One Day, One Job » product management

Aircell

Willy Franzen — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 14:28:06 +0000

After a week of cold weather in Florida, I’m headed back to Chicago. Since I wanted to enjoy the last night of my vacation, I decided that I’d try to get this post to you from 31,000 feet. I’m flying on AirTran (maybe we’ll look at their jobs another time), and all of their flights offer Gogo Inflight Wi-Fi, which is a service provided by Itasca, IL based AirCell (I used this promotion to get a free access coupon code). The business of Internet Service Providers was a big one in the 90s, but as we’ve become more accustomed to broadband, we’ve mostly started using major telecom companies to feed our Internet addictions. Now, the business opportunities are all about providing Internet access in locations with captive audiences—hotels, convention centers, airports, and now airplanes, although 3G card providers are offering some fierce competition. Luckily for Aircell, that’s not an option in the air, which means that, for now, Gogo has a dominant market position with their because of their FCC sanctioned rights to be the “exclusive provider of Wi-Fi communications to airlines, business aviation, military, government, and specialty aircraft across North America.”

Gogo Get a Job

Who knows what the future of Gogo will be? It’s pretty obvious that Internet access will soon be expected on all but the smallest planes, but how will that play out? Will the FAA allow us to start using cellular devices so that we can use 3G or 4G cards? Will airlines continue to nickel and dime us (ok, we know the answer to that one)? Will we continue to pay for in-flight Internet access or will there be an ad supported option? There are a lot of questions to be answered, but it seems that Gogo is well positioned to take advantage of the current market opportunities. They received a significant venture capital investment, and their Jobs page seems to indicate that they’re continuing to grow. Additionally, Aircell isn’t a business solely based on Gogo; in fact, they’re much more. They are “the world’s leading provider of airborne communications.” That means that what they do goes well beyond allowing you to watch stupid YouTube videos on a cross-country flight. There aren’t many entry level opportunities at Aircell, but you’ll probably want to check out the Airline Account Manager and Product Analyst positions. To apply send your résumé and cover letter in plain text, MS Word or RTF to recruiting@aircell.com.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Have you ever used wi-fi on a plane?

MyPunchbowl

Willy Franzen — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 15:51:33 +0000

I love Groundhog Day. I’ve always intended to have an annual party in celebration of the holiday, but I’m not one for throwing early morning parties (and who wants to celebrate after the fact if Phil sees his shadow?). In past years I’ve featured the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club and NOAA in honor of Phil. Additionally I’ve featured companies like WeatherBill and The Weather Channel already, so I thought it was going to be hard to find another relevant company. Then I came across this blog post that told me that MyPunchbowl is “an official partner of the Groundhog Day festivities.” Problem solved! MyPunchbowl is a “free online invitations and party planning” startup based in Framingham, MA. They offer the perfect services for planning that Groundhog Day party that I’ll probably never have. They also do Ecards, and I’ve put one together for you that you can find below.

Bring the Party to Your Job Search

There are a lot of online invitation sites, but MyPunchbowl is unique in that they offer “start to finish party planning.” This includes bringing “your party to life with ideas, invitations, favors, gift registries, photo/video sharing, and more.” It may sound like a silly idea, but it makes a lot of sense—enough sense that the company has venture capital backing it. MyPunchbowl has really brought Web 2.0 to party planning, and they’re doing an awesome job with it. The user experience on their site looks phenomenal, and they have great integration with social media sites like Facebook and Twitter.

If you’re a party lover, and you like the way that MyPunchbowl is doing things, then you should check out jobs at MyPunchbowl. They have a number of open positions that include a couple that seem perfect for new grads—Product Specialist and Inside Sales Rep. One of the key requirements for applying for a job at MyPunchbowl is to have a user account, so be sure that you’re really familiar with how to use the site before applying. Maybe you can use it as an excuse to throw a party.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Will you use MyPunchbowl to plan your next party?

Experience Project

Willy Franzen — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 15:56:40 +0000

Check out this week’s sponsor, New York City Teaching Fellows. They’re seeking new grads with no prior teaching experience or background in education to help make a difference in NYC’s public schools.

Do you have a secret? An embarrassing story? Maybe you have a real problem (like not having a job) or a health issue. It could just be something that you’re passionate about. If you have experiences that you want to share or you want to read about the experiences of other people, then Experience Project is the site for you. It’s a free web site that allows people across the world to share their experiences. It all started when Armen Berjikly, Experience Project’s founder, was inspired by a friend to build a support community for multiple sclerosis patients. It was so successful that Armen decided to expand the project so that it could serve everyone—it’s now “the first social network based upon who you are and not who you know.” The company is based in San Francisco, and according to their data and the data on Compete.com, they’re doing some pretty serious traffic.

