by Willy Franzen on November 7, 2009
Did you know that how wealthy your family is has a lot to do with which sports you play growing up? Sometimes it’s a demographic thing, but a lot of times it just has to do with whether or not your family can afford to pay for the equipment. Take hockey for example. There’s a ton of stuff you need, and it’s all expensive; whereas, basketball can be played with just a ball and a hoop in a park. There are no hard and fast rules about this, but it’s very clear that many kids don’t get the opportunity to try some sports because of the costs involved. Good Sports is a Boston based non-profit that “provides sports equipment to disadvantaged youth in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Philadelphia, and Chicago.” They may have pictures of Boston athletes plastered all over their website (yuck!), but they’re doing a really good thing.
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administrative,
development,
entry-level jobs,
Massachusetts,
non-profit,
outreach,
sports
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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administrative,
advertising,
analyst,
entry-level jobs,
marketing,
public relations,
quality assurance,
sales,
seo,
television
by Willy Franzen on November 5, 2009
“Ball game over! World Series over! Yankees win! THEEEEEEEE YANKEES WINNNNNNNNN!” Although I was watching tv and not listening on the radio, I heard John Sterling’s call in my head as soon as Cano threw to Teixeira to get the 27th out and a 27th World Championship. As you can probably guess, I’m a huge Yankees fan, and I’m in a great mood. Since we’ve already covered entry level jobs with Major League Baseball teams, entry level jobs with the YES Network, and plenty of other entry level jobs in baseball, today we’re going to take a look at Steiner Sports. They’re based out of New Rochelle, NY, and consider themselves the “the leader in autographed sports memorabilia and sports collectibles.” They also happen to have a very strong partnership with the New York Yankees, so they are the place to go for your 2009 Championship collectibles. Whether you want a seat from the old stadium or an official Championship locker room t-shirt, they’ve got it. You can even buy a Derek Jeter autographed 2009 World Series ball despite the fact that he probably hasn’t had time yet to sit down and sign autographs.
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account management,
baseball,
entry-level jobs,
holiday,
New York,
sales,
sports
by Willy Franzen on November 4, 2009
I’m going to be brutally honest with this one. When I landed on the The Wrap’s Home page, I immediately clicked the back button. I thought that I had landed on one of those Google Money Maker scam pages (it’s all because of the font choice). After processing what I had seen, I decided to take a second look. Despite their poor design choices, The Wrap is a legitimate site—if a site that covers entertainment industry analysis and breaking hollywood news can be considered legitimate (I kid). Now, The Wrap shouldn’t be confused with gossip sites like TMZ or Perez Hilton, this is actually an industry focused site that does primary source reporting. They’re venture funded and quite obviously located in Los Angeles. I don’t know a lot about the entertainment industry and how it’s covered by the press, but it looks like The Wrap is growing a solid audience with their web-based content.
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blogging,
California,
entertainment,
entry-level jobs,
journalism,
writing
by Willy Franzen on November 3, 2009
One thing that I find really exciting is the fact that there are cool startups popping up all across the country. Yes, Silicon Valley and the Pacific Northwest are still the primary places for technology focused companies to open up shop, but that’s becoming less and less true. That’s why I was intrigued by Fanzter—they’re web products company based in Collinsville, CT. Considering the fact that I’m from Connecticut and have never heard of Collinsville (it’s near Hartford), you have to consider it an unusual location for a startup (they would tell you it’s optimally located between Boston and New York City). Fanzter’s first (and only current) product is called Coolspotters. It’s a website that “makes it easy to discover and buy the products, brands, and fashions being used by your favorite celebrities – in their real lives, and in movies and television.” It reminds me a lot of what Delivery Agent is doing.
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Connecticut,
entry-level jobs,
fashion,
software development,
trends,
web development
by Willy Franzen on November 2, 2009
This is a guest post by Heather R. Huhman. Heather is the media relations manager at a national health care professional association and entry-level careers columnist for Examiner.com.
Text 100 is a global, high tech public relations agency. They call themselves the world’s only “global boutique PR consultancy” or “big agency 2.0.” Like the public relations industry as a whole, Text 100 prides itself in constantly evolving to meet its clients’ needs. Speaking of clients, I recognize nearly every name on their client list, which includes PayPal, MTV, IBM, Adobe, eBay and more. This year, Text 100 took home two awards, including the 2009 Holmes Report “Best Agencies to Work For” where it ranked #6. The other award, also from Holmes Report, was “Best Campaign” for its work with Cisco.
