One Day, One Job » Missouri

MMG Mardiks

Willy Franzen — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 16:01:57 +0000

Yesterday I mentioned that I hopped on a plane on Saturday. My destination was Aruba. I’m here now, and I’m enjoying 90 degree temperatures, lots of sunshine, beach volleyball, and hopefully some excellent fishing opportunities. It’s not hard to be convinced to head for a tropical destination in December, but choosing the right place can be a tough decision. That’s why it’s no big surprise that resorts and tourism boards invest a lot in public relations. Competition for tourist dollars is fierce, so firms like New York City based MMG Mardiks are often in high demand. They work with names like the Colorado Tourism Office, Sarasota and Her Islands, Hertz, Regent Hotels & Resorts, and The Renaissance Aruba Resort & Casino (not where I’m staying). MMG Mardiks also has locations in Kansas City, Ft. Collins, St Louis, and South Florida, which probably allows them to better serve clients in various locations.

Travel Public Relations with MMG Mardiks

Travel public relations and communications seems like a pretty cool field, and MMG Mardiks does it all. They provide “expert strategic counsel in traditional and digital media relations, branding, event marketing and crisis communications.” If you’d like to get beyond the buzz words and see some actual work that MMG Mardiks has done, you need to look no further than their case studies. You’ll get a good feel for how they operate and what kind of placement they can achieve for their clients. If the idea of working in Travel PR excites you, then take a look at MMG Mardiks’ Jobs page. They don’t have any specific openings for new grads posted, but they do invite applicants to reach out by e-mailing a cover letter, résumé, and salary requirement to Carla Brown at cbrown@mmgworldwide.com. I’ve heard that their internship program is excellent with real work opportunities that lead to full-time employment and that the company employs a lot of people in their 20s. Additionally employees get to travel to great places relatively often, so maybe you’ll get to make a trip to Aruba too.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Which of MMG Mardiks’ clients do you most want to visit?

Lucky Brand

Willy Franzen — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 14:49:56 +0000

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

Do you consider yourself lucky?

Fleishman-Hillard

Willy Franzen — Tue, 26 May 2009 13:57:25 +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.

When I was in college, I wanted nothing more than to work at Fleishman-Hillard. Renowned for their corporate culture, Fleishman-Hillard is headquartered in St. Louis, Mo., has 80 offices throughout the world, does business in more than 20 languages and has 29 practices areas. In 2008, the firm’s work and culture earned them the “Best Agency to Work For” by The Holmes Report. But their list of awards hardly stops there, including “103 Silver Anvil Awards, 90 CIPRA/SABRE Awards, and numerous other national and international awards.”

And Fleishman-Hillard doesn’t just win awards outside the organization, but also with its own employees. In 2007, 98 percent of Fleishman-Hillard employees called the firm an organization “of which they can be proud,” according to an employee satisfaction survey. Fleishman-Hillard rewards their employees in return, giving out two awards annually – the “team player” and John D. Graham – recognizing “individuals in various geographic regions for unparalleled commitment to the client, the agency and their team.” Managers also give awards at their discretion for “their heroic efforts.” I’ve known many individuals who’ve worked for Fleishman-Hillard over the years, including one of my college mentors, and I’ve heard nothing but good things.

Be Rewarded at an Award-Winning Agency

Fleishman-Hillard is currently seeking a Coordinator in its Boston office. (Fleishman-Hillard also has offices in Atlanta, GA; Austin, TX; Boston, MA; Chicago, IL; Dallas, TX; Houston, TX; Kansas City, MO; London, England; Los Angeles, CA; Melbourne, Australia; Miami, FL; Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN; Montreal, Canada; New York, NY; Potland, OR; Raleigh-Durham, NC; Sacramento, CA; San Antonio, TX; San Diego, CA; San Francisco, CA; St. Louis, MO; Sydney, Australia; Toronto, Canada, and Washington, D.C.) This position is a mix of “traditional” and “new” public relations in a large agency setting. Beyond administrative and office duties, the Account Assistant also conducts media relations, media monitoring and reporting, research and other junior-level account activities. The best way to land this position is to have had a prior agency internship while in college, preferably with Fleishman-Hillard itself or another large agency.

