One Day, One Job » nationwide

Hostess Brands

Willy Franzen — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 15:55:09 +0000

I’ve failed you. After two years of getting it right, I forgot to do a post for Pi Day yesterday. In 2008 we looked at jobs at Pi Media, and in 2009 we looked at jobs with The Mathematical Association of America. So, what does the guy who is late for the Pi Day party do when he was supposed to bring the pie? He obviously goes the Hostess Brands route—the cheapest and easiest way to get Fruit Pies at the last minute (I guess McDonald’s is your other option). It may not be like the pies that your grandma makes (my grandma makes an awesome Chocolate Dream Pie), but it gets the job done. And if you don’t like the Fruit Pies, you can rely on other favorites from the Irving, TX based baking company like Twinkies, Hostess Cupcakes, Sno Balls, Ding Dongs, HoHos, and even Wonder Bread for those of you who are lacking a sweet tooth.

Be Their Guest

From what I can tell, Hostess Brands (Hostess and Wonder Bread) is owned by a company called Interstate Bakeries, which is going through some financial problems, but with that said, it appears that Hostess Brands still has plenty of job opportunities. The company may not be seeing growth like some companies that take a healthier approach to food are seeing, but Hostess and Wonder Bread are still iconic American brands. If it sounds like a brand that you might want to be a part of, then you can check out Hostess Brands’ Jobs page. Their job postings are all over the place—both in terms of location and fields (the Hostess Brands Operations Center is based in Kansas City, MO). There don’t appear to be many corporate positions posted, but there are Sales and Business Development positions from all across the country. You can apply for any of the positions online, so grab a Twinkie and start browsing.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

What’s your favorite Hostess Brands treat?

NetJets

Willy Franzen — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 15:36:24 +0000

If I ever make a ridiculous amount of money, the first thing that I’m going to do is buy a private jet—or at least a share in one. It seems like the ultimate way to travel. I’ve been on private planes before, but they had propellers and I was sitting next to or right behind the pilot (not nearly as classy). NetJets is a company that allows wealthy individuals and businesses to buy shares in private jets (since who really needs an entire jet to himself or herself?). They also have a subscription service called MarquisJet that lets you get a guaranteed number of hours of private jet use. It may not make private air travel affordable or cost effective, but it certainly puts it within reach for a lot more people. NetJets is by far the market leader, and they’re also a Berkshire Hathaway company. You know if Warren Buffett is investing in it, it has to be pretty good. NetJets is based in Columbus, OH, but quite obviously they operate all over the world.

Be a NetJetter

Even Warren Buffett thinks that private jet travel is a ridiculous luxury, but that didn’t stop him from becoming a customer and then buying the company when the time was right. The truth is that commercial airline travel is a pain in the butt, and many people will pay exorbitant costs to avoid it. Even if energy costs get continue to grow, you have to like the future of NetJets. Assuming that you aren’t morally opposed to private air travel, you should check out NetJets’s Jobs page. It’s split in to three sections: Pilots, Flight Attendants, and Corporate Positions. We’ll look at the latter since that’s most likely to have good fits for new grads. There are 15 jobs posted right now, and a few appear to be suitable for new grads. These include IT Business Analyst, Prospect Development Specialist (Teetorboro, NJ), and Technical Marketing Analyst. You can apply online, but we can’t link you directly to the job descriptions because NetJets uses a crappy applicant tracking system.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Have you ever flown on a NetJet?

Feeding America

Willy Franzen — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 14:35:12 +0000

Some of the most effective non-profits are the ones that work at a local level; however, the non-profits that operate at the national level usually have a much easier time raising money. Feeding America is a non-profit that is able to take advantage of both these facts by using a network model. Based in Chicago, they are “the nation’s leading domestic hunger-relief charity.” They’re able to do this by operating “a nationwide network of member food banks.” This network of more than 200 food banks across every state distributes “more than 2.5 billion pounds of food and grocery products annually.” Those are numbers that are hard to get your mind around.

Feeding Your Job Search

Feeding America used to be known as America’s Second Harvest. They changed their name in 2008 to better convey their mission and generate awareness—I think that they made a good choice. Feeding people isn’t complicated; it’s one of oldest charity ideas around. Doing it on the scale that Feeding America does is different. It’s not necessarily complicated, but it’s extremely impressive. What I find amazing is that Feeding America is able to provide 7 people with meals for every dollar donated. That is an outstanding return on investment. If you’re as impressed by Feeding America as I am, you should check out their Careers page and browse their Job openings. Right now they have a few positions that seem like they might be good fits for new grads. These include Programs Specialist (Washington, DC) and Programs Coordinator. The job descriptions do say that they’re looking for people with 3 years of experience, but I think that new grads should still give these positions a shot. They have application instructions at the end of each job description. Additionally, Feeding America posts jobs from their network, so you may want to check those out too.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

What do you know about Feeding America?

American Red Cross

Willy Franzen — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 13:07:32 +0000

By now I’m sure that you’ve all heard about the earthquake in Haiti. It’s the kind of tragedy that most of us will never be able to understand no matter how much we see about it on television or read about it in the newspaper. It is a worst case scenario for millions of people. The one positive thing to come out of this disaster is the response from the rest of the world—it shows that compassion is an overwhelmingly human trait. One of the organizations that is most associated with disaster response is the American Red Cross; in fact, “compassionate services” is what they do. In addition to disaster relief, they also work on: “community services that help the needy; support and comfort for military members and their families; the collection, processing and distribution of lifesaving blood and blood products; educational programs that promote health and safety; and international relief and development programs.” While headquartered in Washington, DC, the American Red Cross has hundreds of local chapters across the country—it’s almost a certainty that there is one near you.

Compassionate Careers

If you look hard enough, you can find opportunity in nearly every situation. The earthquake in Haiti provides a tremendous opportunity to make a difference. There is so much that needs to be done, and, thankfully, the outpouring of donations from concerned people around the world will help to fund the work. The world of non-profit work has changed over the past week as projects directed towards helping Haiti have taken priority over other work. If you’ve been motivated by the earthquake in Haiti to look towards a non-profit career, then the American Red Cross might be the place to look. They have numerous opportunities at the local level (way too many for me to list here), along with opportunities at their headquarters in DC. If you’re interested in working at a local chapter, then check out this page to help you find the chapter closest to your desired location. You can also use the Red Cross’ job search function to sort through the 322 positions that they currently have listed. There are plenty of jobs for new college grads all across the country, so use this terrible situation to motivate yourself to make a difference.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Have you made a donation for Haiti earthquake victims?

Caribou Coffee

Willy Franzen — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 15:55:49 +0000

It’s Christmas Eve—the day… err… night… that Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer made a name for himself. We give Santa Claus all of the credit for delivering presents all across the world, but it’s those reindeer that are doing the hard part. Here in North America, we have reindeer just like the ones that pull Santa’s sleigh, but they’re known as caribou. Since I can’t think of any companies using reindeer in their brand name, that led me to Caribou Coffee. I’m not a coffee drinker, so I don’t typically patronize Caribou Coffee, but I figured that a company with 6,000 employees would have to have some interesting entry level opportunities. The company is based in Minneapolis, MN, and has 500 retail locations in 16 states along with the District of Columbia. Caribou Coffee’s mission “is to provide a total experience that makes the day better,” and they’re able to do that for a lot of people by serving great coffee.