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account management,
California,
communications,
entry-level jobs,
public relations
by Willy Franzen on November 1, 2009
I’m a nut about wildlife. I don’t watch Animal Planet all day or anything, but I get ridiculously excited when I see a new species in the wild. My hope is to one day run into a mountain lion in the wild, at least as long as I’m not being hunted. As fanatical as I am about wildlife, I bet I don’t even come close to the people at the Wildlife Conservation Society, a New York City based non-profit. They were founded in 1895 with a “clear mission to save wildlife and wild places across the globe.” Their first major success was aiding the recovery of American Bison, and now they’re working to “protect many of the world’s iconic creatures here and abroad, including gorillas in the Congo, tigers in India, polar bears in the Arctic, and ocean giants in our world’s amazing seascapes.” Beyond doing that, they also run 5 parks in New York City—the Bronx Zoo, New York Aquarium, Central Park Zoo, Prospect Park Zoo and Queens Zoo.
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animals,
biology,
conservation,
development,
entry-level jobs,
marketing,
New York,
non-profit,
program development,
research,
sales,
science,
zoology
by Willy Franzen on October 31, 2009
Happy Halloween! Yesterday we took a look at Mars and talked about Halloween candy, but today we’re going to take a different tack. Since we’re told from an early age that candy will rot our teeth, I figure that Halloween is the perfect time to discuss a dental non-profit. It’s also appropriate because many people would consider the dentist to be way scarier than even the most deranged Halloween costume. After a little searching, I came across Children’s Dental Health Project. They’re a relatively small Washington, DC based non-profit organization that “advances policies that improve children’s access to oral health.” Now, this definitely does not mean that I think that anyone should give out toothbrushes for Halloween, but make sure you brush after eating all that candy.
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advocacy,
entry-level jobs,
health care,
holiday,
non-profit,
public policy,
Washington DC
by Willy Franzen on October 30, 2009
Tomorrow is Halloween, which means that we need to talk about candy today. We’ve already looked at companies like Jelly Belly, The Hershey Company, Charles Chocolates, Vosges, and Just Born Quality Confections. We’ve also discussed jobs at Mars & Co., which is a consulting firm, and not to be confused with Mars, the CPG and candy company. You probably know them best for M&M’s, Snickers, Dove, Milky Way, Twix, and Mars bar; however, they’re also behind Pedigree, Whiskas, Uncle Ben’s, and quite a few other brands. For your sake I hope you only run into the good stuff and not Whiskas or Pedigree during your trick-or-treating. While headquartered in McLean, VA, Mars has locations all across the world. They’re a huge company with a ton of international business, which makes for a great place to gain some experience.
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engineering,
entry-level jobs,
finance,
food,
holiday,
human resources,
information technology,
international,
logistics,
manufacturing,
marketing,
nationwide,
research,
sales,
Virginia
by Willy Franzen on October 29, 2009
It took long enough, but Internet video is everywhere. Yes, we had online video 10 years ago, but now it actually looks good—and works. The main reason for this is that end users (you and me) finally have technology in their homes that can handle playing online video. This means high speed Internet connections and computers with enough processing power to not crash when a website uses a Flash video player. The issue for content creators is that delivering video still poses some challenges. Sure, I was able to produce an online job search training course that relied heavily on video with little trouble, but I wasn’t delivering video to thousands or even millions of people (I wish I had the problem). As your use base increases, the challenge of delivering video increase exponentially. Moreover, managing video content in an organized fashion is a completely different challenge than organizing text and images. Brightcove is a Cambridge, MA based company that provides an online video platform for many of the worlds biggest brands.
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business development,
customer service,
engineering,
entry-level jobs,
marketing,
Massachusetts,
operations,
quality assurance,
quality engineer,
sales,
software development,
training,
user experience,
video,
web development
by Willy Franzen on October 28, 2009
Whether you think the human race is going to end at the hands of the greenhouse effect or you just don’t like paying 3 bucks a gallon for gas, you likely have a vested interest in alternative energy. There’s a good chance that some time in your lifetime our main energy source will be something other than fossil fuels. Then again, I’m just coming to the realization that I won’t see flying cars in my lifetime. Hopefully I’m wrong about that one. Anyway, there are a ton of companies that are vying to win a big share of the alternative energy market. Many of these are small startups that you’ve never heard of. Their websites are ugly, and they’re usually not located in big cities. You’d never guess it from their appearance, but they’re actually at the forefront of engineering technology. One of these companies is Malvern, PA based Franklin Fuel Cells. Their focus is on “commercializing a unique solid oxide fuel cell (SOFCs) technology that can operate directly on today’s hydrocarbon fossil fuels as well as future fuels such as, biofuels and hydrogen.” I don’t really know what that means, but it sounds pretty cool.