Interested? Apply for the job online here. Even though the position is in Boston, much of the recruitment process originates in the St. Louis office. I recommend reading their blog, Stand Out, and the biographies of some of the folks in charge of talent development.

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.

Rawlings

Willy Franzen — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 14:29:08 +0000

It’s Opening Day! Although it may not be a real holiday to you, to those of us who who are die hard baseball fans it’s quite possibly the best day of the year (especially fans of perennial losers whose best record all season is 0-0). I already had my baseball fix this weekend, since I flew out to NYC to see the opening of the new Yankee Stadium in an exhibition game between the Yanks and the Cubs, but I am beyond excited to watch some games that actually count. With that in mind, we’re going to run with the baseball theme today. We’ve already covered jobs with Major League Baseball and its teams, so we’re going to look at St. Louis based Rawlings today. They were the manufacturer of my first ever baseball glove (which had a Jose Canseco facsimile signature on the palm), so I inevitably think of Rawlings when I think of baseball. Their posted job offerings are a bit sparse, but hopefully you’ll use the good vibes from Opening Day to inspire your job search. (Remember: These posts aren’t just about the companies that we feature. They’re also about bringing creativity to your job search.)

Catch an Entry Level Job with Rawlings

In case you’ve never heard of Rawlings before, they make equipment for Baseball, Softball, Basketball, Soccer, and Volleyball. At their heart, though, they’re a baseball company. They produce all kinds of fun stuff – gloves, bats, balls, batting gloves, uniforms, apparel, protective gear, batting gloves, and much more. Unfortunately, their website is entirely in Flash (is this getting more common?), so we can’t link to all of the specifics. If you’re a baseball player like me, you’ll probably get lost looking at all of the cool stuff that they make. I remember poring over baseball catalogs for hours to decide which new bat I was going to get when I was in high school. Anyway, Rawlings is mostly a manufacturer, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t have interesting jobs for new college grads. Take a look at Rawlings’ Company Profile on LinkedIn, and you’ll see what kind of careers they typically offer. Right now, the only jobs they have posted are on Jarden’s Careers site (Jarden is Rawlings’ parent company), and they’re on the manufacturing side. If you don’t want to work on the line tanning gloves and dealing with chemicals, then do a little more research and see if you can find an in with Rawlings in another area of their business. You should also check out some of the links under the About Rawlings section on Rawlings’ home page – they have info on benefits and company kickball teams. Also, watch out for the blaring music that starts playing when you hit the home page. It’s pretty annoying.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Rawlings.com
Jarden.com (Rawlings’ Parent Company)
Jobs at Rawlings (Jarden’s Corporate Careers Site)
Rawlings’ Company Profile on LinkedIn

What other baseball related jobs have you come across? Whose signature was on your first baseball glove?

Scottrade

Willy Franzen — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 14:58:44 +0000

After I graduated from college, I decided to take a responsible approach to my personal finances (I wish I had taken the same approach to my job search, but I didn’t, which is why I’m here teaching you how not to be a loser like I was). It took me a while to get my act together, but once I did I started investing in the stock market through Scottrade, an online discount brokerage company that is headquartered in St. Louis, MO. (And before I go on with more information about Scottrade’s jobs, I need to give Ramit Sethi’s book, I Will Teach You To Be Rich, a plug because it just came out and is the best personal finance resource for young people that I’ve come across.) So, Scottrade allows me to buy and sell stocks at 7 bucks a pop. They also have a solid web interface that gives you access to all kinds of information, and they have 399 branches with helpful employees to answer you questions and get your accounts opened. If you’re interested in opening an account with Scottrade, let me know at willy@onedayonejob.com and I can give you a link that gets us both free trades. If you’re interested in working for Scottrade, keep reading, duh!

Trade Up to an Entry Level Job with Scottrade

Now, you may be thinking, “Ummm… Willy, the stock market sucks right now, why would I want to get involved with that business?” There are quite a few reasons. First of all, Scottrade is growing at an excellent rate, which is why they were included in the Inc. 5000. Second of all, they’re not one of these big banks that is on the edge of failure. They’re a discount brokerage that focuses on customer satisfaction, not playing with money in risky ways. Third of all, they’ve been named one of Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For. Oh yeah, and the 4th reason is that they are hiring at the entry level. They do some college recruiting, but they also post plenty of positions on their Jobs site.