Gain Some Experience at Experience Project

When I first discovered Experience Project, I instantly wondered what the business model was. After doing a little investigating, I realized how powerful targeted advertising to specific verticals can be. Even though users are able to maintain their anonymity on Experience Project, contextual advertising that matches up with a given Experience Project group should be extremely effective. I can’t say whether it is, but Experience Project’s Advertising page provides some more insight into what kind of advertising opportunities the site offers. If you’re intrigued by Experience Project’s different take on social networking, then you’ll want to check out their Jobs page. They have opportunities available in Business Development & Sales, Product Marketing (SEO and Analytics), Engineering & Product / Web Development, and Marketing & Community Management. They don’t go into too much depth about what kind of experience they’re looking for (despite their name), so I’d imagine it’s wide open for new grads to apply for these positions. To do that you should send “a cover letter specific to your arena of interest, your current résumé and up to three relevant work samples and / or links to portfolio work” to team@experienceproject.com.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Have you shared anything on Experience Project?

Flat World Knowledge

Willy Franzen — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:53:35 +0000

Today’s post comes with a big announcement. I’m writing a book! A textbook on Career Development to be precise. The best part of that news is that the textbook is going to be available online for free because I’m working with an awesome publisher named Flat World Knowledge. They’re a Nyack, NY based startup that is aiming to revolutionize the textbook industry. I’m sure many have you have been forced into spending thousands of dollars over the course of your college career on textbooks (and how many of them remained in their shrink wrap?). Flat World Knowledge is building a business by providing you with better, more affordable options. Textbooks from Flat World can be read online for free. You can pay to print a chapter (or the whole book) at home. You can buy a softcover copy in black and white—or color. You can even get an audio book version. When my book comes out, you can read it however you want to read it—and you’ll never be forced to pay an arm and a leg for it.

Navigating a Flat World

Here’s a quick video introduction to Flat World Knowledge:

I’m sure that there has been plenty of outcry on your campus about how expensive textbooks are, and you’ve probably noticed that the mainstream media is starting to pick up on this story. Flat World is tackling this problem head on by making a bet that they can sell more textbooks at a lower price. It may seem crazy for a publisher to give away full textbooks for free, but Flat World knows that a lot of students can’t bear to read an entire textbook online. Some students will want to pay for hard copies of the book, and that will leave enough profit for Flat World. They’ve raised $8 million in funding to get started, but hopefully a certain Career Development text will be so popular that they won’t need to take on any more money in the future.

Now, I do have a vested interest in the success of Flat World Knowledge, but that’s because I believe that they’re doing something great for students. If you’d like to have a vested interest in Flat World, then you should check out their Jobs page. The positions that they have posted are for more experienced individuals, but Flat World does have this posted on their Jobs page: “If you are a product manager, salesperson, web marketing guru, or acquisitions editor who feels passionate about our business, send a resume and tell us a bit about yourself to jobs@flatworldknowledge.com.” There’s no guarantee that they’ll have a position for you, but they’re growing quickly… so you might just get the chance to work with me.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Will you read my book?

Slide

Willy Franzen — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 14:39:03 +0000

It looks like Yahoo! Finance has taken a page out of my book and used Fortune’s 40 Under 40 list to highlight some companies that are hiring. I found the link on Twitter, and was pleased to see that I had already featured a number of the companies. One that I haven’t yet featured (and don’t remember hearing about before) is Slide. They’re a San Francisco based startup that claims to be “the world’s leading social entertainment company.” I think that’s a bit of a stretch, but they do make social networks more fun for hundreds of millions of people. Their 40 Under 40 CEO is Max Levchin, who co-founded PayPal (which was sold for $1.5 billion to eBay). He is apparently well on his way to having built another billion dollar company, considering the fact that Slide was valued at $550 million last time that they took money.

