Today’s post came from a reader recommendation (thanks Derek!), which is awesome because I was on the company’s site a few days ago and never would have imagined that they offer jobs (or even considered them a company as opposed to a website). The reason that I was on the site was that I was reading the story of Epic Beard Man (it is tagged NSFW), which is another one of those ridiculous things that has become popular on the Internet. The term that many use to describe these phenomena is meme. Know Your Meme is a website that organizes all of the world’s memes. Let’s say that you’re looking for the story behind Rickroll because you have no idea why people think it’s so funny. Know Your Meme, which is based in New York City, will not only explain the meme to you, but it will also detail the history of how the meme became popular and how it evolved. To some Know Your Meme may seem frivolous, but in many ways it’s the Historical Society of the Interwebs.

Know Your Job

If you’re still not sure what a meme is, then use Know Your Meme’s Random Meme Generator. Try it a few times and you should get the hang of it. You may recognize some famous memes from the Weezer Pork And Beans video, the South Park episode Meet the Internet Stars, or that Super Bowl commercial that had some Internet stars in it. My favorite meme of all time has to be Numa Numa guy. Yes, this may all seem idiotic, but Know Your Meme is building a business off of Internet celebrities. In addition to the advertising angle, they are also selling meme merchandise. It must be working, because Know Your Meme is hiring. If you check out their Jobs page, you’ll see that they’re looking for a Rails Developer and a Junior Web Developer. I know that most of you aren’t developers (so far the survey results are telling me that I cover too many technical jobs—even if that’s where the action is in this economy), so you should take note that Know Your Meme’s internships are in Community Management, Merchandise, Research, and Writing. These are all areas where Know Your Meme might be hiring in the future, and if you push them enough, they might even be hiring right now. You just need to reach out to them at forthelulz@knowyourmeme.com with “any resumes, writing samples, portfolios in the body of the email or linked to file-hosting sites.”

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

• KnowYourMeme.com
• Jobs at Know Your Meme
• About Know Your Meme
• Know Your Meme’s Blog

What’s your favorite meme?

I really wanted to play a gag on you this year. I wanted to post a ridiculous sounding job with a ridiculous application process, but I couldn’t bring myself to have fun at your cost. The job search is stressful enough. You don’t need someone messing with you even if you should know better than to believe anything that you read on April 1st. It’s going to be hard to top last year’s April Fools’ Day jobs with Motley Fool, and unfortunately I wasn’t smart enough to save jobs with The Onion for today, so we’re going to go with CollegeHumor, which “was founded in 1999 by two high school friends from Baltimore, Maryland who went to different colleges as a way to share all of the pictures, videos, and links their friends would IM and e-mail each other.” Somehow, a completely childish and immature website turned into a real media company over the past 10 years; in fact, IAC recently bought a majority share in CollegeHumor’s parent company. College, just like April Fools’ Day, is a time to have fun – often at the expense of others. I guess it makes sense that CollegeHumor, now based in New York City, has become a real business, with real employees.

CollegeHumor Isn’t a Joke

CollegeHumor isn’t for everyone (back in the day they had a disclaimer saying that anyone over 32 shouldn’t be on the website), but if you are amused by what others deem offensive, then a job with CollegeHumor might be your jam – especially if you want to work for a company that has a corporate beer pong team. Ok, so it’s not all fun and games. According to CollegeHumor’s Jobs page, they’re only hiring interns right now. That’s ok though, because if you let a lack of job postings stop you from landing your dream job, then you seriously need some job search help. I recommend that you head over to their About page, where they list all of their employees and job titles, and pick a job that you want. Then contact CollegeHumor and try to steal the person’s job. You can say, “April Fools’! I took your job. Happy unemployment!” It’ll help if you offer to take payment solely in Busted Tees (one of CollegeHumor’s sister companies). Your other option is to check out the Jobs from Connected Ventures, CollegeHumor’s parent company. They’re looking for a PHP/MySQL Developer and an IT Technician. If you want to land a job with CollegeHumor, you’re going to have to show some creativity and a serious sense of humor, so step away from the cover letter and resume, and find a better way to get their attention.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

• CollegeHumor.com
• ConnectedVentures.com (CollegeHumor’s Parent Company)
• Jobs at CollegeHumor
• About CollegeHumor
• CollegeHumor’s FAQ

What’s your favorite prank on CollegeHumor?

Happy Election Day! I’m not going to urge you to vote like most other people will, because yesterday I learned that “It’s more likely that you will be killed driving to the polling booth than it is that your vote will change the outcome.” That’d be a lot to have on my conscience, so I’m going to say vote at your own risk. If you’re upset that I’m making a mockery of the political system, then today’s company isn’t for you. That’s because we’re talking about The Onion and their entry level jobs. I can’t think of a more fitting company for election day (except for maybe Diebold, but they’re not nearly as much fun) than The Onion because politics and satire go hand in hand. Without politics satire is hamstrung, and without satire politics is utterly painful. The Onion is not only “America’s finest news source,” but also “the funniest publication in the US” according to the New Yorker.

Many Layers to the Onion

Think about career paths where your best isn’t good enough – investment banking, consulting, medicine… humor? It wasn’t the first thing to come to your mind, yet writers at the Onion go through 600 ideas to generate just 18 headlines. That’s a failure rate of 97%, yet they’re “failing forward” to generate satirical genius every week. Unfortunately, if you want to join this fail happy team of writers, you’re going to have to wait. They don’t currently have any job openings posted on the editorial/writing side. They are also about as cold calling unfriendly as it gets. Their contact page has the following disclaimer (which is in way too serious of a tone for The Onion):

Unsolicited bulk e-mail, e-mail attachments, and junk e-mail of any kind are not accepted and will be discarded/filtered immediately upon receipt. Please do not send/e-mail resumes concerning listed positions unless specifically told to do so in the listing. Any unsolicited Resumes will be immediately discarded.

NOTE: Editorial submissions of any kind are not accepted. The Onion cannot guarantee their return, nor can The Onion guarantee a response to unsolicited submissions. Requests for articles/graphics from past issues are not accepted and The Onion cannot guarantee a response to such requests.

I mean, having your resume immediately discarded isn’t too much of a threat, but it’s clear that The Onion wants nothing to do with you if you’re not applying for a specific job opening. They must get bombarded with resumes and submissions from people who want to work for them, and they probably don’t have the resources to give them all a fair look, so they just trash them all.

This is kind of disappointing, but there is still some hope. If you can sell with a sense of humor, then one of The Onion’s Account Executive positions might be worth applying for (they won’t throw away your resume if you apply for these). They want people with 1-2 years of experience in selling, but at least one of the job descriptions says that they will consider new college grads. There are Account Executive positions in New York, San Francisco, and the Twin Cities. To apply, you should send a cover letter, resume and compensation requirements to scurtis@theonion.com. Make sure that you look at the job descriptions carefully, since The Onion is clearly very anal about how they accept resumes.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

• TheOnion.com
• Jobs at The Onion
• Contact The Onion
• The Onion’s Media Kit

Post a link in the comments to your favorite article from The Onion.