson.” I instantly imagined Barack Obama shirtless, yelling into a microphone, “Do you smellllllllllll what Barack is cooking?” Apparently SNL had a similar idea. That got me thinking about WWE (formerly the WWF), where The Rock first became famous. I was never a huge fan of professional wrestling, but I must admit to having watched on occasion. My little sister, on the other hand, was a huge fan. At about six years old she decided to be Hulk Hogan for Halloween. It was priceless. Back then they were the WWF, but a spate with World Wide Fund for Nature in 2000 resulted in a lawsuit and eventually a name change. WWE is located in Stamford, CT, just 20 minutes or so from my home town, and is a billion dollar business. Unfortunately, they haven’t been immune to layoffs, but they seem to have some great job opportunities right now.
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by Willy Franzen on July 20, 2009
Buying a product online is easy when you know which specific brand and model you want, but finding the microwave with the largest capacity or an LCD TV that swivels isn’t always so easy. There’s so much information out there on products, that finding specific details that are important to you (but not everyone else) can be frustrating. Wize is a San Mateo, CA based startup that is trying to make online comparison shopping more intelligent. If you’re buying on price, you already have plenty of product search engines that will make your decision easy for you, but who’s going to tell you which washing machine is most water efficient? That’s what Wize is all about. They’re scouring the Internet for all of the information that is buried in reviews and making it easily searchable so that you can choose the right product for you. It’s still in its early stages, but it seems like a pretty cool approach to e-commerce.
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by Willy Franzen on May 1, 2009
My first experience with video chatting was with CU-SeeMe in an internet cafe in the mid 90s. It was insanely cool, but it was also terrible quality. Things have come a long way, and once again people are using video chat to meet random people online. I was a little creeped out when I first saw WooMe, but I think that I get it now (even if I’m still creeped out). It’s a website that allows you to meet new people through “60 second one-on-one online video sessions.” Basically, it’s speed dating on the web. I was almost too sketched out to cover them here, but I figured if TechCrunch didn’t rip on them too hard and they’re able to get $17 million in investment, there has to be the potential for a real business.
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by Willy Franzen on April 23, 2009
I hate to do this to you, but today is going to be the third California based company in a row (this one’s in Torrance). There seem to be a lot of jobs out there, so if you want to live efficiently, maybe you should move out there… or you could just furnish your home with things from simplehuman. They “design housewares to make you more efficient at home — from a spoon rest on a utensil holder to a pedal that’ll outlast 50,000 steps, or a paper towel holder that won’t unravel and a dishrack that drains in different directions.” It’s all about wowing people with the mundane. Do you know anyone who loves his or her garbage can? Probably not, but simplehuman aims to change that. (In my college days the most efficient garbage can was the biggest one for two reasons, it had to be emptied the fewest times and you could toss things in from extremely far away.) Now, “efficient living” may have a different meaning to a college student, but simplehuman brings some class to that sense of efficiency. You’ll appreciate it once you get you’re out on your own and begin your journey towards yuppie-hood.
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by Willy Franzen on April 14, 2009
When I started this business, I focused almost entirely on the web for networking – a LinkedIn connection or an e-mail address was all that I needed. However, my mom (who is also my graphic designer) had other ideas. Right after she designed my logo, she sent away to VistaPrint to get me business cards. Although I didn’t use them right away (I was glued to the computer screen and not talking to many people in real life), eventually they became a necessity. Those business cards also came with the one and only One Day, One Job t-shirt (a free gift from VistaPrint). They are the place to go for customized stuff (there’s no better way to put it). You can get business cards, pens, checks, banners, postcards, lawn signs, rubber stamps, mouse pads, magnets, and much much more. The best part about it is that you can do it all online and get a really great price. VistaPrint is definitely achieving their goal of “making high-quality graphic design and custom printing convenient and affordable for everyone.”
