Next March I’m going to regret not saving this one for my St. Patrick’s Day holiday themed post, but today we’re going to take a look at Lucky Brand. They’re a clothing manufacturer and retailer that is “rooted in rock ‘n ‘roll with a signature sense of humor.” Their About page will tell you that they stand for “independent thinking, individual style and a feeling as authentic as love” and that they’re known for “great-fitting, vintage-inspired jeans;” however, I think it’s much simpler than that. One of their founders came up with the idea to put the phrase “Lucky You” behind the flies of every pair of pants that they made. It was an instant point of differentiation, and I think that it has a lot to do with why Lucky Brand is going strong 19 years after they started. It really is pure, politically incorrect genius. Lucky you…

Get Lucky

The best way to get a feel for Lucky Brand is to check out their clothes online or visit one of their retail stores. If you don’t get what the brand is about, you’re not going to get a job with them. I think that’s true of any brand, but it’s especially pertinent in industries like apparel where brand is everything. So, what about jobs at Lucky Brand? They have a ton of Store Management opportunities at their retail stores. This may not be exactly what you had in mind post-graduation (or maybe it is), but it kind of offers the opportunity to run your own business—at least that’s what the job description makes it sound like. They have openings for Retail Management in Ala Moana, HI; Miami, FL; Monterey, CA; Pittsburgh, PA; Tampa, FL; San Jose, CA; San Francisco, CA; Austin, TX; Waikiki, HI; Westlake, OH; Los Angeles, CA; Manhattan, NY; Las Vegas, NV; El Paso, TX; Aurora, IL; Chicago, IL; Pleasant Prairie; WI; Washington, DC; Philadelphia, PA; Bridgewater, NJ; Elizabeth, NJ; Seattle, WA; Wrentham, MA; Peabody, MA; Boston, MA; Houston, TX; Studio City, CA; St. Louis, MO; and quite a few more locations (although those jobs were posted in March and earlier). You can find all of those job postings on Lucky Brand’s Jobs site.

You also have the option of submitting a résumé for general consideration for corporate jobs in Vernon, CA. I think that this might be worthwhile because of what Lucky Brand has to say about their Internship Program:

The Lucky Brand Fall 2009 Internship Program is intended to help acclimate Junior and Senior level university/college students to our company culture, build on their creativity, and allow them the best opportunity to get to know Lucky Brand. This program is designed to identify, develop and potentially hire top entry level talent.

If they’re looking to hire top entry level talent, then why don’t they have any entry level jobs posted outside of retail? Maybe it’s just a season thing, or maybe they mostly like hiring past interns, but it’s worth investigating. Lucky Brand offers internships in Design, Human Resources, Wholesale Sales & Planning, Accessory Jewelry Design, Accessory Design, eCommerce, and Marketing, so those are areas where they might also have entry level jobs.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

• LuckyBrand.com
• Jobs at Lucky Brand
• About Lucky Brand
• Lucky Brand’s Hiring FAQ
• Social Responsibility at Lucky Brand
• Lucky Brand on Facebook

Do you consider yourself lucky?

Did you forget about Valentine’s Day? Did you accidentally put your ex-girlfriend’s name on the card that came with the flowers you sent your new girlfriend from ProFlowers? Did you forget to use OpenTable and end up having to take your valentine to McDonald’s? Have you still not changed your Facebook status to “In a Relationship,” even though it’s been 4 months? If so, you’re in the doghouse. Instead of focusing on the trouble you’re in and writing about jobs at a company that makes dog houses (we couldn’t find any, anyways), we’re going to talk about a company that has great entry-level jobs and might even help you get out of the dog house. How does a guy get out of the dog house? Jewelry. And for the girls, we apologize that we’ve been writing our intros from the male perspective this week, but we hope it won’t affect your outlook on the companies we’ve told you about.

Tiffany & Co. not only makes and sells fine jewelry, but they also have a wide range of open entry-level jobs. If you’re not familiar with Tiffany & Co., you should know that they have been one of the country’s premier jewelers and designers since 1837. If you want to learn more, you can check out the links at the bottom of this post, but we’re going to assume that most people who would be interested in jobs at Tiffany & Co. are well aware of the brand and its identity. Below are some of the jobs that we found on Tiffany’s Careers site that look to be appropriate for a new college graduate.

Jobs in New York, NY: Replenishment Analyst, Silver Sales Professional, Gift Sales Professional, Assistant Sales Manager, and Coordinator (Associate Producer), Interactive Media.

Jobs Elsewhere in the US: Merchandise Assistant (Dallas, TX), Inventory Control Coordinator (Pelham, NY), and Business Sales Coordinator (San Francisco, CA).

If none of these positions interest you, but you’re dying to work for Tiffany, then you can submit your resume for general consideration (this page allows you to create a profile and then submit your resume).

Now you may have noticed, that we’ve pretty much avoided talking directly about Tiffany’s Careers Site. That’s because it’s basically impossible to find, and once you find it, it’s a nightmare to navigate. We first looked for jobs at Tiffany & Co. by visiting their Home page and their About page. After a quick look, we found nothing career related. So we did a Google search for “Tiffany jobs.” That turned up the usual smattering of job board listings and search results from job search engines, but there was nothing from Tiffany & Co. in the first few pages of result (who looks farther than that?). We then tried looking for “Tiffany careers,” which finally turned up TiffanyCareers.com.

We thought we had finally found what we were looking for, but then TiffanyCareers.com redirected to another site on the domain of the company that Tiffany uses for their applicant tracking system. This page then links back to the main Tiffany.com site. You might not even notice that you’re jumping from site to site, but we do, and so do the search engines (and they don’t like it one bit). It’s the reason that it’s so hard to find information about Tiffany’s employment opportunities in Google. Put really simply, Google trusts Tiffany.com for information about Tiffany & Co., but it doesn’t trust TiffanyCareers.com or the site from their applicant tracking system provider, so they don’t rank well. After confirming that Tiffany & Co. actually has a Careers page, we went back and finally found a link to it on their About page; however, the link only shows up when you put your cursor over the Our Company section. From our standpoint, it looks like Tiffany & Co. hides their jobs on their web site and from Google; maybe they just don’t want to hire anyone.

Sorry that we’re ranting about search engine optimization again, but we feel that making an example out of Tiffany & Co. will help them and other employers understand how frustrating it can be to search for jobs online. Hey employers, make your jobs easy to find! Ok? Thanks.

One last thing, if you look at Tiffany’s listing of all job openings, you might think that it’s only one page long. There are actually 11 pages of job listings. We missed this the first time through, so we thought you might make the same mistake. Despite our gripes about the usability of Tiffany’s website, we still think that they’re an entry-level employer worth looking at. They have quite a few jobs and they are a company at the top of their industry. We’re sorry we had to be so negative about Tifanny’s web site, but we hope that this post will help you find what you’re looking for when it comes to entry-level jobs with Tiffany & Co.

Note: On April 24th we revisited entry-level jobs at Tiffany & Co.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

• The Tiffany & Co. Home Page
• TiffanyCareers.com
• Tiffany & Co. Overview
• Culture at Tiffany & Co.
• The History of Tiffany & Co.
• Frequently Asked Questions About Careers at Tiffany & Co.
• Tiffany & Co. on Sustainability

Take a look at the Tiffany & Co. Careers site for yourself and let us know if you agree with us about the usability issues. What do you like about the site? And what do you think could be done better? Leave a comment.