Jobs at Scottrade’s St. Louis headquarters that might interest new grads include IT Web Architect, Business Analyst, Business Analyst Specialist, and quite a few more – especially in the IT/Software Development Areas. Additionally Scottrade has jobs at its brokerages across the country. The Stockbroker position seems most appropriate for new grads, and you can do it almost anywhere – St. Louis, MO; Richmond, VA; Miami, FL; Oakland, CA; Greenville, SC; Albany, NY; Aventura, FL; Bloomington, IL; Boca Raton, FL; Castro Valley, CA; Fort Lauderdale, FL; Lafayette, LA; Midvale, UT; Ocala, FL; Parsippany, NJ; Redding, CA; San Antonio, TX; Santa Rosa, CA; Scottsdale, AZ; St. Cloud, MN; Yoba Linda, CA; Redding, CA, and probably a lot more places in the future.

You can apply for all of the jobs online on Scottrade’s Jobs site.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Do you invest? Do you use Scottrade?

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?

Hallmark

Willy Franzen — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 14:38:31 +0000

This morning I realized which company we should have featured to celebrate my birthday yesterday. Luckily, my birthday celebration is going to be a 2 week event that will culminate with our giving away an iPod Touch to one lucky reader who spreads the word about us to his or her friends. Although we announced the contest last night, we’re really kicking it off today, so I think that we should focus on my birthday again and talk about entry level jobs with Hallmark. Here’s how Hallmark describes itself:

Some companies make things. Good things, but, you know…things. Hallmark is another kind of company. We play a unique role in defining and expressing friendship and family and love – and we’ve done it for nearly 100 years.

I usually just shake a card to see if a check falls out – just kidding. I actually got a talking Hallmark card that couldn’t have been more perfect for me. My mom may have had to walk through the store opening every single card to find it, but she did. It has made me laugh over and over. You have to love Hallmark.

Apply by Greeting Card?

Hallmark is a family-owned company headquartered in Kansas City, MO, and they make more than greeting cards. Their other businesses include partyware, gifts, gift wrap, ornaments, decorative items, picture frames, albums, scrapbooks, e-cards, magazines, and cable television. They also own Crayola (which makes Silly Putty in addition to crayons), William Arthur, and a number of other subsidiaries. Hallmark is a major company with a significant college recruiting program. They have a section of their Careers site devoted to college students, but the navigation is extremely confusing. Their Working Here section consists of one paragraph, and links out to pages on Benefits, Culture, and Kansas City. There is also a Career FAQs section, which is actually very helpful.

Hallmark has a limited Campus Recruiting schedule, so unless you’re at one of the few schools that they visit, your best bet is to apply for a job online. The links to their actual job listings seem to break half of the time, but if you’re persistent, you can usually get it to work. You can either look at opportunities in Hallmark’s Creative Division or in their Corporate Headquarters, Operations, and Manufacturing Divisions. Hallmark’s Creative Division only has one job listing right now that looks to be entry level – Web Designer – but they seem very open to portfolio submissions. You can apply online and include your portfolio without picking a specific job, so that seems like the best way to try and get a creative job with Hallmark. The Corporate/Operations/Manufacturing job listings allow you to search for “College-Full Time,” so it’s easy to look up which entry level positions Hallmark is hiring for (we can’t link to them, because their applicant tracking system won’t let us). Right now there are 5 job titles posted – Job Planner, Accounting and Financial Analyst, Inventory Controller, IT Analyst, and Line Supervisor – and all of them are located in Kansas City. It seems likely that Hallmark has multiple openings for each of these positions. We don’t see any contact info, so it looks like you’ll have to apply for the jobs online, but if you can find an address, we think that it would be cool to apply by greeting card. Hallmark also has retail job opportunities, but we’re not going to get into those. Remember, with Hallmark if you get an interview, a thank you card is an absolute must. It’s their business!

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

What’s the best Hallmark card that you’ve ever seen?

