One Day, One Job » Maryland

Charm City Cakes

Willy Franzen — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 14:49:36 +0000

Today’s my birthday. I’m 25. If you want to get me a present, you can buy me something on my Amazon Wishlist. If you don’t, then you can still check out today’s post on how to try to get a job with a company that is absolutely not hiring. As I was thinking of a birthday themed company to feature, Charm City Cakes came to mind. They’re the Baltimore, MD based bakery that is featured on the Food Network’s Ace of Cakes. Unfortunately, they’re not making my birthday cake (if they were it would probably be a giant trout cake), but they are the best of the best when it comes to birthday—or any other celebration’s—cakes. You have to love any company that is truly at the top of it’s industry—especially when they’re head and shoulders above the competition like Charm City Cakes is.

You Can’t Get By on Charm Alone

So what’s that I said about the fact that Charm City Cakes is REALLY REALLY not hiring? While I was perusing their website looking for information on jobs, I came across this blurb on their FAQ.

We are not currently hiring any staff, interns, externs, unpaid grunts, or volunteers.

It’s not as strongly worded as their blurb on not allowing visitors, but it kind of has a similar tone:

If you ask to visit, we will be forced to say “no”. If you show up anyway, we will not be able to let you come inside. We don’t want to let you down and we don’t want to feel like mega jerk meanie heads. We are very sorry to be so stern and such, but there are no exceptions to this policy.

If you think about it, it makes sense. Most companies are dying for great applicants, but when a company has a reputation like Charm City Cakes does, there’s the problem of too much interest. I’ll bet they hear from every Joe Schmoe who has ever cracked open a a Betty Crocker box and thinks that he is the next Ace of Cakes. It’s an administrative nightmare. When they do need to hire someone, it’s probably not going to be some random that e-mailed them. The same can be said about other similar companies—hedge funds, boutique consulting firms, other businesses featured on tv shows. Getting a job with them can truly seem impossible.

So, how do you do it? I see two ways, and both involved networking. The first is pestering the person you want to hire you until he or she just can’t say no again. You’ve seen this approach work in movies and popular culture, and it resembles Charlie Hoehn’s idea of free work in a lot of ways. This isn’t the best way to endear people to you, but sometimes unwillingness to give up will convince someone to give you a chance. It’s not for everyone, but if you’re in search of a dream job like mopping the floor at Charm City Cakes, then it might be worth a shot.

The second technique is to build up your value. Start somewhere with a lower profile and bust your butt until you’re the best. Then network your way into a conversation with the person that you want to hire you (or maybe just cold call them). That conversation is very different from the one that I previously mentioned, because now you are just the kind of superstar that the company wants. You’re no longer some amateur with an unrealistic ambition.

I can’t promise that either of these techniques will work to get you a job at Charm City Cakes, but if you have a dream job that seems unattainable, these are my suggestions on how to give it your best shot. Sometimes companies truly don’t have room to grow and really won’t hire anyone on any condition, but if you’re good at dealing with rejection, there’s no sense in not trying. The biggest takeaway is that you need to differentiate yourself from all of the other applicants who aren’t truly serious, and to do that you need to be willing to sacrifice everything to make your dream happen.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

How do you recommend that new grads go about attaining unattainable jobs?

College Hunks Hauling Junk

Willy Franzen — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 14:52:17 +0000

Today is the last day to enter our Maghound Your Way to a New Job contest. With so few entries so far, there’s an excellent chance that you’ll win a one-year subscription to an awesome new magazine subscription service (3 monthly magazines for free!).

I’m still on my Inc. 5000 kick, and today we’re looking at a company whose name immediately caught my eye. They’re called College Hunks Hauling Junk, and that’s exactly what they are. Omar Soliman wanted to make some money during the summer, so he borrowed his mom’s cargo van to start hauling away people’s junk. He then entered his business plan in the Rothschild Entrepreneurship Competition and won the $10,000 first prize. He realized that he had a business that he could grow, and now College Hunks Hauling Junk is doing $2.9 million in revenue. Guess that’s why Omar and his co-founder Nick were named (also by Inc.) as Top 30 Entrepreneurs Under 30. College Hunks Hauling Junk is headquartered in Tampa, FL, but through expansion and franchising they now operate in Anne Arundel, MD; Baltimore/Howard County, MD; Chicago, IL; Cincinnati, OH; Columbus, OH; Dallas, TX; Denver, CO; Detroit, MI; Indianapolis, IN; Little Rock, AR; Los Angeles, CA; Louisville, KY; Orange County, CA; Orlando, FL; Phoenix, AZ; Raleigh-Durham, NC; Richmond, VA; San Francisco/San Jose, CA; Tampa Bay, FL; and Washington, DC Metro.

Are You Hunky Enough?

College Hunks Hauling Junk certainly has a provocative name, but that’s part of their success. Finding someone to haul away your junk isn’t that hard, but it’s really easy to go with the brand you recognize. College Hunks Hauling Junk is all about grabbing attention so that they’re the company that you choose when you need to get rid of some junk. It doesn’t hurt that they can call themselves green, as they recycle 60% of the junk that they collect. Now, College Hunks Hauling Junk obviously has plenty of jobs available. If you want to get in the business of hauling junk to pay your way through college, they can help, but they’re also a growing company with growing needs. They have a bunch of corporate job postings that consist solely of titles. Since they’re a college startup, it’s hard to say how much experience they’re looking for with each position, but you’ll have to apply to find out. The posted job titles include Truck Captain/ Wingman, VP – Franchise Development, Client Loyalty Associate (Inside Sales Rep), Operations Manager, VP – Marketing, VP – Public Relations, VP – Finance, VP – Business Development, and VP – Information Technology.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Have you used College Hunks Hauling Junk?

Triumvirate Environmental

Willy Franzen — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 14:35:37 +0000

In the environmentalist’s ideal world there would be no such thing as hazardous waste. Everything would be pure and natural and “green.” Unfortunately, that will never happen (partially because every living thing is its own little hazardous waste factory). How we deal with this hazardous waste is what truly determines the future of our environment. Triumvirate Environmental has figured this out, and they’ve spent the last 21 years building a business that provides “turnkey environmental and hazardous waste management services to clients across four niche sectors; Education, Healthcare, Industrial, and Life Sciences.” They’re based in Somerville, MA with locations across New England, New York, and the Mid-Atlantic, and they also appear to be masters of social media.

Join the Triumvirate

I’m surprised that I hadn’t heard of Triumvirate Environmental until today. They’re totally on top of employment branding and social media use, so you’d think they’d be on my radar screen (I actually have an entry level job radar that gives me ideas for posts). This is impressive because they’re doing a great job making hazardous waste management exciting for job seekers and customers alike. Triumvirate Environmental has 9 blogs on topics that include The Environment, Environmental Careers, Higher Education, Healthcare, Industrial and Manufacturing, Life Sciences and BioPharma, Engineering Blogs, National and International Environmental News, and Social Media. It almost seems like too much, but if blog readers turn into customers or employees, then it’s well worth it. Triumvirate is all over Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube as well.