Then One Cloudy Christmas Eve…

Whether you’re in the Christmas Spirit or you’re being a total scrooge, there’s a decent chance that a job at Caribou Coffee might be the perfect way for you to start off the new year. The company does a really nice job with their Careers page, as it lays out all of the options that you have: Team Member (Store Level), Shift Supervisor (Store Level), Corporate Support Center Positions, Store Manager, District Manager, and Corporate Positions. They give a nice rundown of what the jobs entail along with a list of benefits. I’d imagine that most of you are more interested in the Corporate stuff than the Store level stuff; however, there isn’t anything that screams entry level to me on their corporate postings. That means that you have three options if you want to work at Caribou Coffee: start at a store, wait for something more suitable to be posted, or hope for a Christmas miracle (try cold calling!). Good luck.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Do you drink Caribou Coffee?

Kate Spade

Willy Franzen — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 13:49:41 +0000

I can’t remember whether it was late in my middle school years or early in my high school years, but there were certainly a couple of years in the late 90s when Kate Spade was as hot as could be. Whether it was a wallet, calendar, or other accessories from the New York based fashion designer, the girls in my classes went crazy for them. At that point in my life, I wasn’t the most fashion conscious kid, so I probably thought Five Star binders were still cool. Despite my ignorance of fashion back then, even I knew what Kate Spade was. Since Kate Brosnahan started her line in 1993, her company has grown exceptionally. Hallmarked by “utility, wit and playful sophistication,” Kate Spade’s offering includes handbags, shoes, accesories, clothing, jewelry, baby items, fragrance, glasses, and even paper. The company now runs 46 retail shops and continues to be a huge name in the fashion industry.

Are You Playfully Sophisticated?

Despite my use of capitalization in this post, Kate Spade is a brand that seems allergic to capital letters. It’s a big part of their branding, and it’s widely recognizable. Since fashion is all about branding, it’s no surprise that most people wouldn’t notice that Kate Spade was purchased by Liz Claiborne in 2009. It appears that Kate Spade continues to run itself separately, and that becomes even more evident when you look at Kate Spade’s Jobs page. They have quite a few opportunities available, and a number of them seem perfectly suited to new grads. There are a ton of retail positions, but we’re just going to focus on the corporate positions like E-commerce Coordinator, Assistant Buyer, and International Marketing Assistant. You can apply for these positions directly from the job postings, so give them look and see if they fit.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Do you own any Kate Spade?

Mars

Willy Franzen — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 15:02:10 +0000

Tomorrow is Halloween, which means that we need to talk about candy today. We’ve already looked at companies like Jelly Belly, The Hershey Company, Charles Chocolates, Vosges, and Just Born Quality Confections. We’ve also discussed jobs at Mars & Co., which is a consulting firm, and not to be confused with Mars, the CPG and candy company. You probably know them best for M&M’s, Snickers, Dove, Milky Way, Twix, and Mars bar; however, they’re also behind Pedigree, Whiskas, Uncle Ben’s, and quite a few other brands. For your sake I hope you only run into the good stuff and not Whiskas or Pedigree during your trick-or-treating. While headquartered in McLean, VA, Mars has locations all across the world. They’re a huge company with a ton of international business, which makes for a great place to gain some experience.

Take a Trip to Mars

It all started in 1911 with butter cream candies in a kitchen in Tacoma, WA. Frank C. Mars and his wife started selling these candies, and now you’d be hard pressed to find a person who has never tasted one of his company’s confections. If you’d like to be part of this true American success story, then you need to check out Mars’ Careers page. They offer a lot of information about their company and what it’s like to work for them, and they even have a separate section for students. It seems that most of the information that they provide is on International careers, but they have a job search function that will let you find what you’re looking for. And since you’re in the trick-or-treating mood, I’m going to leave that up to you—but just so you know, they have job opportunities in areas including Engineering, Finance, Human Resources, Information Technology, Logisitcs, Manufacturing, Marketing, Purchasing, Research & Development, & Sales.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

What’s your favorite candy from Mars?

Best Shot Foundation

Willy Franzen — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 13:56:19 +0000

Some of the most fun that I had during college was playing in a charity dodgeball tournament. My team was doing really well until we ran into a team of future NHL players, pitchers from the baseball team, and some former softball players (they threw underhand, and they threw hard) in the semifinals. That match was pretty ugly, but even when you lose at dodgeball, you have fun. We’ve seen dodgeball gaining more and more popularity, and with that trend we’ve seen more and more non-profits using dodgeball to raise funds. Best Shot Foundation is a Washington, DC based non-profit that is doing just this. They’re an organization that is focused on bringing attention to the fact “that pneumonia kills more young children than any other disease,” and then doing something about it.

Give It Your Best Shot

Even here in America pneumonia can be a major problem for people—especially those whose immune systems are compromised in some way. However, across the world it’s a much bigger problem. According to UNICEF:

Pneumonia kills more children than any other illness—more than AIDS, malaria and measles combined. Over 2 million children die from pneumonia each year, accounting for almost 1 in 5 under-five deaths worldwide. Yet, little attention is paid to this disease.

That’s a startling statistic. Best Shot Foundation is focused on fixing this problem by focusing on “the belief that increased public commitment will drive increased health resource allocation.” They’re getting things started by organizing dodgeball tournaments at college campuses across the country. I love the idea, and I think that you should help. Since Best Shot Foundation is a startup non-profit, they don’t appear to have any full-time, permanent jobs right now, but they are hiring 16 Regional Tournament Organizers to take on the challenge of running these tournaments. Since finding a job is so tough now, this is a perfect stopgap position to gain some experience for your résumé and show off your skills and abilities. And it could turn into something permanent if Best Shot Foundation continues to grow. You need to do more than just send a résumé to apply, so check out all of the requirements in the job description before applying.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Have you ever played in a dodgeball tournament?

U.S. Department of Labor

Willy Franzen — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 15:02:13 +0000

Having graduated from Cornell’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations, I spent a lot of time learning about work, employment, and labor issues during my undergraduate days. While most people think that Labor Day is all about the end of summer (sorry!) and not being able to wear white anymore, my school ensured that I was made more aware of the history of Labor Day. Oddly enough, ILR didn’t give us the day off from classes, but they did excuse us from classes if we went to a big Labor Day celebration with speakers from major unions. If that sounds like something that would interest you, then maybe you’ll want to check out jobs with the U.S. Department of Labor. There isn’t a more suitable employer to feature on Labor Day than our Federal Government’s Cabinet department responsible for promoting “the welfare of the job seekers, wage earners, and retirees of the United States.”

A Labor of Love

Maybe I’m unique in being fascinated by the world of work, but I think that the issues surrounding employment and labor are going to continue to play a huge role in our economic (and quite possibly cultural) history. The Federal Government has built itself a significant role in these issues through the Department of Labor, and with nearly 20,000 employees I don’t think the DOL is going anywhere in the near future. The scope of what the DOL does for our country’s workers includes:

improving their working conditions, advancing their opportunities for profitable employment, protecting their retirement and health care benefits, helping employers find workers, strengthening free collective bargaining, and tracking changes in employment, prices, and other national economic measurements.