Levy Restaurants

Willy Franzen — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 14:50:27 +0000

Yesterday I told you how my move to Chicago has extended my baseball watching season, but I’m not sure that I mentioned that I have tickets to today’s Cubs game! I’m pretty excited about it, although I’m not excited about the fact that it might get into the 40s tonight during the game. October baseball is not for fair weather fans – the types who might prefer a catered event at the stadium to a real baseball game. Whether you’re a fair weather fan, an insanely devoted fan who just wants to be as close to your team’s stadium as possible at all time, or even if you just enjoy fine dining, a job with Levy Restaurants might be something worth thinking about. They’re a company that is all about hospitality and dining experience, and they happen to do catering/events at some pretty amazing venues – Wrigley and U.S. Cellular Field included.

The Levy Difference

A caterer doesn’t get the right to cater at top flight sports venues with out offering a fantastic experience. Levy Restaurants attributes their success to what they call “The Levy Difference.” There happens to be a video on their website with the same name, so we’re going to recommend that you watch that before you dig deeper into internships with Levy Restaurants.

Now that you’ve watched the movie, let’s take a look at Levy Restaurants’ entry level job offerings. Their job descriptions don’t offer a lot of detail, but we’re pretty sure that a number of their jobs can be considered entry level. If you look at all of their current job openings, you’ll see quite a few Assistant Director of Operations positions (Conseco Field House – Indianapolis, IN; Live Nokia Theater – Los Angeles, CA; Qwest Field – Seattle, WA; Sprint Center – Kansas City, MO; and STAPLES Center – Los Angeles, CA). Any job title that includes “assistant” has a pretty good chance of being a well suited to new college grads. There are also an Accounting position at Lambeau Field (Green Bay, WI) and a Marketing Coordinator position at Chase Field (Phonenix, AZ) that may be worth looking at. Finally, there are a number of jobs as Sous Chef (many locations). These require significant culinary knowledge, but may be considered entry level for you if you just graduated from culinary school. Levy Restaurants is based out of Chicago, IL, but has locations all across the country, so be sure to check out their list of venues to see where they might be hiring in the future. They don’t provide an HR contact or an e-mail address, so the only way to find out more information about jobs with Levy Restaurants is to apply online directly from the job descriptions.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Have you ever experienced the Levy Difference? What’s it like?

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?

Stetson

Willy Franzen — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 12:06:32 +0000

Happy Labor Day! We’re certainly enjoying the holiday weekend, and we hope that you are too. It’s ok to take a break from your job search, but if you won’t allow yourself to take some time off, we’ve got some homework for you today. We’ll get to that in a second. Now, you probably know that it’s frowned upon to wear white after Labor Day, but did you know that cowboys and other lovers of Country/Western culture are expected to switch from straw hats to felt hats after Labor Day? Although fashion tenets such as no white after Labor Day seem to be fading away to some extent, we’ll bet that the cowboys still abide. Stetson is the company when it comes to cowboys hats; in fact, just as the Kleenex trademark is used to describe for all tissues, the Stetson brand name is often used to describe all cowboys hats.

Do Stetson Hats Make Themselves?

When it comes to jobs at Stetson, we can’t find a sliver of information. It begs the question, do Stetson hats make themselves? We believe that Stetson is located in St. Joseph, Missouri, but they also seem to have an address in Texas. Their website also says that they have a showroom in New York City, but we also found an article from 1992 that says that the showroom was shut down. Finally, we also found a lead that Stetson may have been purchased at some point by R.H.E., Inc., which is the manufacturer of the famous Resistol hat. We can’t find anything on their jobs either, but we hope that we’ve provided enough clues to get you intrigued and start searching. If you can find something on jobs with Stetson, please share with us in the comments. Remember, you can always cold call an employer and ask about working for them.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Did you know to switch from straw hat to felt hat after Labor Day?

Shriners Hospitals for Children

Willy Franzen — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 13:37:00 +0000

We hope you had a safe 4th of July. Unfortunately, every year some people don’t. Fireworks are a lot of fun, but they can result in some really nasty burns and injuries. Since we encouraged you to blow stuff up yesterday, we thought we’d counter that by featuring a non-profit organization that helps children who endure severe burns. The Shriners Hospitals for Children do exactly that. Who are Shriners? They wear funny hats. They drive little cars in parades. They’re Freemasons. And most importantly, they help kids through their hospitals. That’s going to be our focus today, since new college grads probably aren’t too interested in being part of a fraternal organization that seems like it probably has an average age north of 60. Then again, you probably got all hot and bothered about your college’s greek organizations and secret societies.