Although I find Triumvirate’s social media use impressive, I’m more impressed with their customer service philosophy, which is built off of their mission to “build the most productive, long-term, customer-intimate, environmental services firm by WOWing! each employee, and each customer, every day.” It’s all about WOWs! I’ve found that companies that treat their customers well, also treat their employees well, and the same can be said for companies that have Career blogs. That’s why you should definitely check out Triumvirate’s Career Center. Right now they have 22 job openings, and a number of them are suitable for new grads. These include Environmental Specialist (Somerville, MA; Providence, RI; Portland, CT; and Astoria, NY), Help Desk Specialist (Somerville, MA), and Environmental Service Representative (Portland, CT). There are also a number of jobs that are more “hands on” that only require a High School degree and some certifications. You can apply for all of these positions online, but I’ll bet that using social media to reach out to some people at Triumvirate Environmental may be a more effective way to get noticed.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Have you heard of Triumvirate Environmental before?

MGH, Inc.

Willy Franzen — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 14:27:18 +0000

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.

There have been some complaints in the Public Relations industry that agencies are not evolving quickly enough; however, Baltimore’s MGH, Inc. is never a subject of those complaints. While their Web site, and their entire agency, is currently “under construction,” they invite you to explore their “old” site for information—and by old they mean 2008. That’s how quickly they are willing to evolve.

But wait, there’s more. MGH was founded in 1995 by professionals who disagreed with the large agency mentality of overworking employees to the point of being burned out. Instead, MGH’s founders left their “comfortable jobs” to start an agency centered around retaining talented, happy employees. Today, they are 71 people strong.

Check Your Ego at the Door

In addition to the great work life MGH offers, they also give back to the community, believe all employees should have a life outside of work, and don’t take on clients who they believe will disrupt the excellent corporate culture they’ve built. Need I say more? Oh yeah, not surprisingly they are a full-service firm with big-name clients, such as MERCK, Papa John’s Pizza, Pfizer, and Texas Instruments.

MGH is currently seeking an Account Coordinator. This is a typical entry level job in which you will need several internships under your belt, strong writing skills, media pitching skills, organizational skills, a strong attention to detail, a passion for public relations, general knowledge of social media and WOM marketing, and a creative mind.

Interested? Send your cover letter that explains why you think MGH should be your home away from home and a résumé to careers@mghus.com.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Need help with your cover letter and résumé—or your entire job search? Heather offers low-cost coaching packages specifically for students and recent graduates seeking careers in public relations. Click here to learn more.

CPWR

Willy Franzen — Sun, 31 May 2009 14:49:34 +0000

For most of the jobs that we feature here, safety isn’t much of an issue. You may be concerned about job security given the current economic conditions, but not many of the jobs that we cover will put you in harms way—at least as long as you don’t tip back too far in your desk chair. Unfortunately, there are still a lot of dangerous jobs out there, and many of them are in the construction industry. It’s doubtful that the business of building things will ever be completely safe as long as humans are doing it, but CPWR is doing its best to improve safety in the construction industry. Their acronym used to stand for The Center to Protect Workers’ Rights, but now it seems that their full name is The Center for Construction Research and Training. They are a Silver Spring, Maryland based non-profit organization (despite their .com web address) that was created by the AFL-CIO in 1990, and they’ve become “an international leader in applied research, training, and service to the construction industry.”

Work Safely

CPWR’s mission is pretty simple, they have a “common vision of a world in which workers acting collectively, their union representatives, employers, government, users of construction services, academia, and the public work together to prevent occupational fatalities, injuries, and illnesses and continuously improve working conditions throughout the construction industry.” They focus on working with all stakeholders to create win-win situations through research, since there’s still a lot that we can learn about how to make construction safer. If safety research sounds like something that you could dig into, you’re in luck. CPWR has a job/internship for you. They have the same position listed as both on Idealist, and it’s for a Research Assistant. It requires a background in “computer science, statistics, economics, mathematics, public health, or other quantitative social sciences,” and you can apply by sending a cover letter and resume to sdong@cpwr.com.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

What do you think about workplace safety?

IMRE

Willy Franzen — Mon, 18 May 2009 14:25:11 +0000

This is a guest post by Heather R. Huhman. Heather is the media relations manager at a national health care professional association. She is also the entry-level careers columnist for Examiner.com, a career expert for the CAREEREALISM Twitter Advice Project, the job search expert for Campus Calm and author of the e-book “Gen Y Meets the Workforce: Launching Your Career During Economic Uncertainty.”

What do financial services, home/building and healthcare have in common? All three fields can expect good things to happen when they “converge” with IMRE, a full service digital, advertising, marketing and public relations agency in Baltimore, Maryland.

Let’s start with their financial services practice. Strategically expanded in July 2008 near the beginning of our country’s economic troubles, IMRE saw an opportunity for “financial services companies to gain market share.” Did you know you can buy wedding insurance from Travelers? IMRE won this client by proposing—no pun intended—to launch a campaign on Valentine’s Day about nuptial nightmares ranging from heart attacks to blackouts to hurricanes. They won the account and reached more than 74 million people with their messages. Like most public relations practitioners, I’m not a numbers person, but I do love weddings!

The “green” market is hot right now, so it makes sense for Arxx Corporation to be included in IMRE’s home & building practice. IMRE “moved Arxx away from a product message and positioned them as a longtime leader in energy-efficient solutions.” Despite being a midsized firm with only one office location, their client list in this practice is impressive—ranging from John Deere to The Home Depot to Target.

Their final practice area is healthcare, which is also my specialty. What I like most about healthcare PR is that you feel like you’re helping people live life to its fullest with every tactic you use to reach them. IMRE’s clients in this sector mostly are nonprofit organizations, including American Red Cross, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Shady Grove Fertility.

Interested in any one of those practice areas? IMRE is extremely open about who heads up each, providing their biographies, fun Q&A’s and e-mail addresses.

Good Things Happen When You Converge with IMRE

IMRE has two entry-level openings right now: a WOM (Word of Mouth) Associate Account Executive and another Associate Account Executive. If social networking is your thing, the WOM AAE position will be right up your alley. IMRE’s ideal candidate for this position? A “dynamic, creative and fun college graduate with a degree in communications or other related field and is an active Internet user who accesses social networks, blogs, forums and consumer reviews on a regular basis.” This person must also be a “self-motivated and detail-oriented team player and can often be found making YouTube videos just for fun.”

The other AAE position sounds a little more “structured” like you would find at a typical agency. IMRE seeks someone “with a degree in communications or related field and one to two years work or internship experience.” Candidates must also have “strong writing skills and be a team player who is results oriented, have an attention to detail, organized and able to juggle multiple priorities.”