This creates all kinds of cool jobs for people who are interested in employment issues. From Statistician to Industrial Hygienist, the range of positions at the Department of Labor is extremely wide. Since you most likely have the day off, you’ll get the pleasure of browsing through the DOL’s Job openings yourself, since there are too many for me to list here. Before you do that, though, you may want to check out the DOL’s Reference Guide for College Students entitled Starting Your Career at the U.S. Department of Labor. It’s not flashy, but it will walk you through the process of getting a job at the DOL.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

How are you celebrating Labor Day?

WWE (formerly WWF)

Willy Franzen — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 14:28:55 +0000

Yesterday I was amused by a friend’s Facebook status that said: “just had a revelation: Obama sounds like Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson.” I instantly imagined Barack Obama shirtless, yelling into a microphone, “Do you smellllllllllll what Barack is cooking?” Apparently SNL had a similar idea. That got me thinking about WWE (formerly the WWF), where The Rock first became famous. I was never a huge fan of professional wrestling, but I must admit to having watched on occasion. My little sister, on the other hand, was a huge fan. At about six years old she decided to be Hulk Hogan for Halloween. It was priceless. Back then they were the WWF, but a spate with World Wide Fund for Nature in 2000 resulted in a lawsuit and eventually a name change. WWE is located in Stamford, CT, just 20 minutes or so from my home town, and is a billion dollar business. Unfortunately, they haven’t been immune to layoffs, but they seem to have some great job opportunities right now.

Body Slam Your Way into a New Job

One thing that surprised me when I started doing research on World Wrestling Entertainment was the fact that they aim for a PG rating with all of their content. They put a huge emphasis on being family friendly because kids are such a huge part of their fan base. This philosophy runs throughout WWE’s five business units: Live and Televised Entertainment, Consumer Products, Digital Media, WWE Studios, and Sales & Sponsorships. If you’ve always loved professional wrestling and think that a career with WWE would be action packed, then you need to check out WWE’s Careers site. There are a bunch of job openings that can be considered entry level including Business Analyst (Stamford, CT), Live Event Marketing Rep (based anywhere in the U.S.), Motion Graphic Designer (Stamford, CT), On-Air Talent (Stamford, CT), and Writer Assistant (Stamford, CT). You can apply for all of these jobs online, so start practicing your body slams and elbow drops.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Who is/was your favorite wrestler?

Girl Scouts of the USA

Willy Franzen — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 15:30:12 +0000

Last night I enjoyed one of my favorite Summer treats—a Dairy Queen Blizzard. Now, this wasn’t just any Blizzard. This was a Tagalong Blizzard. If you’re not familiar with Tagalongs, then you’re missing out. They are my favorite Girl Scout cookie. And that brings me to the Girl Scouts of the USA, which is a New York City non-profit organization that you probably know best for pushing cookies. Obviously, the cookies have little to do with what the Girl Scouts of the USA are all about, but the funds raised from selling the cookies enable the organization to continue to pursue its mission of being “the world’s preeminent organization dedicated solely to girls—all girls—where, in an accepting and nurturing environment, girls build character and skills for success in the real world.”

Scouting Out the Job Market

Since the Girl Scouts of the USA started in Savannah, GA in 1912, they have touched the lives of more than 50 million women and have sold billions of boxes of cookies. Those are some unbelievable numbers! Whether you are a Girl Scout alum or just someone who has enjoyed the cookies, a career with the Girl Scouts is definitely worth considering. They have quite a few jobs at their New York City headquarters, and they also have job listings for their regional chapters on their Careers site. Some positions at the corporate headquarters include Associate Web Producer, Web Developer, Writer/Editor, and Web Designer/Programmer. I’ll leave checking out the positions with the local chapters and regional offices up to you.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Were you ever a Girl Scout?

CB Richard Ellis

Willy Franzen — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 14:55:21 +0000

Considering the fact that I drove by a house in Michigan that was on sale for $12,500 just a few days ago, it’s pretty obvious that the real estate market still has some rebounding to do. There has been a lot of hurt in the industry over the past couple years, but maybe things are looking up. A friend who works at CB Richard Ellis let me know about a position that they’re trying to fill, and after I checked their Careers page I saw that they’re hiring for more than 200 positions. Considering the fact that they just went through a round of layoffs at the end of last year, I’d say all those job postings is probably a good sign for where the company (and maybe the economy?) is going. If you have heard of CB Richard Ellis before, you should know that they’re headquartered in Los Angeles and they’re “the world’s largest commercial real estate services firm (in terms of 2008 revenue).” Clearly $12,500 houses aren’t a problem for them.

Be with CBRE

CB Richard Ellis is a huge company. Not only are they world’s revenue leader in commercial real estate, but they also happen to have somewhere in the neighborhood of 30,000 employees and 300 offices. That makes finding an entry level job with them a little bit intimidating. It’s hard to know where to start, especially when they don’t have anything tailored to recent grads on their site. They do have a Career Paths section on their site, but it only allows you to self-select as Experience Professional or MBA. Neither of those pages offers much information that would be helpful to a recent grad. This means that we’re going to have to dive into the dreaded job search function to find entry level jobs at CBRE.

Unfortunately, CBRE’s job search function doesn’t let us link to specific jobs, and there are 200+ jobs to wade through. CBRE does have jobs all across the country, so getting ultra-specific with your query still should turn up a few results that might interest you. CBRE’s job areas include Administrative/Operations, Business Development, Client Services, Commercial Real Estate, Executive Management, Facilities Management, Finance/Accounting, Human Resources, Legal, Marketing/PR/Communications, Project Management, Property Management, Purchasing/Procurement, Research Management, Risk Management, Sales/Brokerage, Technology, and Transaction Management, so there really is something for nearly everyone. There’s also the position that my friend told me about: Marketing Coordinator (.doc file) in Woodbury, NY. You can apply for this specific position by sending your cover letter and résumé to joscelyn.wippern@cbre.com. For other positions you can apply online through CBRE’s Applicant Tracking System, or you can apply through e-mail to cbreresume@cbre.com. If you still have questions about the CBRE hiring process you can check out their Careers FAQ.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

What do you know about CBRE?

National Park Service

Willy Franzen — Mon, 25 May 2009 14:37:02 +0000

Memorial Day is one of my favorite holidays—not only because it signifies the start of summer, but also because I love small town patriotism. My hometown always has a fantastic parade that is often accompanied by a fighter jet fly over. Now, today’s employer may not immediately make you think of Memorial Day like last year’s did (it was Weber-Stephen, the manufacturer of my favorite charcoal grills), but you’ll realize pretty quickly why the National Park Service is a great choice for today. Not only are some of the parks that they manage great places to celebrate the Memorial Day weekend outdoors, but they’re also responsible for quite a few memorials including The Marine Corps War Memorial, The Vietnam Veterans Memorial, The Korean War Veterans Memorial, and The World War II Memorial. Memorial Day is really about our fallen heroes, and the National Park Service is constantly working to honor them by maintaining and managing our memorials.