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energy,
engineering,
entry-level jobs,
green,
Pennsylvania,
research
by Willy Franzen on October 26, 2009
It feels pretty good to be talking about a Boston based newspaper today knowing that they have to report on another trip to the World Series for the Yankees; although, I’m sure they’d much rather be publishing stories on what Dustin Pedroia and Jonathan Papelbon are doing during their offseason (possibly watching the World Series from their couches). Now that I’ve gotten in my dig at Red Sox fans, we can take a look at The Boston Globe, Boston’s most widely read newspaper. The paper is owned by the New York Times and has an excellent web presence at Boston.com. Much like other newspapers the Globe has had significant financial struggles, and The New York Times even threatened to shut the paper down if the paper’s union didn’t accept major concessions. Apparently those problems have been worked out, and The Boston Globe is now on more stable ground. At least that’s what the fact that they’re hiring would indicate.
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advertising,
entry-level jobs,
journalism,
Massachusetts,
newspaper,
production,
sales,
software development,
web development
by Willy Franzen on October 25, 2009
I love rivers (mostly because they’re where I usually go fly fishing). They’re the lifeblood of our society, and even though we’ve figured out ways to move water on our own, they’re still a huge part of our infrastructure. There’s no question as to why most major cities sit on the banks of a large river. The problem with that is that it means that many of our greatest rivers have been subjected to significant abuse. Dams, pollution, irrigation, and overconsumption have left many of our rivers in pretty sad states. American Rivers is a Washington, DC based non-profit that hopes to fix this. They describe themselves as “the leading conservation organization standing up for healthy rivers so communities can thrive.”
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conservation,
entry-level jobs,
green,
non-profit,
public policy,
Washington DC
by Willy Franzen on October 24, 2009
When I saw the name and location of Winston Salem, North Carolina’s Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation, I was instantly reminded of one of my favorite recent reads—Thank You for Smoking
by Christopher Buckley. A North Carolina based non-profit with Reynolds in it name has to be tied to the tobacco industry, and it is. “The Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation was established in 1936 as a memorial to the youngest son of the founder of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company,” and it seems to be one of the few good things that has come out of the tobacco industry—”a trust for charitable works in the State of North Carolina.” The Foundation is focused on making grants to non-profit organizations in the areas of Community Economic Development, Democracy and Civic Engagement, the Environment, Pre-Collegiate Education, and Social Justice and Equity, which, in my opinion, is a huge improvement on the other things associated with the Reynolds name.
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entry-level jobs,
fellowship programs,
grant writing,
North Carolina,
program development
by Willy Franzen on October 23, 2009
Since we’re going to talk about art today, I have to give my little sister a shout out for her Vernissage benefitting Artists for Charity tomorrow. If you’re in the Fairfield, CT area and enjoy art, you need to check it out. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not all that into art. With a painter for a sister, a graphic designer for a mom, and an architect for a dad, I’m the black sheep of my family. Designing this site is about as far as my artistic talent goes. With that said, when you combine art with a cool web based business idea, my ears perk up. That’s exactly what happened when I saw a friend post an article about 20×200 (a part of Jen Bekman Projects) on Facebook. 20×200 is an online art and photography gallery based out of New York City, and they just closed a first round of $800,00 in venture capital funding. Now, you don’t typically see art galleries getting VC funding, but you also don’t typically see art galleries using the power of the Internet to make affordable art available to the masses either.
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arts,
entry-level jobs,
information technology,
New York,
photography,
software development,
web development
by Willy Franzen on October 21, 2009
Product placement started out as a secret. Companies realized that they could pay to get their products featured in books, television shows, and movies, so they did. And we, the viewers, assumed that these products were included for editorial reasons. At some point we got smart and realized what was going on. It didn’t really change much, but we became a little more skeptical. Now product placement is assumed. If someone is promoting something, you take for granted that they’re getting paid for it. Delivery Agent is a San Franciso based company that realized this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. They’re taking product placement to the next level with a level of integration that we’ve never seen before. They call this “shopping-enabled entertainment.” When you see Dwight Schrute wearing a great looking shirt on The Office—ok, bad example—when you see a beautiful necklace on Gossip Girl, you can go to the show’s website and check out the “Seen On” section for more information how to buy the necklace. There’s also SeenON.com, which aggregates the information from all of Delivery Agent’s clients and makes it easy to “shop by show” or “shop by celeb.”