What Do Red Fezzes Have to Do with Burn Treatment?

So a group of Freemasons decided to start a non-religious fraternal organization for fun and fellowship based on a Middle Eastern theme, what the heck does that have to do with kids and burns? Somewhere along the way the guys in the organization decided to do some serious philanthropy, so they started Shriners Hospitals for Children which “is a one-of-a-kind international health care system of 22 hospitals dedicated to improving the lives of children by providing specialty pediatric care, innovative research and outstanding teaching programs.” Their three focuses are orthopedic care, burn care, and spinal cord injury rehabilitation. Over Shriners Hospitals for Childrens’ 86 years, they have provided free medical care to more than 865,000 children. Wow.

Do I Have to Wear a Funny Hat to Work There?

We don’t think wearing a red fez is a required part of the dress code, but we can’t make any promises. Shriners Hospitals for Children is headquartered in Tampa, FL and has hospitals in Boston, Canada, Chicago, Cincinnati, Erie, Galveston, Greenville, Honolulu, Houston, Salt Lake City, Lexington, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Northern California, Philadelphia, Portland, Shreveport, Spokane, Springfield, St Louis, Tampa, and Twin Cities. They have jobs available in just about every field imaginable, especially in medical related areas. Quite a few of these jobs are appropriate for entry-level candidates, but we’re not going to go through each of them. Shriners Hospitals for Children has a lot of job openings, and they do a nice job of organizing their Job Opportunities. Although their Careers site isn’t flashy, it should be easy to navigate. If helping children who are enduring seemingly unthinkable medical conditions is something that you could devote your life to (and you’re not going to Med school), there are few better places to begin a career then one of the Shriners Hospitals for Children.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Have you ever seen the Shriners drive their little cars around?

Yelp

Willy Franzen — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 13:18:42 +0000

My Dad and I are now 2 days into our weeklong fishing trip. The first day was spent driving from Fairfield, CT to Ann Arbor, MI, where we stopped to spend the night. We ended up grabbing a late dinner at a pizza place that wasn’t very good. Pizza should always be at the very least very good, so that was quite a disappointment – especially considering Ann Arbor is a college town with an amazing number of restaurants. Had I been smart enough to pull up Yelp.com on my phone (they have a mobile site), I would have seen that our choice of a restaurant only had 3.5 stars on 3 ratings, and that 2 of the high ratings were for convenience or low price. Lesson learned. Luckily we redeemed ourselves with an awesome brunch at a place one of my Dad’s high school buddies recommended – it has 4.5 stars and is ranked the 2nd best Ann Arbor restaurant on Yelp.

Yelp Me Find a Place to Eat

Yelp isn’t just about food, it’s about local reviews (and the people who post the reviews). As Russell Simmons (no, not that one, their CTO) says, “We built this site expecting to find all these really cool local business, and what we really found were these really cool local people.” Maybe some of Ann Arbor’s really cool local people could have helped us find a motel room that was a bit more affordable than the jacuzzi suite, as it was the “only room left in town” because of something about a NASCAR weekend – our motel choice has 2.5 stars on Yelp. Yelp could have made our stay in Ann Arbor a lot nicer, and it certainly has the ability to be a great tool in any traveler’s repertoire.

Here’s the Yelp documentary below (here’s a link). E-mail and RSS feed readers will need to click through, and if it doesn’t work, we’re sorry. This is the only format Yelp offered the video in.

Working at Yelp

Considering how fun Yelp’s product is, working for them has to be pretty cool too. They’re a growing company, and that means entry-level hiring. Yelp’s Jobs page lists these positions in their San Francisco office: Account Executive (Local Sales), Product Manager (Tools and Support Infrastructure), Software Engineer, and Desktop Support Technician. There are also looking for Marketing Assistants (aka “Scouts”) in Cincinnati, Detroit, Nashville, Raleigh-Durham or St. Louis. These are part-time, hourly jobs, but they look pretty cool – might even be a good fit for a current college student. The e-mail addresses that you should send a resume and cover letter to are different for each job, so be sure to check out Yelp’s fantastic jobs page for those details. You may also want to take a look at the Yelp Blog or Flickr account for a deeper look at what it’s like to work at Yelp.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

When could Yelp have saved you from a not so great restaurant? Tell us about it.

woot!

