One Day, One Job » France

Wolfram Research

Willy Franzen — Tue, 19 May 2009 14:49:42 +0000

If you’re an Internet geek like me, then you’ve probably noticed all of the buzz around Wolfram|Alpha. Some have dubbed it a “Google killer,” but as far as I can tell, they’re way off the mark. They’re wrong because Wolfram|Alpha isn’t a search engine – it’s a knowledge engine. The goal is “to make all systematic knowledge immediately computable by anyone.” The concept is kind of hard to grasp until you try it, but once you see how it works, I think that you’ll be impressed. So, who is behind Wolfram|Alpha? Wolfram, of course! They’re based in Champaign, IL, and they’re “one of the world’s most respected software companies–as well as a powerhouse of scientific and technical innovation.” They’re the company behind Mathematica – a software package that excels in ” computation, modeling, simulation, visualization, development, documentation, and deployment.” I’ve never had the pleasure of using it, but I know math teachers who think it’s pretty awesome.

Join a Powerhouse

From what I can tell, Wolfram is about as academic as a company can get. They use their expertise in computer science to create amazing tools that help smart people do their jobs and research better. Yet, Wolfram’s ambitions go beyond that. This Wolfram|Alpha thing seems to be a well received attempt at going mainstream, and it’s only in its early stages. You have to love a company that is constantly working to make people smarter and more effective, which is why you should consider jobs with Wolfram Research. They don’t have specific job openings listed, but they are constantly looking for people in the following areas:

Algorithm Development
Software Engineering
Financial Engineering
Image and Signal Processing
Control Systems
Geospatial Information Systems
Instrument Control
Experimental Data Analysis
Statistics
User Interface Development
Applications Development
Software Quality Assurance
Technical Support
Technical Marketing
Business Development
Project Management
International Business Development
Special Projects
Mathematica Programming
Information Technology
Customer Relations
Educational Outreach
Technical Writing
Sales
Scientific Business Development
Technology Licensing

There’s a single online application form for all of these positions, and it’s really in-depth. So, if Wolfram Research already has you fascinated and “you’re clear-thinking, pragmatic, and energetic about getting things done well,” then go ahead and apply ASAP. Additionally, Wolfram Research has some Science and Technology R&D Fellowships that you may want to check out. Beyond Wolfram’s headquarters in Champaign, IL, they also have locations in Boston, MA; Oxford, United Kingdom; Paris, France; and Tokyo, Japan.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

What do you think of Wolfram|Alpha’s capabilities?

Kayak

Willy Franzen — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 14:32:15 +0000

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.

Hop in the Kayak

After spending some time checking Kayak out, it seems to me that their big thing is simplicity. Using their search engine is pretty darn simple, and it also shows in how they express their corporate identity. For instance, Kayak’s About page isn’t particularly short, but it does a fantastic job of explaining who they are and what they do in plain English. I also really like what they’ve done with their Team page. This simplicity continues into Kayak’s Jobs page, which consists of a few bullet points on why you should work at Kayak in addition to a simple list of jobs. The job descriptions are also straightforward and get to the point. They have a number of Sales positions available; however, they seem to require a decent amount of experience. What intrigued me were the SEO Product Manager/Analytics Researcher (Concord, MA) and Search Marketing Analyst (France). These aren’t straight up entry level jobs, but if you’ve spent your college years learning (most likely self taught) about search and online marketing, then you might be the perfect fit. You can apply for all of Kayak’s jobs by e-mail, but the address depends on which position you’re apply for, so check out the individual job descriptions for more details.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Do you use Kayak to find travel deals?

Coca-Cola

Willy Franzen — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 15:43:58 +0000

Somehow the Coca-Cola brand has been indelibly tied to the image of Santa Claus. In fact, there’s even an urban legend that the modern image of Santa Claus was created by The Coca-Cola Company. It’s not true, but the fact that many people believe it to be true speaks volumes about Coca-Cola’s branding prowess (dating all the way back to the 1930s). We considered a lot of Christmas themed companies to feature today, but we keep coming back to the image of St. Nick sipping on a glass bottle of Coke. Let’s see how you can find a job with Coke.