Interested? Send your cover letter, résumé, salary requirements and writing samples to jobs@imre.com. Don’t forget to also fill out their job application.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Vecna Technologies

Willy Franzen — Thu, 14 May 2009 14:48:19 +0000

Don’t get freaked out, but imagine an earthquake. Part of the building that you’re in collapses and you’re injured. There’s no way for you to get out, and there’s no safe way in for a rescue team. It’s too dangerous to send people in to get you out, but your injuries are life threatening. You need medical attention ASAP. Luckily, there’s a BEAR. No, not a trained wild animal (although that’s almost a good idea), but a “versatile, humanoid robot capable of lifting
and carrying humans and other items over 600 lbs.” This isn’t some fantasy. It’s a reality because of Vecna Technologies, a high-tech startup whose corporate mandate is “Better Technology, Better World.” They’re based in Greenbelt, MD, but they also have offices in Skyline, VA; Cambridge, MA; and Silicon Valley, CA. Robotics like those found in the BEAR is just one sliver of the things they’re doing to put technology to amazing uses.

Better Technology. Better Jobs.

Since Vecna works in so many different areas, I’m going to use their words to tell you more about what they do:

Vecna is the driving force on important and exciting projects such as designing cutting edge health care infrastructure and life-saving AI software for hospitals around the world, helping NIH with genomics research, providing high-tech consulting to government and commercial clients, and building enterprise web-based systems. Vecna’s robotics division is making history with the BEAR robot and is rolling out several new robotic products. The breadth of our projects keeps work fun and challenging for the whole team.

It’s really cool stuff, and if you want a more detailed look at what they do, you can check out all of their Solutions.

What about jobs? There are quite a few of them, and Vecna Technologies does a great job of selling themselves as an employer. Their Careers page has a ton of information – even a link to a page that asks Is Vecna Right for You? and a rundown of the hiring process. After checking that out, you’ll probably want to take a look at Vecna’s Current Job Openings. Those positions most suitable for new grads are Electromechanical Technician (Boston Area), Implementation Engineer (DC Area), Robotics PhD (Boston Area), and Software Engineer (Boston or DC Area). You can apply for these positions online; however, Vecna does offer a referral bonus. The process is a bit complicated, but it’s worth it – because I’ll split the $4,000 bonus with you. So, if you’re going to apply for a job with Vecna Technologies, e-mail me at willy@onedayonejob.com first. I’ll get right back to you with the referral #, and you can win doubly if you land the job.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

How cool is the BEAR?

Project HEALTH

Willy Franzen — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 15:05:25 +0000

It’s no secret that poverty and poor health are deeply related. Limited access to healthcare is part of the reason, but there’s a lot more to the story. Nearly everything that we do in our lives has some bearing on our health outcomes, and a life in poverty creates factor after factor that leads to poor health outcomes. Project HEALTH is a non-profit organization that works in Baltimore, MD; Boston, MA; Chicago, IL; New York, NY; Providence, RI; and Washington, DC to break “the link between poverty and poor health.” Honestly, that doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. I think that poverty and poor health will forever be intertwined, but battling poverty will be the key to creating better health outcomes for lower-income people. I guess it all depends on how you define poverty.

A Project for You

Despite my confusion with Project Health’s tagline, I think that they’ve put together two awesome programs that show that they really do get it. The first is Family Help Desk, which offers clinics where “physicians can ‘prescribe’ food, housing, health insurance, job training, fuel assistance, or other resources for their patients as routinely as they do medication.” I always thought it was kind of silly that our medical system focused mostly on prescribing medication and not on making recommendations about other areas patients’ lives, so I think that Project HEALTH has nailed it here. It should be so surprise that:

The Family Help Desk’s straightforward, preventative referrals to government and community resources – such as affordable housing, child care, employment, GED classes, and job training – enable families to avert crises and to access increased income and education, which have been documented to result in better long-term health outcomes

It sounds like an amazing program! Project HEALTH’s second program is called STRIVE and it’s “an afterschool intervention that provides low-income teens with sickle cell disease with the mentoring, peer support, academic assistance, and disease management education they need to manage their condition effectively and realize their full potential.” It also sounds like it’s doing some impressive work. Another part of the Project HEALTH story is that most of their projects are staffed by college volunteers. On that note, they do have jobs beyond the volunteer level for those of you who have graduated. Project HEALTH’s Jobs page has 6 openings posted right now. 5 are as Family Help Desk Program Managers (in Baltimore, Chicago, New York, Providence, and Washington, DC) which seem to require some prior work experience, while the other job is clearly entry level – Family Help Desk Program Assistant, Baltimore. You can find out how to apply from the job descriptions.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

What do you think about Project HEALTH?

U.S. Census Bureau

Willy Franzen — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 14:48:34 +0000

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.

Everyone Counts at the U.S. Census Bureau

Ok, I’d like to go on about the cool things that the Census Bureau does, but we don’t really have time. Navigating the Census Bureau’s job offerings is kind of a hassle, so I want to make sure that you can find what you’re looking for. On their main Jobs page they have links to four sections – Headquarters Opportunities, 2010 Census Taker Opportunities, Regional Office Opportunities, and Student and Research Opportunities. You may be tempted to check out the Student Opportunities, but you actually want to check out either the Headquarters or Regional Office Opportunities. If you check out the Headquarters Opportunities, you’ll find job listings like Statistician / Analyst, Mathematical Statistician, Information Technology Specialist, Geographer, and Cartographer. These links will take you to more specific listings where you’ll find a link titled “How to Apply.” If you click that, you’ll find even more information and another link to the specific job descriptions on USAJobs.gov. You can also skip ahead and just search all of the U.S. Census Bureau’s 90 current openings. If you decide to check out the Regional Office Opportunities, you’ll just have to select a region, and you’ll be shown a list of opportunities. It’s a lot simpler.

As for locations:

The U.S. Census Bureau headquarters is located in Suitland, Maryland, just outside the District of Columbia.

The National Processing Center (NPC) is located in Jeffersonville, Indiana. The NPC also has two call centers located in Hagerstown, Maryland and Tucson, Arizona.

The Census Bureau has 12 Regional Offices located in Atlanta, Boston, Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Kansas City, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia and Seattle.

The Census Bureau has a ton of jobs, and there are a lot more coming. Many of these offer extremely interesting entry level work, but you’re going to have to show off your data parsing abilities to find and apply for the jobs – they don’t make the process easy at all.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Are you excited for the 2010 Census?

SPARTA

Willy Franzen — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 14:57:37 +0000

Usually when I’m looking at the job requirements to determine whether a position is suitable for new college grads, I’m looking at things like education, experience, skills, and job functions. It’s not often that I’m thinking about security clearance, but at today’s company, SPARTA, it’s essential for most of their positions. (Now, don’t worry if you don’t already have Top Secret Clearance, they still might have jobs for you as long as you didn’t get into too much trouble during your college years or before.) The reason that there’s all this talk about clearance is that SPARTA is a company whose “core business areas include strategic defense and offense systems, tactical weapons systems, and space systems” and whose “major intelligence credentials include intelligence production, computer network operations, and information assurance.”