Slide into a New Job

The basic premise behind slide is that social networks are better when you can bring outside content in—whether it’s sharing something that you’ve made like a slideshow or using an application that allows you to throw sheep. People want customization, yet they don’t have the web development skills to do it on their own. They need help, and that’s where Slide comes in. Monetizing social network traffic isn’t necessarily easy, but Slide seems to be heading in the right direction when it comes to turning their massive traffic into revenue. Not only do their investors believe in them, but so do advertisers like Starbucks, Sunkist, Activision, AT&T Wireless, Discovery Channel, Estee Lauder, McDonald’s, Lionsgate Films, Universal Pictures, and Paramount Pictures. I guess 5 million sheep thrown a day is worth more than I thought it was. Slide is very clearly growing, and as I mentioned in the opening of this post, they’re hiring. Their Jobs page shows more than a dozen open positions, and a bunch of those are suitable for new grads. These include Product Manager, Community Manager, Flash Animator/Illustrator, Flash Social Game Engineer, Graphic Designer, Junior QA Engineer, Linux Server Engineer, OO Javascript/Front-end Engineer, Python Web Developer, and Community Support Representative. You can apply online directly from these links, so give Slide a look.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Do you use Slide?

SurveyMonkey

Willy Franzen — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 14:06:05 +0000

One of my goals with One Day, One Job is to get more interactive. I’d like to get more feedback from you, the readers, on what you want to see, and I’d also like to use the collective wisdom of thousands of college aged job seekers to develop better content. The best way to do that is through reader surveys, which is why I recently signed up with SurveyMonkey. They’re a Menlo Park, CA (formerly Portland, OR) based “startup” that has been helping people run online surveys for the last decade. While most Internet companies that started in 1999 have since flamed out and most companies started in the 2000s have relied on flashiness to bring in venture capital money, Survey Monkey and its outdated look have been laughing all the way to the bank. By providing a dead simple way for business owners (they’ve worked with more than 80% of the Fortune 100) to collect data, SuveyMonkey has built an insanely successful business.

SurveyMonkey Says…

As TechCrunch reported last month, SurveyMonkey has finally taken on some outside money and started to take growth seriously. They’ve more than doubled their staff over the last year, and they’ve revamped their management team. You won’t find a lot of information about SurveyMonkey online, but you will find a lot of people who have used their software. SurveyMonkey has never seemed to care much for flash or attention. Instead they have used the “Freemium Model” to bring in thousands of paying customers. If you’ve always wanted to work at a web startup, but were wary of the “scene,” then SurveyMonkey might be the right place for you. They have a number of job openings posted, and a few seem suitable for new grads. The most likely is Front-end Engineer, but they also have some positions in Marketing, Product Management, Technical Operations, and User Experience Design that might be work looking at. And if you don’t see anything that suits you, you can always use their online form to apply for an unlisted position.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Have you ever responded to a SurveyMonkey survey?

Classified Ventures

Willy Franzen — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 14:33:00 +0000

I remember being in middle school and deciding that I wanted a drum set. I already had a snare drum, but I knew that a full set would be much cooler. My mom bought me a copy of the Bargain News, a local paper full of classified ads, and helped me pore over the listings in search of a drum set. That’s certainly a relic of the past, but classified ads are far from dead. They’ve just moved online. You’re probably most familiar with Craigslist, and maybe you’ve considered using Facebook Marketplace or something like that. What you probably didn’t realize is that there is still a huge business behind classified ads. Take Chicago based Classified Ventures for instance. They’re another Inc. 5000 company, and they’ve increased their revenue from $146.7 million to $297.5 million over the past three years. They’ve done this with four distinct businesses: Apartments.com, Cars.com, HomeGain.com, and HomeFinder.com. You’ve probably noticed at least one of those sites before, which is exactly what they’re looking for.

Get Classified

Whether you’re looking for a car, an apartment, or a home, Classified Ventures is going to do its best to grab your attention and show you some ads. Since classified ads are the kind of ads that people actually seek out, Classified Ventures’ main focus is on driving traffic. As long as they can keep linking up more buyers and sellers, their business is going to grow. They’re already a pretty good sized company with “offices in Chicago, IL, Emeryville, CA, Santa Monica, CA and Austin, TX, and over 1,100 employees in 37 states,” but they’re not stopping there—their Jobs page shows 33 current openings. You might want to consider the following positions: Product Specialist – Cars.com (Chicago, IL), Ad Trafficker – Cars.com (Chicago, IL), Dealer Experience Advocate – Cars.com (Chicago, IL), Software Engineer – ApartmentHomeLiving (Austin, TX), Software Quality Assurance Analyst – HomeFinder.com (Chicago, IL), Inside Sales Manager SBU – Cars.com (Chicago, IL), Freelance Web Designer – Cars.com (Santa Monica, CA), Account Receivables Analyst – Corporate Services (Chicago, IL), Account Manager – Apartments.com (Chicago, IL), and Technical Web Producer – Apartments.com (Chicago, IL). You can apply online directly from the job descriptions, so see which of these jobs suits you best—no need to scan the classifieds.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Have you used classified ads in your job search?