Live on the Coke Side of Life

Surprisingly, Coke doesn’t appear to have any sort of entry level hiring program. If they do, they certainly don’t mention it on their website. It’s quite possible that they do some college recruiting (they definitely do it for internships), but all we could find were some entry level jobs posted on their site. Some examples include Administrative Assistant (Irvine, CA and Brussels, Belgium), Supply Planner (Houston, TX), Brand Experience Junior Project Manager (Issy-les-Moulineaux, France), and CDT Business Analyst (Columbia, MD, Bentonville, AR and Irvine, CA). There aren’t a ton of jobs from what we can tell, but we have heard word of Coke’s hiring 300+ new college grads every year. We’re not sure where you can find all of those jobs. Maybe they’re posted seasonally. You can apply for a job with Coca-Cola directly from the job descriptions, and if you don’t see anything that you like, you can search their career opportunities.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Merry Christmas!

Bazaarvoice

Willy Franzen — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 14:12:25 +0000

Shopping is supposed to be social. When you were a teenager, you probably liked to hit the mall with friends. Now, you probably lie in bed late at night surfing web sites looking for cool stuff to buy. It’s just not the same. You need social proof to back up your buying decisions. You want to hear what other people think. You want reviews, stories, and answers to questions that you may have about a product or service. Bazaarvoice is a software as a service provider that promotes social commerce by connecting customers to each other. They get their name from the word “bazaar, ” which “symbolizes the beginning of commerce – the initial marketplaces… lively centers of town, buzzing with neighbors, friends and merchants all sharing opinions and building a vibrant community.” That’s what Bazaarvoice is trying to recreate online for their clients.

Bazaar Entry Level Jobs

Bazaarvoice has a number of platforms that they use to promote social commerce. These include Ratings & Reviews, Ask & Answer, Stories, SyndicateVoice, BrandVoice, and the SearchVoice Microsite. Take a look at each of these – you’ll get a much better idea of how a company that uses Bazaarvoice has a huge advantage when it comes to getting consumers engaged online. They have an amazing client list, so if you want to see Bazaarvoice’s software in action, just visiting one of their clients’ sites.

In the interest of full disclosure, Bazaarvoice is offering a referral bonus for all of their jobs and we’d be happy to receive a check from them. With that said, we think that they have some great product offerings, an amazing careers site, cool corporate culture, and jobs that look really exciting – that’s why we’re featuring them. We’ve identified a ton of jobs that look well suited for new college grads on Bazaarvoice’s Jobs site (which is seriously one of the top 10 of companies that we’ve featured). Before you look at the specific jobs, you should check out all of the media that they offer – YouTube videos, Flickr photos, a blog, and lots of text on what it’s like to work for them. They’ve been voted one of Austin’s Best Places to Work, and the image that they put forward on their site certainly backs that up.

Bazaarvoice has all kinds of jobs for people with all types of academic and experiential backgrounds. Not all of the jobs listed below are explicitly entry-level, but they all seem within reason for smart, high performing new college grads. Bazaarvoice is based in Austin, TX, and that’s where most of their jobs are located. These include:

Business Analyst
Client Marketing Analyst
Front End Web Developer
Online Community Manager
Operations Database Analyst
Training Team Lead
Web Support Engineer
Software Developer
Web Designer
Associate Product Manager
Market Development Associate
Content Analyst (Work from Home)
Content Analyst Foreign Language (Work from Home)

Bazaarvoice also has a number of international job opportunities that seem to be entry-level.

Implementation Project Manager (London, UK)
Online Community Manager (London, UK)
Market Development Associate (London, UK)
Market Development Associate (EU – Germany, Netherlands, France)

To apply for a job at Bazaarvoice, all you need to do is click the links above and apply through their website. They’re doing a ton of hiring, so they must be experiencing some serious growth. Check them out if you want to be part of making commerce social again.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

What do you think of Bazaarvoice’s services? Would you like to see more e-commerce sites hire them?b

Kurt Salmon Associates

Willy Franzen — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 13:25:03 +0000

Consulting jobs are hot for new college grads, even though a lot of people ask, “What could a new grad possibly consult on?” The truth is that consulting firms love fresh talent. They pick the best and the brightest and put them to work on teams with experienced pros to solve problems that other companies are struggling with. If you’re thinking about a job in consulting, you might as well aim for the one of the best. Kurt Salmon Associates is a consulting firm that focuses on Consumer Products and Retail (Supply Chain and Growth and Profitability) and Health Care consulting. They’ve been named a Top 10 Best Firm to Work For by Consulting Magazine for six years in a row, so you know that they’ll take good care of you – if you can land a job with them.