This Is SPARTA

If you’ve spent your time in college attending peace protests, then SPARTA probably isn’t for you, but if you have a hard science or engineering background that you’d like to put to practical use, then you’ll be fascinated by the job titles that SPARTA is hiring for. Current openings include Weapons Effects Analyst, Cyberspace Analyst, and WMD Engineer (don’t worry, this job is about “supporting national efforts in developing, integrating and synchronizing capabilities to combat weapons of mass destruction”). These aren’t SPARTA’s entry level jobs, but they demonstrate what kind of projects the company is working on. They have more than 100 jobs listed right now, and quite a few of the opportunities actually are entry level. These include Integration Engineer, Software Engineer, Systems Engineer, and Linux/Unix Software Engineer. These are the only jobs that are identified as entry level, but you should definitely check out the rest of their job listings. You can apply online, and SPARTA has locations that include Arlington, VA; Aurora, CO; Bel Air, MD; Bellevue, NE; Billerica, MA; Centreville, VA; Colorado Springs, CO; Columbia, MD; El Segundo, CA; Huntsville, AL; Laguna Hills, CA; Lake Forest, CA; Nashua, NH; Newport News, VA; Orlando, FL; San Diego, CA; and Sunnyvale, CA.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Are you fascinated by SPARTA’s job titles?

Luck Stone

Willy Franzen — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 14:21:57 +0000

Although people mostly associate St. Patrick’s Day with drinking, I like to think of it in terms of searching for something good. Just think – there’s the four leaf clover, and the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, and… ok that’s it. Well, you can also use St. Patrick’s Day as motivation for your job search. That’s why we’re looking at Richmond, VA based Luck Stone today. Not only are they a company that fits in with our St. Patrick’s Day theme, but they’re also a company that is all about searching for something good. The only thing that’s different about them is that they consider the stuff that you dig through to be the “pot of gold.” Yes, that’s right. It’s the stone that they’re after.

Bring Luck to Your Job Search

Lucky Stone “is the largest, family owned and operated aggregates company in the U.S. and is the 12th largest producer of crushed stone in the nation.” That means that they dig stuff up, and they sell it. It’s 21st century alchemy with an Irish flair! The good news for you is that you can stop eating your Lucky Charms in your underwear at noon every day and turn stone into a job because Luck Stone has a strong college recruiting program. Their job listings don’t show any jobs for new grads, but their College Recruiting page invites interested entry level candidates to contact their Talent Acquisition Consultants. It’s easier than finding a four-leaf closer, so get on it!

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

How are you celebrating St. Patrick’s Day?

National Student Partnerships

Willy Franzen — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 13:10:53 +0000

How’s the relationship between your college or university and the town or city that it’s in? Let me guess. Not so hot. It always seems that students and “townies” don’t get along too well. Beyond that, there can also be situations like at Yale in New Haven, CT where the students are generally much wealthier than the people who live in the surrounding neighborhood. This just exacerbates the fundamental gap between the university and the community. National Student Partnerships is a non-profit organization that was started in New Haven by two Yale students who wanted to close this gap. They “designed a program where college student volunteers work one-on-one with community residents, coordinating access to employment opportunities and social services, including job training, housing, health care, child care, and transportation.” It’s a wonderful idea, and it’s working – look at the success stories.

Become a Part of NSP

In a lot of ways college students are an untapped resource. They generally have a lot of free time, a lot of energy, and a lot of brains – they’re just lacking a bit when it comes to “real world” experience. Putting them to work whether it be an internship or a volunteer program like NSP just makes sense. Additionally, college students are our future, which is why “NSP seeks to unite a national movement of students dedicated to direct service now, so that the systemic challenges we inherit do not become ones we will pass on.” Beyond offering volunteer opportunities and internships, NSP also has some entry level jobs for new grads. You can find the listings on NSP’s Jobs page, and they include openings for a Site Coordinator and a Regional Program Manager. The Site Coordinator positions are available in Baltimore, MD; Bronx, NY; Cambridge, MA; Chicago, IL; Evanston, IL; New Haven, CT; Philadelphia, PA (2 Offices); Pittsburgh, PA; Richmond, VA; Somerville, MA; and Washington, DC, while the Regional Program Manger position is located in Boston, MA. You can apply for the Site Coordinator jobs by sending a cover letter and resume to jobs@nspnet.org, and for the Regional Program Manager job by sending your materials to joinus@nspnet.org

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

How is your college’s relationship with the community?

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!

Major League Baseball

Willy Franzen — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 12:51:01 +0000

I never thought that moving to Chicago would prolong the baseball season for me. Living in the New York City area gave me 13 straight years of October baseball, and now that I’ve left, both Shea Stadium and Yankee Stadium will remain empty for the rest of the fall before they eventually face demolition. It’s lucky for me that I’m now living in a new city that happens to have two teams that are still in it. I get a 14th straight year of local baseball in October! Playoff baseball is by far the most exciting baseball of the year, but it also means that season will soon be over. Those of you who are baseball fans know how long the winter seems when there is only hot stove chatter to keep you entertained while you wait for pitchers and catchers to report to Spring Training. While you’re still excited about baseball, you should start thinking about how you can land a job with Major League Baseball. Jobs with the MLB are in hot demand, so it’s a smart move to get familiar with their hiring process as soon as you can.

Take Me Out to an Entry Level Job

As far as we can tell, there are 2 ways to get jobs in Major League Baseball – there are jobs with MLB.com and jobs with specific MLB teams. There also seem to be jobs directly with the league (I have a friend on Facebook who is a member of the Major League Baseball network), but I’m not sure how you can go about finding them online. Here’s a rundown of the two types of jobs that we’ve found and how you can apply for them.

MLB.com Jobs

MLB.com is part of MLB Advanced Media, which is a separate arm of Major League Baseball. They run all 30 team websites and allegedly have editorial independence from the league. Their focus is entirely on multimedia and production, but they offer all kinds of jobs. Right now, the only openings that may be suited to new college grads (and are still a stretch) are in Database Marketing and Marketing Production. MLB.com offers internships in Finance, Marketing, Club Marketing, E-Commerce, Legal, Technology, Sponsorship, Design, and Public Relations, so there are a number of areas in which jobs with MLB.com can pop up periodically. These jobs are located in New York City, and you can apply by sending a cover letter and resume to jlc@mlb.com.

Jobs with MLB Teams

There’s a separate site where you can search for jobs with all of the Major League Baseball teams. This is where the MLB follows the lead of other major sports leagues do and uses TeamWorkOnline to post their jobs. Right now there are listings from most of the teams (although only some are entry level), but this will probably change over time, as different teams have different hiring schedules. If you’re waiting to hear about jobs with a specific team, you can sign up for Job Notification e-mails or you can subscribe to the MLB Teams Jobs RSS Feed. There is an online application process for jobs with MLB teams, and it shouldn’t be too difficult to navigate.

The TeamWorkOnline site also lists some jobs with MLB Networks, so it’s possible that this is where they post opportunities with the league as they become available. We’re not sure about this, but we can’t find anywhere else that MLB jobs are posted. If you know anything about Major League Baseball’s hiring process, we’d love to hear from you in the comments.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Who do you think is going to win the World Series?