ExactTarget

Willy Franzen — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 14:53:54 +0000

I think that e-mail is still the king of social media. We have all of these fancy social networking accounts, but they all send their notifications to our inboxes. If you want someone’s attention, e-mail is the way to go (assuming your message doesn’t look like spam). Heck, you’re probably reading this in your e-mail. That’s why e-mail marketing continues to be a rapidly growing industry. We’ve already taken a look at jobs with Constant Contact, Aweber, and e-Dialog, and now we’re going to look at an industrial strength e-mail marketing company, ExactTarget. They’re based in Indianapolis, and since 2000 they’ve been focused on “providing the most powerful on-demand software for email communications and finding the best and brightest marketers on the planet to revolutionize the way people think about email.”

Target Your Job Search Exactly

ExactTarget offers a wide array of e-mail Products, Services, and Solutions that are used by clients like CarMax, Expedia, The Home Depot, and other huge brands. If you’d like to join ExactTarget at the forefront of e-mail marketing, then you should check out their entry level Catapult Rotational Program. Here’s an introductory video on the program (e-mail readers click through to watch):

If you like what you just saw, then there are two tracks that you can take. The ExactTarget Business Track will allow you to gain experience across departments like Marketing, Accounting, Solutions Consulting (SolCon), Account Management, Deliverability Services, Strategic Services, Training, SMB/Renewals, Partnerships, Human Resources, and Sales, while the ExactTarget Technical Track will have you working in Solutions Consulting (SolCon), Customer Support, Integration, Product, Quality Assurance, Deliverability Services, Training, Implementation, Design and Deployment. You may be able to meet up with ExactTarget recruiters on your campus, but if they’re not recruiting at your school you can get the run down on how to apply for the program here. ExactTarget has done a fantastic job with their entry level recruiting program, and I bet that reflects how much they value young talent.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

What do you think of the Catapult Rotational Program?

Rosetta Stone

Willy Franzen — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 14:39:19 +0000

While the Inc. 5000 is filled with exciting companies that you’ve probably never heard of, there are also some familiar names on the list. Rosetta Stone is a popular brand with job seekers, not because of their jobs, but because many new grads decide that they should put their free time to good use and learn a new language. (I think they’d be smarter to invest in a job search prep course, but I’m biased.) Rosetta Stone is far and away the biggest brand name when it comes to learning new languages, so it’s no big surprise that the Arlington, VA based company has grown from $48.4 million in revenue to $209.4 million over the past three years. In fact, the growth has been so strong that they recently held an IPO that was considered very successful.

A New Tongue, A New Job

While many companies in the business of selling content are struggling these days, Rosetta Stone continues to thrive because of their unique approach. They created a system for effectively teaching people languages on the computer, and then they modified the process for 30 different languages. Even though it costs them very little to administer their content to a new customer, they’re able to charge a significant amount of money because of how well their software works. If you love languages, then it’d be hard to find a company as interesting to work at as Rosetta Stone. They have a really nice looking Careers page, but they blow it by listing their jobs on CareerBuilder.

It’s actually relatively easy to browse Rosetta Stone’s 100+ job listings, I’m just averse to anything related to the big three job boards. In fact, you can even narrow down Rosetta Stone’s job listings to just entry level positions. Right now you’ll see listings for Customer Security Representative, Talent Acquisition Coordinator, Customer Care Representative, Associate Product Manager – Consumer Learning Products, and Consumer Product Support Specialist. There’s a good chance that some of Rosetta Stone’s other jobs are also suitable for new grads, but you’ll have to browse through the job postings yourself to find them. Since all of the positions are on CareerBuilder, you’ll have to apply through their website. You might also want to check our Rosetta Stone’s Facebook Recruiting page, where they talk about their campus recruiting.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Have you ever used Rosetta Stone to learn a language?