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advertising,
California,
e-mail,
entry-level jobs,
marketing,
software development,
television,
web development
by Willy Franzen on October 20, 2009
Back when I was looking at colleges, I had to rely on traditional guidebooks to get relevant information like average SAT scores, whether freshmen are allowed to have cars, and what the food is like. Finding solid information online was pretty much out of the question, and none of the guidebooks that I looked at seemed to have a good read on what the campus was really like. Then along came College Prowler in 2002 (after I was already at Cornell, which turned out great). They’re a Pittsburgh, PA based company that aims “to be the most accurate, complete, and honest resource on colleges and universities across the United States.” Although those are their words, I think that a more accurate description of what they do (also in their words) is:
No university affiliations. No half-truths. No out-of-touch authors who haven’t been in school for decades. A class project turned company, College Prowler produces guidebooks that are written by actual college students and covers the things students really want to know.
College Prowler’s guides are what college guidebooks should have always been. Unfortunately, it took a long time for anyone to realize how big the need for “real” information was. Along with guidebooks, College Prowler has also built an awesome web resource to help high school students make informed college choices. The best part is that they’ve recently made all of their online content free.
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editing,
editorial,
entry-level jobs,
marketing,
Pennsylvania,
publishing,
sales,
web development,
writing
by Willy Franzen on October 19, 2009
This is a guest post by Heather R. Huhman. Heather is the media relations manager at a national health care professional association and entry-level careers columnist for Examiner.com.
Bite Communicationstouts a “fearless and boundless” approach to B2B and B2C communications. They have seven offices worldwide—three of which are in the U.S., including Los Angeles, New York City and San Francisco. “Public relations” and “media relations” used to be synonymous, but no longer at Bite Communications. They recognize different clients have different challenges that require different approaches. Starting your career at a progressive agency is the best way to go—you’ll end up a more rounded professional and thus be more marketable. As a full-service agency, Bite Communications offers everything from strategic counsel to new media programs to influencer relations—and everything in between. Some client names you might recognize include Sun Microsystems and Vonage.
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account management,
California,
communications,
entry-level jobs,
public relations
by Willy Franzen on October 16, 2009
Social networking is a new thing, right? Not at all. Social networks have been around almost as long as the Internet. They’ve just become way more mainstream in recent years. Take Redwood City, CA based Care2 for example. They’re an online social network that aims “to help people make the world a better place,” and they’ve been doing it since 1998. That’s impressive, not only because it means that they were early to social networking, but also because it means that they survived the dot com bust of the early 2000s. “Making the world a better place” used to be strictly the territory of non-profits, but now we’re seeing more and more companies like Care2 that are choosing to be B Corporations. That means that they can do good and build a profitable businesses at the same time. That’s exactly what Care2 is doing with their “more than 50 employees, 11 million members, 400 nonprofit partners and hundreds of responsible advertisers making a difference.”
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blogging,
California,
editorial,
entry-level jobs,
journalism,
software development,
web development,
writing
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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advertising,
analyst,
analytics,
California,
design,
editorial,
entry-level jobs,
journalism,
marketing,
New York,
sales,
social media,
software development,
video,
web development
by Willy Franzen on October 14, 2009
I remember being in middle school and deciding that I wanted a drum set. I already had a snare drum, but I knew that a full set would be much cooler. My mom bought me a copy of the Bargain News, a local paper full of classified ads, and helped me pore over the listings in search of a drum set. That’s certainly a relic of the past, but classified ads are far from dead. They’ve just moved online. You’re probably most familiar with Craigslist, and maybe you’ve considered using Facebook Marketplace or something like that. What you probably didn’t realize is that there is still a huge business behind classified ads. Take Chicago based Classified Ventures for instance. They’re another Inc. 5000 company, and they’ve increased their revenue from $146.7 million to $297.5 million over the past three years. They’ve done this with four distinct businesses: Apartments.com, Cars.com, HomeGain.com, and HomeFinder.com. You’ve probably noticed at least one of those sites before, which is exactly what they’re looking for.
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account management,
accounting,
advertising,
California,
design,
entry-level jobs,
Illinois,
product management,
sales,
software development,
Texas,
web development
by Willy Franzen on October 13, 2009
I’ve never found a use for start pages and portals. Until Safari came out with a feature that allowed me to view a dozen of my most visited sties at a glance, I just set a blank page as my home page. However, I realize that many people have very different web browsing habits, and a lot of people find start pages really useful. One company that is trying to update the start page by making it social is ZooLoo. They’re a Phoenix, AZ based startup that, despite an unfortunate name that sounds like a bathroom at a wildlife park, is trying to own the market for customizable start pages. They’re competing with behemoths like Google and Facebook to be your home page, but they do have an advantage in that they’re laser focused on start pages and only start pages. They think if they can own that market, they can deliver lots of relevant advertising and make lots of money.