Willy Franzen — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 13:00:11 +0000

When I was a kid in elementary school, our teacher asked us to have a book at our desk to read during short periods of downtime. If a lesson finished a little early and she couldn’t think of something to do with a class of fourth graders, we picked up our books and started reading. Most kids had fun story books to read, but for some reason (probably because it was already in my desk and I didn’t feel like finding another book) my book was a pocket dictionary. While other kids were reading about the adventures of some imaginary character, I was looking up words to craft my comebacks when I was inevitably made fun of. I wish the word w00t had existed back then, not because it would have been particularly useful in my fourth grade reading level verbal counterattacks, but because I think my classmates would have realized that reading a dictionary can’t be all bad if you can find words like w00t.

w00t, alternately spelled woot or woot! and never capitalized, was selected as the 2007 Word of the Year by Merriam-Webster. Beyond being a great word, woot! is also an online retailer that sells only one item each day – just like we only post one job a day, and Merriam-Webster has a word of the day. Speaking of fun things to do on the Merriam-Webster website, try typing in curse words, clicking on the little speaker icon, and listening to the computer generated voice say the bad word as it is meant to be pronounced. Sorry, I’ll focus. So, woot! is a business based entirely on selling one item a day (typically the items are refurbished, overstock, or just need to be liquidated), which is actually a fascinating concept. Back in 2004, the New York Times wrote an article on woot! because of woot!’s amazing ability to sell out of an item in hours, when it would take a traditional retailer months to get rid of the same item. Basically, woot! sells crap at a great price in a fun way, and it works.

Speaking of crap. woot! occasionally sells what is called a “bag of crap,” although it may be identified as a boring office career, bodacious orange cooler, or bandolier of carrots – you get the idea. A bag of crap can be ordered for 3 bucks + 5 bucks for shipping. That gets you one bag, three craps. Often, the bag of crap has the most worthless items you could possibly imagine an inventory liquidator sending you; however, the rare bag of crap will contain some insane item like a huge television or a Nintendo Wii. Obviously, the bags of crap sell out in minutes and bring woot!’s server to a fast, painless death – like being run over, backed up over, and then run over again. Bags of crap are often found during woot! offs, when woot! decides to sell more than one item per day and lists a new item instantly after the previous item sells out.

As weird as woot! may sound, it’s become really popular. They have shirt.woot, wine.woot, and sellout.woot as offshoots of the original woot!. In fact, woot! has become more of a community than an online retailer. Yes, there are woot! fanatics, and they’ve created a woot! Wikipedia entry that can give you the complete rundown on the woot! culture.

So, obviously there’s a reason that we’re talking about woot!. They’re hiring. They reminded us in a recent blog post, and that little announcement in our RSS reader was enough to get us to give them a look. woot! as a company has a great sense of humor, so if you’re not funny, get funny, or don’t apply. They also don’t seem like the hand-holding type, so if you want to be coddled through the application process (or when you buy an item online), woot! is not the right company for you. They are pretty clear that customer service isn’t their strongpoint, and we’ll make the guess that HR isn’t either. With that said, their job descriptions (and product descriptions) are funnier than that kid that you went to middle school with who was convinced he was going to become a comedian, but has since fallen off the face of the Earth. It’s definitely worth a look, if only for entertainment purposes. woot! wants local candidates only for their positions, but if you’re open to living in Dallas, Texas, then give it a go anyways. Open positions include Accounting/Administrative/Executive Assistant, Programmer (St. Louis, MO or Dallas, TX), Shirt.woot Production Admin, Member Services Representative, and a Wholesale Sales Representative (Inside Sales Rep). It’s amazing what a little humor does for a job description.

Now go find a way to work the word “w00t” into your resume. We’d prefer it in the exclamatory sense, but prior work experience will suffice.

Note: On April 24th we revisited entry-level jobs at woot!

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

woot! We just felt like saying it one more time.