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by Willy Franzen on April 8, 2009
Last week we took a look at Priceline’s Jobs, and since travel is always fun, we’re going to check out Kayak today. They’re a travel search engine that was started by founders of Orbitz, Travelocity and Expedia who decided to partner up into a “travel dream team” and build a “better online travel experience.” Unlike most travel sites, Kayak doesn’t sell anything to travelers. They’re an aggregator just like Google that scours the web for the best travel deals and returns them to you. What Kayak does sell is advertising. Just like how Google has “Sponsored Results,” Kayak integrates advertising with its search results. You can try to describe the business model with fancy words, but it’s really all about lead generation. Kayak, like Priceline, is based out of Norwalk, CT, which I find pretty intriguing. I wonder if there’s any particular reason that it’s beneficial for an online travel company to located in Norwalk.
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by Willy Franzen on March 21, 2009
No matter what you’re doing, finding out what works and what doesn’t is the key to success. It may sound overly simple, but it’s amazing how many people, companies, and organizations keep doing things that don’t work based on thoughts and feelings. Hard, scientific research is often the only real way to figure out what works. Unfortunately, science and non-profits often don’t mix (remember how much trouble I had finding a math-related non-profit last week). One exception is MDRC, an organization that “is best known for mounting large-scale evaluations of real-world policies and programs targeted to low-income people.” They’re at the forefront of the science of doing good, and “over the years, MDRC has brought its unique approach to an ever-growing range of policy areas and target populations.”
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by Willy Franzen on March 20, 2009
Every 10 years our country does a census to collect demographic data about our populous to drive public policy decisions. It’s an extremely big deal, and it temporarily creates 1.4 million jobs (according to government figures). But those aren’t typically the types of jobs that we talk about here, at least not the ones that send you door to door asking how many people live at a given residence. Luckily, the U.S. Census Bureau does a lot more than its once every ten years nationwide census. They are “the leading source of quality data about the nation’s people and economy,” so you’d be amazed by all of the things that they track. For instance, much of the economic data that you have been hearing about in the news lately – as in “Stocks plunge on weakened Monthly Retail Sales” – comes from the U.S. Census Bureau. If you’re fascinated by data or just love counting things, there aren’t many places that offer a more interesting work experience that the Census Bureau.
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Arizona,
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cartography,
Colorado,
data,
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Illinois,
Indiana,
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Kansas,
Maryland,
Massachusetts,
math,
Michigan,
Missouri,
New York,
North Carolina,
Pennsylvania,
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Texas,
Washington,
Washington DC
by Willy Franzen on March 19, 2009
When Jason Seiden and I decided that we were going to do an online job search prep course, we knew that we wanted to build a buzz before the course was open for enrollment. We decided that the best way to let people know more information about the course was to build an e-mail list. That’s what we did, and very quickly hundreds of people who were interested in the course signed up to be given more information via e-mail. When you need to manage an e-mail list of that size, it’s a lot easier to use third-party software. We went with a company called Aweber, but we looked at a number of other companies that offer similar services. One of those companies was Constant Contact, which is based out of Waltham, MA. As they put it, they help “small businesses, associations, and nonprofits connect with their customers, clients, and members” through “leading email marketing and online survey tools—supported by its expert personal coaching and support.” In fact, if you scroll to the bottom of many of the mass e-mails that you get, there’s a good chance that you’ll see a Constant Contact logo at the bottom.
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Colorado,
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marketing,
Massachusetts,
sales,
software development
by Willy Franzen on February 24, 2009
As far as I can tell, now is not a good time to be in Advertising. When the economy slows down, ad sales usually take a hit. I know that first hand, which is why we’ve moved towards offering useful products – like job seeker training – instead of selling ads to employers (remember: all of our daily posts are editorial). With that said, online advertising is still the future, and with the struggles that many publishers are facing, now is a perfect time for innovation. That’s what Rubicon Project is all about. They’re a Los Angeles, CA based startup that is “on a mission to automate the $65 billion global online advertising industry.” This means optimizing unfilled ad space through software. With 300+ ad networks to choose from, publishers just can’t possibly evaluate every ad network’s offers on their own. Rubicon Project can – in a matter of seconds – and then server the most profitable ad immediately.
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design,
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software development,
statistics,
web development
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