Celebrate Memorial Day All Year Long

If you love Memorial Day as much as I do, then a job with the National Park Service might be something worth thinking about. Whether you love the outdoors and want to be at Yosemite, love history and want to be at Lincoln’s Boyhood Home, or love our country and want to be at one of the memorials, you’ll have plenty of options. The NPS is constantly working to preserve “unimpaired the natural and cultural resources and values of the national park system for the enjoyment, education, and inspiration of this and future generations.” So, how do you land a job with them? You can start at the NPS Jobs page (it has some awesome photos from the 70s), but that will dump you into USAJobs.gov—use this link so that you only see jobs posted from the NPS. There are 163 jobs posted right now, and many of them are entry level, so we’re not going to wade through all of them for you, but you should know that the NPS typically hires in the following areas: Administration, Health and Safety, Archeology, History, Architecture, Human Resources, Biological Sciences, Landscape Architecture, Community Planning, Maintenance and Facility Management, Concessions, Natural Resources, Contracting, Park Police, Cultural Resources, Park Ranger (Protection), Engineering, Park Ranger (Interpretation), Financial Management, Park Site Interpretation, Firefighting, Physical Sciences, and Fire Management. That should help you direct your search on the USAJobs.gov site a little better. Applying for government jobs can be tricky, so be sure to pay very close attention to the details before you send in your application.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

What’s your favorite National Park/

American Lung Association

Willy Franzen — Sun, 03 May 2009 14:46:00 +0000

Yesterday I got some bad news. A good friend and one of the best people in the fly fishing community was diagnosed with lung cancer a few months ago. It’s not a pretty picture, but if anyone can beat it, it’s him. Since he’s been on my mind since yesterday, I thought it would only be appropriate to take a look at the American Lung Association today. They’re a nationwide non-profit organization that aims to “save lives by improving lung health and preventing lung disease.” Whether it’s a lifelong smoker who is facing a life and death situation or a kid who is growing up with asthma (like me), the American Lung Association is there to help – mostly “through research, education and advocacy.”

Breathe Easy with These Jobs

Another reason that I decided to feature the American Lung Association is that a reader e-mailed me to rave about her internship with the organization. That’s always a good sign! The American Lung Association has locations all across the country – there are local chapters and regional offices as well. I’m not sure if you can approach them individually about jobs, but I do know that the American Lung Association’s Jobs page includes jobs in a variety of locations. Right now the entry level pickings are kind of slim. There are positions in Accounting and Software Development/IT, but they’re probably a little too advanced for a new grad. There are also a couple of volunteer positions (one in Customer Service Coordination and one in Administrative Coordination) that you might want to consider. I don’t normally recommend that, but after hearing about a Found Your Career student who volunteered his way into a contract job, I think it might be worth trying. How you apply depends on which position you’re going for, so head over to the American Lung Association’s to get all of the details. And remember, it’s pretty easy to track down contact info for people at the organization, so you may want to go that route to find information about more entry level opportunities.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

What do you know about the American Lung Association?

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?

Battelle Memorial Institute

Willy Franzen — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 15:55:03 +0000

We’re always on the look out for different kinds of non-profit jobs to feature on weekends, and today we’ve certainly found some. Battelle Memorial Institute is a Columbus, OH based organization that looks very much like a business – their tagline is even “the business of innovation” – but they are actually “organized for charitable, scientific, and educational purposes.” They have 5 main areas of focus – Energy, Health & Life Sciences, National Security & Defense, Laboratory Management, and Community & Education – which means that they do all kinds of things to further their vision of building “long-term relationships with their clients by anticipating their needs and delivering economically and socially valuable science and technology.”

A Battelle You Can Win

The Battelle Memorial Institute is named for Ohio industrialist Gordon Battelle. He “did not live to see his vision realized, but believed in it so strongly that others continue to make it a reality” through the gifts taht he left in his will. It all started with “a few machine shops and foundries,” but Battelle now “oversees 20,000 staff members and conducts $3.9 billion in annual research and development.” They work with all kinds of clients including federeral, state, and local government agencies; large corporations; private sector customers; and other partners. It’s still hard to put a finger on exactly what they do, but taking a look at their job listings will give you a more specific idea of the types of projects that they work on. You can search their jobs here, and you’ll notice that they have 127 open positions as of today. Since there are so many jobs and they are so background specific, we’re going to leave finding the jobs up to you today. Their job listings should be pretty easy to scan, and they vary widely in location. Battelle is hiring in locations all across the country, and you can apply for the jobs online.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

What do you know about Battelle?

lululemon athletica

Willy Franzen — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 15:57:32 +0000

When I graduated from college a semester early and started thinking about looking for a job (thinking about doing something and doing something are very different, by the way), I quickly became overwhelmed by my lack of time commitments and lack of a plan. I was suffering from too much freedom, so my first response to join a gym and to commit to keeping my body strong while I figured out what I was going to do with my brain. It was a great idea, and I strongly recommend a gym membership for all job seekers. (I also strongly recommend that all first-time job seekers take our online job search training course). Anyway, I always try to join a relatively expensive gym, but not for the obvious reason. I don’t care about all of the frivolities. I just know that if I’m paying $10 a month for a gym, I’m a lot less likely to go – I need to feel invested. With expensive gyms come lots of people in expensive, designer workout outfits. That’s where I learned about lululemon athletica, a Vancouver, British Columbia based manufacturer and retailer of “yoga-inspired athletic apparel.” Everyone at my gym is wearing lululemon, and the retail stores around here are packed, so it’s no big surprise that they’re hiring.

Find a Job That Fits Like Yoga Pants

I didn’t realize how big lululemon athletica is until I started doing some research. They’re publicly traded on NASDAQ (although their stock has tumbled big time over the past year), and they have 260 jobs (many with multiple openings) posted on their Careers site right now. Most of the jobs are based out of lululemon athletica’s retail stores and fall under three titles – Educator, Community Leader, and Key Leader. Beyond these titles other jobs include Video/Motion Designer, Seamstress, Quality Assurance Technician, and Distribution Industrial Engineer. You can find all of lululemon athletica’s job postings here, and you can apply online for any of the positions. The retail positions are located all across North America and beyond, while the corporate positions are all in Vancouver, BC. lululemon athletica has a great website that is filled with information, so the links below will give you a ton of insight into what it’s like to work for lululemon.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Do you own any lululemon?

American Heart Association

Willy Franzen — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 13:06:17 +0000

If your sweetheart is out of a job this Valentine’s Day, then give him or her a gift that shows that you really care. Chocolates, flowers, and jewelry only bring temporary satisfaction, but there’s nothing more satisfying (besides a relationship with you, of course) than a job that you love. Enroll your sweetheart in Found Your Career (our online job search training course) today.

So far my Valentine’s Day related posts have been mostly about consumerism (ProFlowers, OpenTable, eHarmony, Tiffany & Co, and Vosges); however, since Valentine’s Day fell on a weekend this year, I had to find a Cupid approved non-profit. Since today is all about hearts, I thought that it’d be fitting to talk about jobs with American Heart Association. In case it’s not obvious, they’re a non-profit organization devoted to cardiovascular health. Their mission is to “build healthier lives, free of cardiovascular diseases and stroke.” It’s a simple mission, but it’s not an easy one. Since Valentine’s Day is really about the people whom we love, it’s fitting that we’re talking about an organization that is working to make sure that our loved ones are around and healthy for as long as possible.