Chill

Willy Franzen — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 13:50:49 +0000

With the first day of fall just two days a way, you can definitely feel a chill in the air (at least if you’re in the Northeast like me). The leaves are already starting to change colors, and before you know it there will be snow on the ground. For many this is a depressing picture, but for those of you who love snowboarding, the coming of winter is filled with excitement. Snowboarding is all about seeing hope in the desolate bleakness of winter, and that’s the kind of attitude that Chill is looking for in Local Coordinators. The Chill program is a nonprofit learn–to-snowboard program for underserved youth run by Burton Snowboards.

Can I Chill?

Beyond sounding like a lot of fun, the Chill program seems to be doing a lot to enact positive change in the lives of young people.

From the Chill website:

Every year, we take over 100 youth from each of our sites to the slopes. We provide them with everything they need to learn to ride: lift tickets, lessons, transportation, and head-to-toe gear. Snowboarding is fun and a great activity for the youth we serve, but it takes several lessons and plenty of hard work to learn. We use board sports to motivate youth to accomplish goals they never thought they could, while teaching them some of the most important lessons in life about patience, persistence, responsibility, courage, respect, and pride. With positive adult role models, engaging activities, and incredible mountain environments we build self confidence and raise self esteem.

This is a truly unique

Am I Chill Enough?

Chill is currently looking for 2 Local Coordinators at 13 of their sites. That’s a lot of entry level jobs. These aren’t permanent, full-time positions, but they are a perfect way to transition from the student life to the working life. They’re looking for college graduates who have at least 3 years of snowboarding experience along with experience working with kids. Chill’s sites include Baltimore, Boston, Burlington, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, New York City, Portland, Prince George, Salt Lake City, Seattle, Toronto, Vancouver, and Washington D.C. The program runs from November through the end of March. You can find the job description for the Chicago Coordinator here (.doc) and the Chill Fact Sheet here (.doc). The pay scales, dates and hours very depending on location, so you’ll have to e-mail Jason Hirsch for more details. He’s also the person that you should apply to, so when you’re ready, send your cover letter and resume to jasonh@chill.org. The application deadline for the Chicago position is October 6th, but we’re not sure if the deadlines for other sites will vary as well. Your best bet is to apply as soon as possible.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Do you snowboard?

Southwest Airlines

Willy Franzen — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 14:08:56 +0000

Periodically the news is riddled with stories about how the airlines are teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. Lately the focus of doom and gloom commentary has shifted to finance and insurance companies, but that doesn’t mean that the airlines are doing any better. There’s one company that is seemingly never in the conversation about struggling airlines – Southwest Airlines. If you’ve ever flown Southwest, you probably know why. They do things differently, and it makes flyers happy. Even though it seems like almost no one can succeed flying commercial routes, Southwest continues to impress. A One Day, One Internship reader tipped us off to some amazing internship opportunities at Southwest Airlines, so we thought that we’d look at their entry level jobs today too. Air travel isn’t going anywhere – it’s too important to us, so don’t write off an entire industry because the other losers can’t get their acts together.

Future Booking at Southwest

Honestly, I’ve never heard of a company cited in more case studies than Southwest is. When I was studying Human Resources in college, I swear that I heard about Southwest’s corporate culture every week. It must make the CEOs of other airlines sick to their stomachs. Just look at the honors Southwest has received recently:

Ranked 12th on Fortune’s “Most Admired” list in 2007
Made Forbes “Platinum List” in 2007
Ranked by Business Week as one of the top “50 Best Places to Launch a Career”
“Most Admired Companies Among Women” by Professional Womens Magazine in 2006
“100 Best Corporate Citizens” by Business Ethics magazine for eight years in a row
“Corporate 100” by HISPANIC magazine since 2000
Included in the “Top 100 Most Innovative Technology Organizations” by InformationWeek in July 2007

And in case you aren’t already dreaming about working for Southwest, you should know that they offer “FREE UNLIMITED space-available travel anywhere Southwest Airlines flies” in addition to a laundry list of other benefits or “freedoms,” as they like to call them. To get a sense of what kind of jobs are available at Southwest Airlines, you should first look at their position profiles. These will give you a brief overview of each type of job that Southwest offers, so when you look at their actual job listings you will have a good understanding of what you’re looking at. Their Careers site is exceedingly simple, and really easy to navigate. It’s also loaded with information. We love (LUV) it.

Of the 39 non-internship job openings that we’ve identified on Southwest’s site, here are some that might be a good fit for a new college grad.

There are certainly more jobs to look at, some with slightly higher experience requirements. Most of the jobs are located at Southwest’s Dallas, TX headquarters (Ramp Agent openings are in Denver, Philadelphia, and Baltimore). Applying online for any of these jobs should be quite easy, so get to it!

Southwest Airlines also offers an RSS feed and e-mail alerts to notify you of new job postings, so if you don’t see anything that you like right now, you can sign up to be notified of future opportunities.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Have you flown Southwest? Did you LUV it?

Groove Commerce

Willy Franzen — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 13:28:27 +0000

A few weeks ago, I was in Montreal and met with Ben Yoskovitz, the CEO of Standout Jobs. He’s a great guy to chat with, and he’s built a product that I think is fantastic – a hosted Career site solution for companies to use in their online recruiting. Ben recently tweeted on Twitter about a company called Groove Commerce that is a Standout Jobs customer, and apparently an all around awesome place to work. They’re hiring, so we checked them out. We liked what we saw (how could we not like their online Career presence when they use Standout Jobs?), so now we’re going to tell you a little bit about Groove Commerce. By the way, if you’re interested in How I Used Twitter to Get Meetings with 3 CEOs and a VP of Recruiting in 2 Weeks check out my guest blog post on The Talent Buzz. If the post gets enough visitors, I’ll win an iPod Touch, which I promise to give away in some sort of contest to a One Day, One Job reader.

Groove Your Business

Transitioning to eCommerce can be tough for many business owners. Although the basic premises behind marketing and sales remain the same in all arenas, the implementation of those concepts is completely different online. Groove Commerce helps business with the implementation. They offer services such as Site Design and Development, Search Engine Optimization, Pay-Per-Click Advertising Management, Shopping Feed Optimization, and Web Analytics Consulting that help eCommerce companies achieve their goal of making sales online.

Jobs You Can Groove On

If you’re dying to get into the field of e-commerce and online marketing, or you just love building great websites, Groove Commerce might be a great place for you to start working after you graduate. They only appear to have 6 employees right now, but they’re looking to add 3 more team members (and an intern). Groove Commerce is looking to hire a Front End Developer, a Rockstar Web Designer, and an Asp.Net Developer. All of these jobs appear to be perfect for new grads who have the necessary technical skills. The Asp.Net position offers the opportunity to start part-time for a Junior/Senior/Grad Student who can work 20 hours per week. We’re not sure if they’d consider this for the other positions, but it might be worth asking.

Like I said in the first paragraph, Groove Commerce’s Jobs site is powered by Standout Jobs, and it offers nearly everything that you could want from a company’s Careers site. There are job listings, team bios, links to blog posts, lists of perks, an easy way to apply for jobs online, and a lot more. Best of all, it looks great and is easy to navigate. If you want to work somewhere where nerf guns and Rock Band are an every day part of office life, and Baltimore, MD is a place that you wouldn’t mind living, an entry-level job with Groove Commerce could be the start of something great for you.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

What do you think of Groove Commerce’s Careers site?