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Arizona,
entry-level jobs,
marketing,
public relations,
social media,
social networking,
software development,
web development
by Willy Franzen on October 12, 2009
In my day… Columbus Day was a real holiday. Now there’s a huge portion of the population that doesn’t even get the day off. Yes, I understand that Christopher Columbus was a bit overrated as a historical hero (and a lot of the things that we learned about him in grade school were inaccurate), but I’m still amazed that he had the guts and the persistence to make a voyage across the Atlantic happen. Now we’ll barely take a walk down the street without a GPS enabled device in our pocket. Navigation and exploration have a long history, but I’m not sure how much more advancement is possible. Facet Technology would disagree. They’re an Eden Prairie, MN based software and services company that is changing what state of the art means when it comes to the Transportation, Mapping and Food Processing Industries. They’re another Inc. 5000 company with 110.4% three-year growth, and I think they’re going to shoot up the rankings over the next few years.
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cartography,
engineering,
entry-level jobs,
gps,
holiday,
information technology,
Minnesota,
software development
by Willy Franzen on October 11, 2009
Some of the most fun that I had during college was playing in a charity dodgeball tournament. My team was doing really well until we ran into a team of future NHL players, pitchers from the baseball team, and some former softball players (they threw underhand, and they threw hard) in the semifinals. That match was pretty ugly, but even when you lose at dodgeball, you have fun. We’ve seen dodgeball gaining more and more popularity, and with that trend we’ve seen more and more non-profits using dodgeball to raise funds. Best Shot Foundation is a Washington, DC based non-profit that is doing just this. They’re an organization that is focused on bringing attention to the fact “that pneumonia kills more young children than any other disease,” and then doing something about it.
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advocacy,
entry-level jobs,
events,
nationwide,
non-profit,
outreach,
sports,
Washington DC
by Willy Franzen on October 10, 2009
My parents are in town for the weekend, and I’ve been thinking of fun things to do with them around Chicago. One place that came to mind is Shedd Aquarium. I don’t think that we’ll end up getting a chance to make it there this weekend, but it was certainly a good thought. And once I thought about it, I realized that they’re probably hiring. Shedd Aquarium is much like other aquariums now, but it really stood out when it was opened in the 1930s. The aquarium was founded by John G. Shedd, retired president of Marshall Field & Company, and financed by him with $3 million in gifts. The goal was to bring Chicago up to par with other “cosmopolitan” cities that had aquariums, and by the end of the project Chicago’s aquarium “housed the greatest variety of sea life under one roof.” It also happened to be “the first inland aquarium with a permanent saltwater collection,” which meant that they had to ship millions of gallons of seawater from Florida on trains to provide a proper habitat for the sea life.
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administrative,
advertising,
animals,
aquarium,
development,
entry-level jobs,
Illinois,
marketing,
media,
non-profit,
zoology
by Willy Franzen on October 9, 2009
One essential part of the job search that is rarely mentioned is working out. You won’t often read about it career advice books or have your college’s career counselor advise you to get a gym membership, but I think that it’s extremely important. The self-discipline required to stay in good shape is the same that is required to land a job. Beyond that, the gym provides a good break from job searching and can even be a decent place to do some networking. But what if you’re a professional athlete? Going to the gym has a completely different meaning in relation to your job search—it’s absolutely essential. The problem is that most gyms don’t cater to athletes. They cater to people who are trying to lose a few pounds, socialize, or watch tv while “working out.” Athletes’ Performance is a different kind of gym. They aim “to provide the finest methods, specialists and facilities seamlessly integrated to efficiently and ethically enhance [their] athletes’ performance.”
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entry-level jobs,
fitness,
nutrition,
physical therapy,
sales,
sports,
Texas
by Willy Franzen on October 8, 2009
We all know that news is changing, and jobs in journalism aren’t what they used to be. We’re in the middle of a major transitional stage that is going to determine how news is delivered for years to come. Blogs are becoming more and more reputable, and one of the companies that best exemplifies that trend is The Huffington Post. They’re a New York City based news website and blog network with an admittedly liberal slant (traditional newspapers would never position themselves in that way—even if they have the same biases). The site was launched in 2005, and since then it has grown to a $100 million valuation. While newspapers are dropping like flies, new fortunes are being made by blogging moguls. This is an exciting time to be involved in media, and it presents a ton of really exciting opportunities for new grads to grab a place in journalism’s future.
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blogging,
editorial,
entry-level jobs,
journalism,
New York,
newspaper,
virtual
is the funniest, most in-your-face career guide on the market.