Follow Your Heart to a New Job

American Heart Association has locations all across the country and a wide variety of job offerings. The job search function on their website is very easy to use, and it shows that they currently have 66 job openings. They are by no means all entry level, but there appear to be plenty of opportunities for new college grads. Administrative and Development seem to be popular areas for them right now, but there are other jobs as well. Make sure that you don’t overlook the positions with “Director” in the title. Usually jobs like those require significant experience, but the sampling that I looked at typically required 2+ years of experience, which might include some of you. There are literally jobs in ever state, so take a look and apply through their online process. If you have any questions about how to apply, check their FAQ.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Who’s your valentine?

NOAA

Willy Franzen — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 15:13:00 +0000

Happy Groundhog Day! Unfortunately, it looks like we’re headed for 6 more weeks of winter according to Punxsutawney Phil. That really aggravates me, so I think that I’m done trusting the rodent for my weather prediction. Last year we recommended that you consider working for the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club, but this year we want you to actually be able to predict the weather. That’s why we want you to take a look at entry level jobs with the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration. NOAA is a government agency “that enriches life through science,” which makes them almost the exact opposite of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club. NOAA’s responsibilities range from “daily weather forecasts, severe storm warnings and climate monitoring to fisheries management, coastal restoration and supporting marine commerce.” In fact, “NOAA’s products and services support economic vitality and affect more than one-third of America’s gross domestic product.”

From the Bottom of the Sea to the Surface of the Sun

NOAA has a great video that does a nice job of telling their story, so we thought we’d spare you some reading and embed it below. (If you’re reading via e-mail or RSS, you might need to click through to view the video).

classid="clsid:02BF25D5-8C17-4B23-BC80-D3488ABDDC6B"
codebase="http://www.apple.com/qtactivex/qtplugin.cab"> autoplay="false" controller="false"
pluginspage="http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/">

So what about entry level jobs with NOAA? You can find all kinds of information about working at NOAA on their Careers page. Unfortunately their Recruitment Events Calendar hasn’t been updated lately, but you can still check out their Career Fields and What NOAA Has to Offer pages. What you’re really looking for though – NOAA’s Jobs, you can find on USAJobs.gov. Right now they have 63 jobs posted in fields ranging from Computer Science to Fisheries Biology and from Program Specialist to Service Hydrologist. They list jobs by salary grade, which makes identifying entry level opportunities pretty easy. The jobs are located all across the country, so location depends on what’s available. You can apply online directly from the job listings on the USAJobs.gov site, so if you love earth sciences, there are probably some jobs for you. Beyond the USAJobs.gov site, there’s also a Student Opportunities page that links to Fellowships that may interest new grads.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Do you think Punxsutawney Phil was right?

United States Secret Service

Willy Franzen — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 15:54:33 +0000

Yesterday was a holiday for a lot of people, and I’m going to guess that not a lot is going to get done today because everyone will be watching the inauguration. Many of you will probably try to use holidays and events as a way to put off your daily job searching, but here at One Day, One Job we try to make the most out of these situations by using them to generate ideas. Yesterday we look at jobs at The King Center, and today we’re going to check out jobs with the United States Secret Service. Why? Because today is a big day for the Secret Service. Managing security at an event like the Presidential Inauguration is a daunting task, but the Secret Service is at their best for events like this. That’s why we instantly thought of them when we tried to come up with some Inauguration related jobs.

It’s No Secret That the Secret Service Is Hiring

Although you probably know that the Secret Service is entrusted with protecting the President and other government leaders, you may not know that they have a dual mission:

The mission of the United States Secret Service is to safeguard the nation’s financial infrastructure and payment systems to preserve the integrity of the economy, and to protect national leaders, visiting heads of state and government, designated sites and National Special Security Events.

In fact, the Secret Service was actually created in 1865 to suppress counterfeit currency. It wasn’t until 1902 when the Secret Service took on the task of full-time protection of the President with 2 (yes, 2) full-time operatives. Since then, the Protection Mission has grown quite a bit. That’s why it’s no big surprise that the United States Secret Service is hiring.

The Secret Service’s Jobs page does a nice job of outlining the types of jobs that they offer. These include Special Agent, Uniformed Division Officer, Professional & Administrative, Technical, Administrative Support & Clerical, Technical Security, and Cooperative Education Employment Opportunity. These aren’t job opening – just the types of jobs that are typically available. To see the job openings at the Secret Service, you have to head over to the USAJobs site. There are currently 21 openings, and quite a few of them look they might interest new grads. The Secret Service also offers Career Fairs for their Field Offices and Temporary Employment for students who are working their way through school. There are opportunities in Washington, DC and all across the country, so do some research and see if a life in the Secret Service is something that you’d be interested in.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Are you watching the Inauguration?

Office of the Comptroller of the Currency

Willy Franzen — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 15:42:58 +0000

If there’s ever a time to be a Bank Examiner, it is right now. What probably would have been considered a boring job just a couple of years ago is now action packed. What is a Bank Examiner? It’s the entry level position at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. What’s the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency? It’s a bureau of the the U.S. Department of the Treasury that was chartered in 1863 to ensure a safe and sound national banking system for all Americans. How do they do that? They have a nationwide staff that “conducts on-site reviews of national banks and provides sustained supervision of bank operations. The agency issues rules, legal interpretations, and corporate decisions concerning banking, bank investments, bank community development activities, and other aspects of bank operations.” I think that it’s pretty obvious that the OCC has become a lot busier in the past couple of years. That’s why now is a great time to check out their entry level hiring program.

Are You Down with OCC?

There’s a lot to learn about OCC before you apply for a job, so you should probably spend a couple of hours on OCC.Treas.gov, if you’re serious about applying. If you’re not quite so serious yet, but you’re intrigued about what an entry level Bank Examiner does, then you should watch the OCC’s Careers Video. It’s a nice introduction to what the OCC does and what it’s like to work for them. After watching that, you should check out their Bank Examiner Careers page. This goes into great detail about the specific position that they typically hire new grads for. The jobs require a degree in “accounting, banking, business administration, commercial or banking law, economics, finance, marketing, or closely-related field from an accredited U.S. institution” or extremely relevant prior work experience. The OCC is based out of Washington, DC; however, they have locations all across the country and often require travel (30-80%) because Bank Examiners are often working in Community Banks. The pay is great, with a starting salary of $47,000, and the benefits are top-notch. It’s no big surprise that the OCC was ranked the 4th Best Place to Work in the Federal Government. The OCC already did some recruiting back in September, but they being recruiting again in February. Keep your eye on the Bank Examiner Careers page to see when they open up applications.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Do you think that we have a safe and sound national banking system right now?

Starwood

Willy Franzen — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 15:42:12 +0000

Having a girlfriend who is a consultant, I’m often subjected to hours of consultant-speak. It’s not really English, as it consists mostly of acronyms. One thing consultants seem to talk about a lot, even though they don’t have an acronym for it, is the American Express Starwood Preferred Guest Card. It’s apparently by far the best credit card for the consulting lifestyle (especially when you work for a firm that almost exclusively puts you up in Starwood hotels). Since I’ve been hearing the Starwood name a lot, and I’ve had a few people recommend their Jobs to me, I thought it was time to take a look at what kind of entry level jobs are available with one of the world’s largest hotel and leisure companies. In case you’re not familiar with the Starwood brand, they’re the company behind Sheraton, Four Points, aloft, W Hotels, Le Meridien, The Luxury Collection, Element, Westin, and St. Regis. All of them are nice places to stay, and a few of them are about as trendy as you can get when it comes to hotels – check out aloft.