The Myth of the Two-Headed Salmon

Kurt Salmon Associates seems to keep their two businesses separate, which can be a bit confusing for college students who are considering working for them. They have parallel websites for their Consumer Products & Retail Consulting and Health Care Consulting; however, they do have a main Careers site which is shared by both. The shared Careers site mentions the typical career path at Kurt Salmon (Consultant –> Senior Consultant –> Manager –> Senior Manager –> Principal) and how “KSA is Keen on Green,” and then it directs visitors to the parallel Careers sections for their two businesses. Although the two separate businesses have many similarities, you want to make sure that you’re reading the site when you’re researching KSA’s job opportunities.

The Retail and Consumer Products side of Kurt Salmon Associates seems to be bigger than the Health Care side. The former has locations in Atlanta, GA; Los Angeles, CA; New York, NY; Princeton, NJ; San Francisco, CA; Shanghai, China; Tokyo, Japan; Altrincham, UK; Amsterdam, NL ; Düsseldorf, Germany; London, UK; and Paris, France; whereas, the Health Care business only has locations in Atlanta, GA; Minneapolis, MN; Philadelphia, PA; and San Bruno, CA. If you want to learn more specifics about each of the businesses, you should check out their individual sites – Consumer Products & Retail Consulting and Health Care Consulting.

Landing an Entry Level Job with Kurt Salmon Associates

Kurt Salmon Associates provides much more information about Retail and Consumer Products Consulting Careers than they do about their Health Care Consulting Careers. There isn’t much mention of college recruiting on the Health Care site, so if that’s what you’re interested, you should look at their specific job opportunities and consider applying. If you’re interested in a Retail and Consumer Products job, then you’ll have a lot more to look at. They actively recruit at target schools which include Columbia, Cornell, Duke, Geogia Tech, University of Michigan, University of Virginia, Emory, Stanford, Penn State, and New York University (you can find this on their Campus Recruiting page), but they also accept applicants from other schools. To learn more, you may want to look at their brochure, their sample Case Interview, and their consultant profiles. If you’ve already graduated, you can look at KSA’s current opportunities, otherwise you can use KSA’s general application form.

As you can tell, navigating KSA’s web site can be a little bit confusing. If you follow our lead, you should be able to find all the information that you need about getting a job as an entry level consultant with Kurt Salmon Associates.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Ford Models

Willy Franzen — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 15:35:13 +0000

Are you a fashionista? Do you just like being around beautiful people? Do you secretly wish that you could be a model despite the fact that you are way too awkward to walk down a runway without tripping? If you said yes to any of those questions, then you might want to look into Ford Models. They’re a tough company to research, since there’s a ton of online information about them, but very little that is job related. Getting a job at Ford Models doesn’t look like it’s an easy task, but that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t try.

But I Can’t Turn Left

Go look in the mirror. Take a good long look at yourself. You should be paid to be beautiful, shouldn’t you? You’re a perfect candidate for Ford’s modeling opportunities. We know you’re good looking. Everyone who reads One Day, One Job is, right? Now here’s one more test, to make sure that giving up on your job search and becoming a model is the right choice. Walk down a hallway in your house, pose, turn left, and come back to where you started. Ahh… that left turn snagged you up didn’t it? It’s not as easy as it looks. If you can’t turn left, you can’t be a model. Looks like you’ll have to consider Ford Models’ entry-level job opportunities instead.

Ford Models doesn’t list specific job opportunities on their website, but they do invite individuals who “have an understanding of the dynamic changes in the fashion talent industry and an innovator’s desire to create value” to send a cover letter and resume to careers@fordmodels.com. There’s a significant internship program at Ford Models, which makes us think that they are relatively likely to hire new college grads; however, you’d have to think that competition for jobs at Ford Models is pretty fierce. Everyone wants to be around beautiful people, and there are few jobs that offer better opportunities for that. Ford Models takes on most of its interns in New York City, so that’s probably the place they’re also most likely to do entry-level hiring. They also have offices in Miami, FL; San Francisco, CA; Los Angeles, CA; Milwaukee, WI; Chicago, IL; Scottsdale, AZ; Canada (Toronto and Vancouver); Brazil (Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro), and France (Paris). Our guess is that job opportunities might be in Marketing or PR, with an outside shot at some other areas. If the careers@fordmodels.com doesn’t work out for you, you can also try using the contact information for individual offices found on Ford Models’ home page in the Location – Division link (we can’t link to it, because it’s Flash based).

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Ford Models.com (Flash site, can’t link to individual pages)
FordModels.tv
Ford Models on YouTube
Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Ford Models from the Freakonomics Blog

Are you too good looking for an entry-level job? Then stop reading this site and go fill out a modeling applications.