Exponent

Willy Franzen — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 12:00:28 +0000

Imagine getting a job as a MythBuster, except instead of debunking urban legend, you’re investigating real life problems that plague businesses and sometimes hurt people. That’s what you could be doing at Exponent. Founded in 1967 by five Ph.D.-level researchers, Exponent was originally known as Failure Analysis Associates. They started out in the energy industry studying stress and fracture mechanics, but very quickly they were “investigating and analyzing accidents and failures of all kinds.” They eventually became The Failure Group, and were listed on the NASDAQ with the ticker FAIL. In 1998 they realized that they had outgrown their name, and changed again to Exponent, because it means “one who expounds or interprets.” We don’t usually get so deep into how a company chooses it’s name, but with the popularity of the FAIL meme (see also: FAIL Blog), we thought that you might be amused.

Failures Need Not Apply

Despite their fascination with failure, Exponent has a staff of nearly 800 people with backgrounds in over 90 scientific and engineering disciplines. In other words, people who work at Exponent deal with failure often, but they try to keep it at an arm’s length. Are you still not sure what we mean by failure? Here are some examples of projects that Exponent has worked on: investigating defects in automatic revolving doors; determining the path and altitude of Delta flight 191 which crashed and killed 134 people; recreation of the accident that killed James Dean for an NBC series, and testing the Suzuki Samurai for rollover vulnerabilities. There are many more projects that Exponent has worked on, and you can view multimedia presentations on many of them in the Exponent Multimedia Archive. We could keep writing about Exponent’s work for hours – it’s that interesting – but they have a plethora of entry-level job opportunities that we need to talk about.

Entry-Level Jobs to the Xth Power

Exponent’s web site is about as entry-level friendly as we’ve seen, although they could do a better job of making sure that new college grads can navigate to the right jobs. When you visit Exponent’s Careers Page, you’ll notice that they’ve prominently linked to their University Recruiting page. Their approach to University Recruiting on the web is really cool, but it’s not intuitive. There’s a text box that allows you to enter in your school name to search for current alumni from your school and to learn about upcoming recruiting events on your campus. There’s also a list of the 20 schools from which they employ the most alums. For instance, take a look at Cornell’s page (I’m not biased or anything – GO BIG RED!). It’s a really cool way to engage students, but it only works if the students go to a school that Exponent has a page for. A lot of students probably end up on the University Recruiting page and don’t know what to do next.

This is where a little searching helps. If you visit Exponent’s How to Apply page, you’ll see information for entry-level candidates. Here they direct you to contact their College Recruiter, Jenny Irwin, at jirwin@exponent.com or to take a look at their entry-level job listings (these are opportunities specifically for new grads). Here you’ll find a ton of fascinating jobs in a variety of locations. We will warn you, however, that seemingly all of the entry-level jobs currently listed with Exponent require some sort of advanced degree (MS or PhD). Since so many Engineers seem to stick around and get a Masters, we thought it would still be appropriate to feature Exponent’s jobs today.

Some of the most recent listings on Exponent’s site include Engineers, Vehicle Engineering (Menlo Park, CA and Natick, MA); Scientists, Public Health & Industrial (Menlo Park, CA; Bellevue, WA; Wood Dale, IL; Los Angeles, CA; New York, NY; Oakland, CA; Irvine, CA; Philadelphia, PA; Alexandria, VA; and Washington, DC); and Engineers, Technology Development (Menlo Park, CA; San Diego, CA; and Washington, DC). There are many more opportunities listed on their site, and you can apply online through their applicant tracking system. If you want to work for Exponent but are just finishing up undergrad, then you better start thinking about graduate school.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Do you feel like your entry-level job search is a failure of such grand proportion that Exponent may have to investigate what happened? Subscribe to One Day, One Job (it’s free), and make sure that doesn’t happen.

Transportation Learning Center

Willy Franzen — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 13:18:31 +0000

Last month we wrote about the National Association of Railroad Passengers on One Day, One Internship. They are a non-profit organization that is all about promoting the growth of transportation by rail. Today we’re going to look at jobs at the Transportation Learning Center, which is a non-profit organization that promotes all kinds of public transportation. There seems to some overlap between the objectives of these organizations, although NARP appears to be passenger driven (no pun intended), while the Transportation Learning Center’s agenda seems to be driven by transportation workers (once again, no pun intended).

I’ve Been Workin’ on the Railroad…

The Transportation Learning Center is committed to maintaining and growing public transportation’s role in our everyday lives. They do so by building “labor-management training partnerships that improve organizational performance; expand workforce knowledge, skills, and abilities; and promote career advancement.” This seems like a good way of achieving their goals, since public transportation is surprisingly labor intensive. It may seem like the train drives itself, but there are plenty of people behind the scenes who are making sure that you can snooze every morning while you are on your way to your first entry-level job.

The Transportation Learning Center pursues its mission through a number of programs and publications. Their programs include the Transit Training Career Ladder Partnerships, the National Standards for Training (surprising fact: elevators and escalators are considered public transportation in this training program), and the National Framework for Apprenticeship. The Transportation Learning Center doesn’t just do these programs because they think they’re good; they back them up with studies. The organization puts out a number of publications that evaluate the effectiveness of labor-management training partnerships.

So what kind of jobs does the Transportation Learning Center offer? Right now they’re looking for an Office / Program Assistant. This is a clear cut entry-level position for a new college graduate. There will be a lot of administrative work in this job, but there will also be opportunities to do research and communications. This looks to be a great opportunity to get a foot in the door for someone who is fascinated by transportation and labor-management relationships. The job will almost certainly grow as you prove yourself. The Transportation Learning Center is located in Silver Spring, MD and you can apply by sending a resume, cover letter, and salary expectations to info@transportcenter.org.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Are you planning on using public transportation once you get your first job?

National Fatherhood Initiative

Willy Franzen — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 12:00:37 +0000

Happy Father’s Day! We were originally hoping to feature the Prostate Cancer Foundation, since the ad that they’re running called “We Need Our Dads” is pretty eye catching, but they don’t have any job openings, so we did our best to find another Dad related non-profit. We came up with the National Fatherhood Initiative, which is an organization that aims to “improve the well being of children by increasing the proportion of children growing up with involved, responsible, and committed fathers.”

Bringing New Meaning to “Dads and Grads”

You’ve probably heard the term “Dads and Grads” used to talk about the June gift buying season. Apparently marketers are too lazy to realize that there’s a big difference between what dads want for Father’s Day and what grads what for graduation. Anyway, you can bring new meaning to the saying by being a grad who works for an organization that helps dads with their fathering skills. Although most new grads aren’t parents and clearly haven’t had the opportunity to develop parenting skills, that doesn’t mean that they can’t help. The National Fatherhood Initiative’s Jobs page says that the Initiative is looking for a Website Coordinator. This looks to be an entry-level position for someone who is web savvy and has some web development expertise. The National Fatherhood Initiative is located in Gaithersburg, MD. To apply you should submit a resume, cover letter, and portfolio containing at least three websites that you have designed/maintained to pmcnally@fatherhood.org

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Sorry for such a short post, but I’m spending Father’s Day (and the rest of the week) fishing with my Dad. How are you celebrating?