Be a Star at Starwood

Starwood gets hospitality. They also get entry level recruiting. They make it dead simple for college students and new grads to figure out how to land a job with them. They have a College Recruiting page that outlines the 4 ways of getting a job with Starwood. You can go through Campus Recruiting or apply online, and you can apply for their Management Training Program or opt for Direct Placement. The Management Training Program seems to be geared towards students who are graduating from hospitality programs, but that’s not explicitly stated as far as I can tell. The program lasts 6-18 months and concludes with placement as an Assistant Manager or Manager in the hotel where the trainee trained. Applications for the Management Training Program haven’t been opened yet, but they say that you will be able to apply online in early 2009. If you go to one of the schools on this list, you’re better off talking to your Career Services office about when Starwood will be on campus than waiting for the online application to be posted.

If the Management Training Program isn’t for you, there’s another option. You can check out Starwood’s Career Paths and apply for Direct Placement. You have to go through a general job search function where you can narrow down from the 1,650 jobs posted by location, hotel, or job title. This is the one area where Starwood’s Careers site stumbles a bit. The job search function isn’t very good. Unless you enter specific criteria, you’re going to be inundated with results that are going to be hard to scan. Still, if you want a job in a posh hotel in an exotic location, that’s the best way to find one.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Have you stayed at any Starwood Hotels?

PricewaterhouseCoopers

Willy Franzen — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 15:48:43 +0000

We’ll be announcing the winner of the HP Magic Giveaway later today on the blog, so be sure to come back to see who won. Now that the contest is over, I’m digging out from under the the 1,000+ e-mails that I’ve received relating to this contest. I’ve come across a number of requests for me to feature certain companies, so I’m going to oblige our fans and start by focusing on PricewaterhouseCoopers and their entry level jobs today. In case you’re not familiar with PwC, you should know that they “provide industry-focused assurance, tax, and advisory services to build public trust and enhance value for clients and their stakeholders.” In other words they work with the biggest companies (seriously) in the world to keep things running smoothly on the back end. In fact, PricewaterhouseCoopers is the third largest privately owned organization in the US, so it makes sense that other large companies trust them. PwC is one of the Big Four (auditors), which means that they’re doing a lot better than the Big Three (auto manufacturers). That doesn’t mean that they’re not feeling the recession, but they still seem to have a very active recruiting presence. For more info on how they’re doing as a company, check out their Global Annual Review for 2008.

PwC Knows How to Tell a Story

One of the cool things about PwC is how important their people are to their bottom line. They have more than 155,000 employees, but it’s not the numbers that makes their people so important. PwC is in the business of offering services, and that means that almost all of their revenue comes directly from labor – not from selling products. This means that instead of investing significant resources into product development, PricewaterhouseCoopers puts it into recruiting. This becomes quite obvious when you take a look at PwC.tv – PwC’s Campus Recruiting Site. PwC doesn’t have the most fascinating story, but they sure know how to tell it.

PwC.tv is unlike any recruiting site that I’ve seen before. It relies almost entirely on video to present PwC’s recruiting message. It might be too much (especially the music when you land on the site), but you have to love the effort. PwC.tv is broken up into 4 channels – Stories, features, and profiles; Surveillance cam: A look inside; Learning annex: Covering current business issues; and Corporate Responsibility. It flows well, but I’d love to see them offer a much more basic introduction. Most students who end up working for PwC are probably already familiar with them (it’s the nature of recruiting in the industry), but I still think that an intro video would be a nice segue into these high information videos.

Much of the information that would be appropriate for an intro can be found in PwC 411, which is a glorified About page for Campus Recruiting. It lays out everything that you could ever want to know about working at PwC, and it’s exactly what we think every Corporate Careers site should have. So what about the jobs? You’re not going to get specific job listings like you do on most sites, because that’s now how PwC recruits. Unlike Ernst & Young, who doesn’t allow online applications, PwC does take online applications. PwC’s entry level jobs are in Assurance, Tax, or Advisory, so you pick your area of interest and go through their web based application process. The other option is to go through campus recruiting, which is probably easily accessible because they visit so many campuses. PwC has locations all over the world, so they’ll find the right job and location for you in their selection process.

There’s a ton more info about PwC on their site, but we have limited space, so we’re going to leave the rest of the research up to you. Since PwC is so huge, we’ve only focused on their US based campus recruiting site, but if you want to check out other types of opportunities in other locations, you can start at their main Careers site.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

What have you heard about entry level jobs at PwC?

HP

Willy Franzen — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 15:53:59 +0000

In case you haven’t already noticed, we announced the beginning of our part of the HP Magic Giveaway contest today. HP has given us $6,000 worth of their products to give away, and we’re giving them all away to one lucky winner. We thought that it would be cool to take a look at HP’s entry level jobs on the same day that the contest launches, but we had an internal debate over whether we should label it a sponsored post or include it with the rest of our posts. The contest is all about paying it forward, and since we haven’t received any compensation from HP for the contest (nor have we had any communication with HP’s HR department either), we thought that we’d send some goodwill back their way by featuring their jobs. Sorry to muddy up the post with this, but I wanted to make sure that we’re staying transparent.

I’m a Mac guy, so when I think about HP, I think about Hewlett-Packard and the clunky PCs that they used to make. Things have changed. They now mostly go by the name HP, and their computers are anything but stodgy. I have an office full of their products (until I have to send them to one of you), and I’m extremely impressed by how innovative they are. Their “technology solutions,” as they like to call them, really stand out from the crowd. I’m also impressed with HP’s approach to social media and buzz marketing. They understand that old media is dying and that they need to find a new way to market their products. What’s better than giving out products to bloggers to review and then having those bloggers giveaway the products during the holiday season? The success of the promotion is yet to be determined, but you have to like the prospect of working for a company that is willing to make a huge investment in trying something new.

Are HP’s Jobs as Magical as Their Products?

HP’s story is their products. If you want to know more about HP, all that you need to do is to head over to HP.com. It’s a consumer focused site, not a corporate site (if you want that, go here), so it’s going to give you a great feel for the direction that HP is moving their business without all of the corporate jargon. If you like what you see, then you should head over to HP’s Jobs site to see if they have any opportunities that are well suited to your background.

As forward thinking as HP seems to be with their products, they don’t seem to have the same attitude towards their recruiting. Their Jobs site is relatively generic, and so is their section for Students and Graduates. They do have a page that provides a list of typical jobs at HP, but it only offers a short blurb about each career path. The main point of HP’s Students and Graduates page is to direct you towards their Job and Internship listings on the right hand side of the page. Unfortunately, both of these links lead to job search pages that deliver no results no matter which query you enter. To actually find Graduate Jobs and Internships with HP, you need to use HP’s main job search page and then used the advanced search function to select Graduate Jobs or Internships. There were 358 results for Graduate Jobs when we checked. These include jobs like IT Infrastructure Consultant, Hardware Engineer, Software Designer, Packaging Engineer, and many more. I recommend that you narrow your search down by using more search criteria to find something that better suits you, since many of the jobs listed are not based in the US. You can apply for these jobs online directly from the job listings that show up in the search results. HP does have another page for US based campus recruitment, but it doesn’t really add too much more information.