National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship

Willy Franzen — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 13:23:26 +0000

Steve Mariotti was living a successful corporate life when he decided that he needed a change. He didn’t buy a sports car, get a toupée, or start dating 20 year-olds. Ok, he could have done those things, but we have no reason to believe that he did he did. He chose to leave his job and to start teaching special education in the New York City school system. This presented obvious challenges. Teaching special ed can be hard enough in a community with extensive resources, but it must be near impossible in underserved public schools like those in New York City. Mariotti realized that one of the only ways that he could reach his students was by teaching them how to run a business. They loved the subject matter. As Mariotti developed a entrepreneurship based curriculum for his job as a special ed teacher, he realized that he could extend the reach of his educational successes. He founded the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship with the goal of bringing entrepreneurial education to low-income youth

Entrepreneurial Education

The National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE) has now been around for over 20 years and has programs in 21 states and 14 countries. All it takes is a look at some of NFTE’s recent alumni who have started their own businesses to see how successful the organization has been. The power of entrepreneurism is quite amazing. Not only are NFTE’s students getting an alternative education through the organization’s programs, but they are also being empowered emotionally and financially by being responsible for their own successes. We’re really impressed by NFTE and their website, so be sure to browse around to get more information on the organization.

NFTE is a modest sized organization with 79 employees and a $15 million annual budget. They have locations across the country, but look to be hiring mostly at their headquarters in New York City. They have two job listings that appear to be geared towards new college grads, but it’s a bit hard to determine if both are actually entry-level. On the NFTE Jobs page there is a listing for a Development Associate that lists no experiential requirements; however, there is also an Idealist.org listing for this job that says 3 years of experience are required. The job description does say that applicants should have a “capacity to deal with ambiguity,” so maybe this is some kind of test. The other job listing is not on the NFTE website, but is on Idealist. It is as a Development Assistant. These are similar jobs, both having to do with fundraising, but we’re not sure which one you should apply for. We guess you’ll have to deal with ambiguity. You can send a resume and cover letter to hr@nfte.com.

The NFTE also has presences in Baltimore, the Bay Area, Chicago, Greater Dallas, Fairfield / Westchester County, Greater Los Angeles, New England, New York, Pittsburgh, South Florida, and Greater Washington D.C. Although they don’t currently appear to have job openings at these locations, you should certainly watch to see if anything is listed in the near future.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Would you rather give up your job search and chase your entrepreneurial dream? Leave a comment and tell us about the business that you want to start.

NASA

Willy Franzen — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 13:00:21 +0000

Typically young children are quite realistic about their career aspirations. They want to be firefighters, policemen, and teachers – professions that are in constant, steady demand. The more ambitious children might want a job as a doctor or veterinarian – still steady, but requiring a significant investment in education. It almost seems that as children we’re more realistic about life and careers than we are when we reach adulthood – except those kids who wanted to be astronauts. Since the beginning of the space program, there have only been 321 astronauts selected. Ever. There’s no surefire (or easy) way to become an astronaut – pilots, schoolteachers, doctors, scientist, and engineers have all been astronauts – but if selection as an astronaut is one of your life goals, you need to start preparing now. If you’re not ready for the commitment that it takes to be an astronaut, there are still plenty of entry-level jobs at NASA that will enable you to have a meaningful impact on the space program and NASA’s other endeavors.

NASA is a large government agency with many entry-level jobs, so instead of identifying each job opening, we’re going to guide you through how to their jobs website and help you find the information that you need before you decide to apply for a job. Usually, we complain that companies shortchange job searchers in terms of career related information on their website, but with NASA the problem is one of too much information. Maybe it’s a test to weed out candidates who can’t deal with navigating through complex situations, but we were a bit overwhelmed by NASA’s jobs site. Before you jump in and start looking around the site, you might want to read NASA’s Applicant Guide. It’s audaciously long, but it covers everything you need to know to get a job at NASA. If we left you to navigate the site, it would probably take you quite a while to find the guide, but we think it’s important to reward our loyal readers with shortcuts straight to meaningful content (if you like shortcuts, subscribe to One Day, One Job).

If you read our post about entry-level jobs at the US Forest Service, then you’re aware of the fact that all jobs with the United States government are posted on USAjobs.gov. Since NASA does not accept applications for unspecified positions, you must go through this site and search specifically for NASA jobs. We couldn’t find any information on an application process tailored specifically to entry-level candidates (probably because there isn’t one); however, there is a guide for college students who are seeking employment. There are also lists of occupation types, applicable entry-level pay ranges, and NASA locations to help you determine which jobs you should apply for. NASA also offers a FAQ for students. Like we said, there’s a ton of information.

In addition to NASA’s jobs site, there are a few other sites that are worth mentioning. First is NASA People, which is a site that appears to be targeted towards current NASA employees. It covers almost any question that you could have about what it’s like to work at NASA, so serious job searchers should spend some time browsing this site. Second is the annual ranking of Best Places to Work in the Federal Government, which ranks NASA at fourth. This gives in-depth statistics about what kinds of people are more likely to be happy working at NASA (most employees), and what types of people are less likely to be happy at NASA. It also breaks down the rankings into a number of factors that may or may not be important to you.

Finally, there is this Wired article that details the struggles that NASA is having connecting with young people. The problem is pretty obvious. The space race to put the first man on the moon created an amazing amount of interest in NASA for our parents’ generation, but we have been given technology like the Internet to explore the world that we live in. Many young people don’t see the point in exploring space, when there is so much to discover right at our fingertips. The article includes a presentation that was given to NASA management by some of NASA’s younger employees on how to improve engagement with Generation-Y/Millennials/whatever you want to call us by emphasizing NASA’s continued relevance to the issues that concern our generation. Even people who are not interested in jobs at NASA would do well to read this article as it brings up a lot of important questions about NASA, science, and the workplace. The Wired article ends by pointing to OpenNASA.com, which is a blog by NASA employees. It’s excellent, and as authentic of a resource as you’ll find on what working at NASA is like – especially for someone who is not far removed from college. Although the blog is unofficial, it’s the type of resource that every company could use to improve their recruiting practices.

If you want an entry-level job at NASA, you’ve got a lot of research to do. Get moving!

Note: On April 25th we revisited entry-level jobs at NASA.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Want an internship at NASA? They have a lot of them, and we’re talking about them at One Day, One Internship.

Sylvan Beach Foundation

Willy Franzen — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 13:00:48 +0000

When we came across today’s non-profit organization, we were surprised at what we found. We saw the name Sylvan Beach Foundation and expected an organization focused on environmental conservation – something like saving sea turtles or preventing land erosion. Instead, we found an organization that is changing the lives of marginalized young men through social enterprises. We’re not sure where the name Sylvan Beach Foundation came from, but we can’t see how it relates to the small town in upstate New York called Sylvan Beach which was founded by a pirate named Captain Steamer (that name is funny, right?).