So what’s our key takeaway when it comes to entry level jobs with HP? There are a lot of them, but HP’s online recruitment process isn’t very easy to navigate. They need to fix some links so that people don’t think that there aren’t any jobs available, and they need to get some of the people who worked on the HP Magic Giveaway to help them with their recruitment marketing and employment branding.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Don’t forget to enter our HP Magic Giveaway contest.

Ernst & Young

Willy Franzen — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 15:34:14 +0000

Happy Black Friday! May you not get in a fist fight over a discounted video game system or flat screen tv. Today is the official start of the holiday shopping season, and legend has it that it is also the first day of the year that major retailers “go into the black.” For those of you not familiar with accounting terminology, that means that they finally become profitable. Whether or not this is true depends on the retailer, but you have to wonder why a store wouldn’t just open up for November and December and sit dormant the rest of the year if it’s really that bad. Anyway, last year we talked about a major Black Friday retailer, Amazon.com, and their jobs, and today we’re going to go the other way and look at a major accounting firm, Ernst & Young. They might not be the first company that you think of on Black Friday, but you can be sure that they spend a lot of time analyzing the results. And, of course, they do a ton of entry level hiring.

Get a Job and Put Yourself into the Black

Ernst & Young is one of the biggest entry level employers in the world, and even they’re cutting back a little due to economic concerns. Still, between interns and full-time hires they’re looking to hire 5,000 students through college recruiting. That’s astounding. Ernst & Young has a fantastic Careers site with a specific section for students. It’s full of information, so you won’t have trouble researching Ernst & Young. Beyond their own Careers site, EY has also invested a lot of time in making the most of Facebook and Twitter. They really couldn’t do a much better job of keeping job seekers well informed, that’s why we encourage you to go to their site to learn more.

One thing that you won’t notice on Ernst & Young’s Careers Site for Students is job listings. That’s because they don’t have them. A few months ago I had a phone conversation with Dan Black (what a fitting name for today), EY’s Director of Campus Recruiting, and I told him that I couldn’t find the job listings on EY’s Students site. He told me that this was by design. Ernst & Young has specific academic requirements for incoming accountants, so they almost exclusively hire through on-campus recruiting at school’s that offer the type of education that EY is looking for.

Ernst & Young has locations in almost every state and in countries all across the world. If you want to see if they have a location near where you’d like to live, use their interactive map to check. So what should you do to get a job with Ernst & Young if you can’t apply online? The recommended plan of action is to go to your Career Services office and ask about when EY will be on campus. If that doesn’t work for you, you may want to try reaching out to EY’s college recruiting team through Twitter or Facebook. Now go shopping and help the economy, but save some money for our soon to be released job search training course.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

What did you buy today to help retailers go into the black?

Department of Veterans Affairs

Willy Franzen — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 15:52:48 +0000

It’s been a while since we’ve featured any entry level government jobs, and with today’s being Veteran’s Day, we thought it would be a perfect opportunity to take a look at what kind of jobs you can get at the Department of Veterans Affairs. Before you get in to job searching mode, though, go thank a veteran. If your grandfather served in World War II, give him a call and say thank you. Or if one of your buddies has served or is serving in Iraq, shoot him or her an e-mail stating your appreciation. And if any of you job searchers out there happen to be veterans, thank you from the One Day, One Job team. Now let’s get into what the VA is all about. There are 25 million veterans currently living in the United States and 70 million people who are “potentially eligible for VA benefits and services because they are veterans, family members or survivors of veterans.” The VA is responsible for providing top-flight patient care and administering veterans’ benefits. Our vets have risked their lives to earn the services offered by the VA, so it’s important that the VA has a talented staff that is committed to providing top-flight “customer” service.

Thank a Vet by Working at the VA

If you remember any of our previous posts about jobs with the Federal Government (e.g. the US Forest Service), you’ll know that finding jobs with them isn’t as easy as it should be. That’s ok, because we’ll guide you through the process. You should probably start by checking out the VA’s page on Types of Careers. It has info on every type of job that they offer, and even includes some videos that show “A Day in the Life.” In fact, this area of the site is pretty simple to navigate, so you shouldn’t find it too hard to get a sense of what types of jobs might interest you – categories include Health Care, Business / Administration, Legal, Engineering / Architecture / Technical Support, and Specialized Skilled Occupations / Trades. The hard part is actually navigating through the job listings. For most jobs with the VA, you need to use the USAJOBS site to search for openings. (The exception is if you’re looking for jobs with the Veterans’ Health Administration.) From the USAJOBS site you can search by Agency, Occupation, Keyword, or Location. If you have found some positions that interest you on the Types of Careers page, then you can search for those jobs. If you haven’t, you might want to try using the keyword “entry.” It’s worked for us in the past, but it’s not 100% at finding entry level jobs. You can also try sorting the search results by salary and start from the bottom, which is almost certain to lead to jobs that require no experience. There are hundreds of jobs in locations all across the country, so we’re not going to list specific opportunities, but we will warn you that once you find jobs that look interesting and click on the links to their descriptions, be sure to notice the second row of tabs on the page. That’s where you can find all kinds of detailed information about the jobs and how to apply.

The VA does work in cities big and small, so there’s a strong likelihood that they have jobs near where you live. The application processes for all of these jobs are pretty intense, because that’s how the government likes to do things, so be sure to follow the instructions carefully.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Have you thanked a veteran today?

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?

Edible Arrangements

Willy Franzen — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 13:09:51 +0000

Back in February, I told you all about ProFlowers and how I use them for all of my flower sending needs. Flowers are great. They’re beautiful, they smell good, and they make people happy. Still, I can’t get over the fact that they’re kind of useless (as Brad Paisley would say, I’m still a guy). You pay a lot of money to send them to someone, then the flowers sit around in a vase for a week until they’re thrown away. I’d much rather be sent something that I can use or, better yet, eat. That’s why I love Edible Arrangements. They allow you to send beautiful “bouquets” of delicious fruit – chocolate covered if you like. Whenever I’ve sent an Edible Arrangement to someone, I’ve been told that it was the best gift basket that the person has ever received. Not only are the arrangements tasty, but they provide healthy snacks for at least a few days (chocolate covered pieces not withstanding). Take a look at their arrangements, and see what I’m talking about.

Deliciously Entry-Level

Edible Arrangements is one of those companies that makes you say, “Why didn’t I think of that?” They’ve taken a really simple concept, and built a franchising business on it. It all started with one store in my home state of Connecticut, and has taken off since. Last year Edible Arrangements was named the 139th fastest growing company in the country by Inc. Magazine, and this year they were named the 49th best franchise by Entrepreneur magazine. There are now 857 Edible Arrangements stores across the world, and they’re continuing to grow.

Edible Arrangement’s corporate office is located in Wallingford, CT, and they have a number of job openings that might be well suited to new college grads. Their Corporate Jobs page includes listings for a Creative Chef in the Product Development department, Franchise Trainers, and Customer Care Representatives. The Chef position looks to be, by far, the most interesting opportunity, but it also requires a strong culinary background. There are also jobs for Franchise Sales Consultants; they don’t seem to be intended for new college grads, but it may be worth applying for if you’re really interested.