Based out of Baltimore (not upstate New York), the Sylvan Foundation has started a number of businesses that give inner-city men between the ages of 18 and 22 a chance at a better life. Students (that’s what they call their participants) are provided with a place to work, a place to live, a weekly stipend, and educational opportunities – all of which are funded by the profits from the businesses. These businesses include Taharka Brothers Ice Cream Company, Sylvan Beach Cafe, Mt. Washington Scoop Shop, and a catering company. So if you love ice cream, don’t expect a great salary, and want to change the lives of young men, Sylvan Beach Foundation might be a great place for you to work.

They are currently hiring a Human Resources Manager for Taharka Brothers Ice Cream. This person will have major responsibilities including recruiting and developing students , managing employee relations, and being a community leader. The full job description is listed at Idealist.org, but not on Sylvan Beach Foundation’s website, which is really bare bones.

The lack of a good website left us yearning for more facts, so here’s what we were able to find. According to Baltimore Magazine and the City Paper, the Sylvan Beach Foundation makes the best ice cream in the city (we heard something about a key lime pie flavor, mmm). There’s also a great article in the University of Baltimore Post which did a good job of telling the Sylvan Beach Foundation story. We also found a social entrepreneurship profile that was pretty informative. That’s all we’ve got.

And in case you’re not interested in today’s job, you can buy term papers on the Sylvan Beach Foundation. Now we definitely don’t recommend ever buying a term paper on the Internet, but this was the first time our research turned up something like this, so we thought we’d share it with you.

Note: On April 27th we revisited entry-level jobs at the Sylvan Beach Foundation.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Would you take a lower salary for free ice cream? Tell us in the comments.

SEED Foundation

Willy Franzen — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 13:00:06 +0000

The SEED Foundation is a nonprofit organization (and the last one we’ll be featuring this year) that builds urban public boarding schools to prepare kids in underserved communities for college. They opened their first school in Washington, D.C. in 1998 and will be opening their second in Maryland next year. Amazingly, 97% of SEED graduates go on to college, and 85% are on track to graduate after matriculating. Some of them might even be your classmates (here’s a list of schools attended by SEED grads).

Currently SEED’s public charter school in Washington, D.C. is hiring a Middle School Math Teacher, a High School Math Teacher, and a High School Science Teacher. It appears that these teaching jobs do not require a teaching certificate, master’s degree, or previous teaching experience; however, they are strongly preferred. We’re not sure how entry-level friendly these jobs are, but the trend in education is definitely for schools to look at new college grads. We hope the SEED Foundation is following the trend.

They will also be posting a significant number of positions in January for the SEED School in Maryland. These jobs will have a July ‘08 start date, so they might be perfect for new grads – we won’t know until they post them. So be on the look out.

Note: On April 26th we revisited entry-level jobs at the SEED Foundation.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

What do you know about the SEED Foundation? Leave a comment.

Calvert Foundation

Willy Franzen — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 13:00:58 +0000

If you’re a college Senior, it’s time to get your life together. You need to find a job, start managing your personal finances, and think about giving back to society. The Calvert Foundation can help you accomplish all three of these goals. They offer investment opportunities. All Calvert investments are focused on community improvement. And most importantly, Calvert is hiring.

The Calvert Foundation, a 3 time winner of the social capitalist award from Fast Company, is a non-profit organization located in Bethedsa, MD that offers financial products and services that channel flexible, affordable capital to underserved communities. That means that they take money from investors to help other non-profits fund community investments with a focus on Affordable Housing, Community Facilities, Microcredit, Small Business, and Social Innovations.

For instance, you could purchase a Calvert Community Investment Note with your choice of an interest rate between 0% and 3%. This is a rate that is substantially lower than something like a Money Market Account, but the payoff goes far beyond the interest earned on your investment. You can use Calvert’s Social Return on Investment Calculator to see what the full impact of an investment could be. Beyond their calculator, you can take a look at real life stories from people who have benefited from Calvert investments by searching through their investment profiles. Jobs are added, houses are built, organizations are founded, and businesses are started because of individuals who invest through the Calvert Foundation.

Now that you understand what Calvert does, let’s talk about their entry-level jobs. Calvert is currently hiring for two positions that we think have great potential for recent college graduates. The first is a Business Development Officer, which is basically a sales position. Calvert is looking for someone who is knowledgeable about financial products and services and has excellent telephone sales skills and experience. The second position is a Portfolio Servicing Associate, who is responsible for being the main point of contact between current borrowers and the foundation. This person should be a Microsoft Office whiz, a great communicator, and preferably have had a background in business, finance, or accounting. There isn’t a lot of information about working at Calvert on the web, but you might want to send them an e-mail and ask some questions. The e-mail address listed for applications is jobs@calvertfoundation.org.

Microfinance is growing rapidly as a part of our economy. The Calvert Foundation is offering great opportunities at the entry-level to be a part of an organization that is taking a free market approach to making the world a better place.

Note: On April 26th we revisited entry-level jobs at the Calvert Foundation.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Even if you’re broke this holiday season, you won’t need a microfinance loan to buy someone special (or yourself) a gift. That’s because we’re giving away a Nintendo Wii!

Under Armour

Willy Franzen — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 13:00:43 +0000

You know the feeling – it’s hot, wet, sticky and feels like it weighs about 6 lbs. So you change shirts during practice. Twice. That’s three shirts in one practice. You practice 5 days a week. That’s a lot of laundry. How would you like to work for a company founded out of a strong disdain for wet t-shirts (no, not the kind you might find on Spring Break)? Kevin Plank started Under Armour in 1995 with the idea of making better t-shirts to wear under his uniform while he played for the University of Maryland Football Team. With a great product and a little luck, Under Armour has become an essential piece of an athlete’s wardrobe in what was seemingly a saturated market.

Under Armour is known for their tagline “We must protect this house!” As the fastest growing sports brand in the world, their house is getting bigger and harder to protect every day (they keep adding new product lines and entering new markets). That’s why Under Armour is constantly working to build a stronger team. Under Armour’s job postings put a strong emphasis on making history and finding new ways to do things. If you love sports and you love apparel, take a look at these positions that might be right for a recent college graduate.

Some job listings on Under Armour’s site, such as those for Product Line Management, don’t mention required experience, but we’re going to guess that they aren’t going to put kids who are fresh out of college in charge of entire product lines. The listings are certainly a little unclear, so if anybody from Under Armour reads this, can you leave a comment and confirm that these positions require significant experience?

Also, Under Armour has a separate web page for their “Rookie Program,” which is another name for their internship offerings. They really should extend this idea to entry-level hiring so that is easier for applicants to determine which jobs are appropriate to apply for.

If you hate wet t-shirts as much as Kevin Plank does, give Under Armour’s career opportunities a look.

Note: On April 21st we revisited entry-level jobs at Under Armour.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Heard anything about jobs at Under Armour? Enjoying our daily posts? Have suggestions on how we could do a better job? Want to tell us what kind of jobs you want to see featured on One Day, One Job? Leave a comment.