Finally, there are all kinds of jobs at Edible Arrangements franchise stores. They have locations all across the country, but the jobs aren’t mostly the types that are geared towards new college grads. Still, you might want to take a look at Edible Arrangement’s Franchise Store Jobs page.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Have you ever given or received an Edible Arrangement? Did you love it?

Phantom Fireworks

Willy Franzen — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 13:30:34 +0000

Happy 4th of July! You know we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to talk about fireworks, so we’re going to take a look at Phantom Fireworks and what kind of job opportunities they have. The fireworks industry is a tough one to be in, because those silly things called laws always seem to get in the way. For instance, my home state of Connecticut recently confiscated half a million dollars’ worth of fireworks from B.J. Alan Company (Phantom Fireworks’ parent company) because the amount of pyrotechnic mixture in the fireworks exceeded the state regulations of 100 grams per item. Talk about raining on someone’s parade – er – fireworks show.

Ooooohhhhh, Ahhhhhhhhhhh

To be honest, most of the job opportunities currently offered by Phantom Fireworks aren’t going to launch (pun intended) your entry-level career, but who else were we going to feature on the 4th? Your college degree probably isn’t going to be put to its best use as a Tent Operator or Cashier, so maybe you should try submitting a resume for an unlisted position. Phantom’s corporate office is in Youngstown, OH and resumes and cover letters can be sent to dmayne@fireworks.com. There is a listing for an Executive Secretary which maybe worth a look for some of you, but we’re hoping that a reader with a background in chemical engineering takes charge and convinces Phantom to hire him or her for a product development job or something cool like that. There have to be some really interesting jobs in the fireworks industry, but, unfortunately, we couldn’t find any listed online for the 4th.

Now go blow some stuff up… if it’s legal in your state. I will be playing with sparklers that contain less than 100 grams of pyrotechnic mixture.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Have a happy and safe Independence Day – especially if you’re playing with fireworks.

The Landers Group

Willy Franzen — Fri, 23 May 2008 13:13:07 +0000

One Day, One Job is about helping college students find great entry-level jobs. We’ve always taken this literally by featuring companies that look like great places to work (we can’t ever be 100% on this, but we do our best). Well, a big part of finding a great first job is avoiding the not so great (or really awful) jobs that are out there, so, today, we are going to look at a company called The Landers Group, which has been identified as a scam by people online and in the media. As it gets later in the post-graduation job hunting season, many new grads become desperate. It makes them easy prey for employment scams like those peddled by The Landers Group.

I’m Smart, I Don’t Fall for Scams

Yeah, that’s what suckers say. How do we know that smart people fall for these scams? We’ve seen it happen. One of my friends is a freshman at an Ivy League school. He was torn between getting a summer job or an internship, so he was looking at all kinds of options. He told me that he had landed an interview with a really cool sports marketing company. Being a reader of One Day, One Internship, he knew to contact us with questions on how to research a potential employer. He had already scheduled an interview with the company for when he returned home, but he sent us the name of the company (The Landers Group) so that we could tell him a little bit more about it. Within seconds we found a number of Google results that indicated he was in for a learning experience (but not the kind you want to get out of your internship). Our friend is a smart kid. He’s proactive and trying to get a Summer internship even though he’s only a freshman. He was about to get burned.

Why You’ll Fall For It

We’ve never had firsthand experience with The Landers Group or any other company that follows similar business practices, but we’ve found enough evidence through our research to indicate that any time spent in contact with one of these companies is wasted. You will usually find these jobs listed on major job boards with titles like “Sports and Entertainment Marketing – Entry Level Positions.” The job description will go into great detail about all of the wonderful things that await those who apply – excellent pay, travel opportunities, learning experiences, and quick advancement. Take a look at all of The Landers Group’s Job Postings on CareerBuilder. They’ll also brag about their amazing client list. From their website:

One by one The Landers Group has added every major sports team in Southern California to its portfolio. No other advertising and marketing firm in the area can make the same claim… Our unparalleled portfolio includes the Los Angeles Dodgers, the LA Clippers, the LA Kings, the Anaheim Mighty Ducks, MLS’ Chivas USA, the UCLA Bruins, and also clients such as Crowne Plaza Resorts, Disneyland, and Sea World. Our unique grass-roots marketing approach has given our clients a valuable edge in the marketplace and it places them front and center in the public eye!

Since it seems that Sports and Entertainment Marketing are extremely popular fields with college students, these job listings must get viewed thousands of times. Many of those who read the job descriptions get excited and apply. We don’t have a reference to back this up, but we’re going to guess that everyone who applies gets an interview.

The “Interview” Process

It’s relatively likely that your “interview” with The Landers Group might be your first ever job interview. Whether you realize that something’s fishy depends on how perceptive you are. We’ve heard that their secretary will not refer to the company by name, probably because they operate under multiple names and don’t want you to realize it. Your first interview will most likely be informational, where they’ll continue the pitch that they started in the job posting. Any questions about what the company actually does or what their entry-level jobs are like will probably get a vague response. You’re also likely to hear, “You’ll have to see it to believe it.” Since scammers usually don’t turn away people, we’re going to guess that you’ll get asked back for a second interview too.

The second interview is where you’ll really get to see The Landers Group in action. You will be tagging along with one of the company’s employees. The story usually goes that you end up in a sketchy car with a sketchy person going to a sketchy neighborhood. Once you get there, you find out what The Landers Group does. They sell coupons door to door. Remember that amazing client list? That’s whose coupons you will be selling. You’ll be given one side of the street, and the employee will take the other. You’ll essentially spend the day working for free. How do we know? We’ve found stories from people who have done it like this and this. If you’re lucky, you’ll just end up having wasted a day. If you’re not, you may end up stranded many miles from home or having had a gun pointed at you and with mud all over your only suit.

How to Avoid Getting Burned

Now that you’ve read about The Landers Group, you will hopefully know to avoid these scams. If you’re not sure whether an employer is legitimate, use what we’ve taught you to do some employer research. Our articles How to Use Google to Find a Job and Turning the Tables: Digging Dirt on Employers are both excellent resources that will teach you what to need to know. Often, finding out the truth is as easy as doing a Google search with the company name and the word scam – here are the results for “The Landers Group scam.” Also, remember that these companies use major job boards as their main recruiting tool. Don’t think that because something is listed on Monster, Yahoo! HotJobs, or CareerBuilder it is legitimate – anyone can pay to post their jobs on these sites.

Don’t forget that The Landers Group operates under a variety of names. There are also many other companies that use similar business practices to recruit unsuspecting college students into bum jobs. The stories are often different, but the end result is usually the same. Although The Landers Group is focused quite heavily on selling an actual product, some of these companies are even skeezier. Instead of selling, you’ll be doing their bidding by recruiting more suckers to work for you recruiting more suckers. In general these types of operations are known as Multi-Level Marketing (MLM) operations, and they should be avoided unless you are completely comfortable with what you’re getting into. Here’s a post from the Consumerist on other operations that are using tactics similar to those of The Landers Group.

A List of Companies Known to Have Similar Practices

The Landers Group
Kelly Advertising
Granton Marketing
DS Max
After Five Marketing Group
Dalton Management
Innovage

This is by no means a comprehensive list. If you know of other companies that should be added, please leave a comment with the company’s name and a reference or personal story telling us why they should be included.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

This was obviously a different kind of post for us. What do you think? Leave a comment. We love to hear feedback.