Revel Consulting

Willy Franzen — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 14:51:40 +0000

When I was a freshman at Cornell, a bunch of my friends decided to form a group called the Red Revelers. We would go to sporting events and act rowdy. We had t-shirts and everything. I guess that’s why Revel Consulting caught my eye when I was browsing through the Inc. 5000 (expect to be hearing a lot about that list in the next few weeks—it’s my favorite resource for finding cool companies). They’re a Kirkland, WA based consulting firm that has expertise in Product Management, Program & Project Management, Change Management, Process Engineering, Sales and Marketing Management, Strategy Development & Measurement, and Cloud Computing. They’re also the 34th fastest growing private company in the United States. Beyond an awesome growth rate, they were also “named to the list of 100 Best Companies to Work For by Seattle Business magazine based on job satisfaction, work environment, and professional growth opportunities.”

Revel in Consulting

The problem with consulting companies is that most people don’t know what they do. Sometimes even the consultants can’t tell you exactly what they do. Part of the reason for that is that consulting is a very flexible field—at least in terms of subject matter. It’s often more about the process than the specifics of the project. Revel Consulting seems to have a good mix of specific areas of expertise—Cloud Computing for example—and more general practice areas such as Program & Project Management. You can’t even take a look at Revel Consulting’s portfolio or client list, because consulting firms usually try to keep that stuff under wraps. What you can look at is the fact that they went from less than $400k in revenue to $13.2 million in revenue in just three years. That tells you that Revel is a place that you want to be. Revel’s Careers page has information on Culture, Consultant Experiences, and Campus Recruiting. The latter focuses mostly on internships, but that’s ok because Revel has one application form for all jobs. They’ll take a look at you and figure out where you’ll fit in best—no need to apply for a specific position.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

What have you heard about Revel Consulting?

Memeo

Willy Franzen — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 14:15:59 +0000

Before I get started, I’d like to ask you all for a favor. Businessweek is seeking nominations for their list of the Best U.S. Entrepreneurs 25 and Under, and I happen to be under 25 and an entrepreneur. I’d love to be on this list, but only if you think I should be. If One Day, One Job has helped you with your job search or you just love what we’re doing, please nominate me. It won’t take more than 90 seconds. Thanks!

When I was growing up, I kept all of my most prized possessions in a small wooden box that my Dad gave me. I knew that if the house ever caught on fire, I’d grab that and run (because there was no way I’d be able to carry my entire baseball card collection). These days I still think the same way, but my laptop is definitely the first thing that I’d grab before running out of a burning building. Maybe I’m unique because I run an online business, but I think that you’d probably grab your laptop too. Our prized possessions are increasingly in the form of data—our pictures, our movies, our contacts, and many of the other things that can never be replaced. Memeo is an Aliso Viejo, CA based company that recognizes how important data is to our lives. They build products that simplify your digital life. They have backup software, syncing software, and file sharing software. Yes, there are plenty of software companies that make these kinds of products, but Memeo makes it simple and easy to manage your digital assets.

Did You Get the Memeo?

The cool thing about Memeo is that they combine simple to use desktop software with the ability to put your files “in the cloud” (that means online). Although more and more applications like the ones that Memeo produces are moving to the web, it’s nice to have the robustness of a desktop application. Sometimes working through your web browser just isn’t ideal. If you like the sound of what Memeo is doing, you should check out their Jobs page. There are quite a few opportunities available, and a few of them seem suitable for new or recent college grads. They’re all posted on the Job Listings page, so look out for the following positions: Product Manager, Mobile Wireless Application Developer, PHP Developer, Mac Software Developer, and User Interface / Graphics / User Experience Designer. Most of these jobs wouldn’t be considered entry level, but you’ll be able to tell by the technical job descriptions whether you’ll be a good fit. To apply, send a cover letter and résumé to jobs@memeo.com with the title of the position that you’re applying for in the subject line.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Is your data your most prized possession?

Deckers Outdoor Corporation

Willy Franzen — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 14:55:06 +0000

At some point during my Junior year in college (by the way I’m back at Cornell for the weekend), I got the bright idea that I could wear slippers as shoes. These weren’t flimsy slippers, these were sturdy leather ones with shearling lining. They were made by Orvis (where I interned and had an awesome 50% employee discount), and they were great. I loved sitting in class knowing that my feet were more comfortable than everybody else’s. Then I came back from Thanksgiving break. I was admiring the Christmas lights that my roommates had adorned our otherwise aesthetically unpleasing house with, and I slipped. See, my slippers had flat rubber soles. My feet came out from under me as I fell down a muddy slope. My right hand came down hard on the sidewalk, and I had a broken wrist. I gave up wearing slippers for a while, but when my Mom bought me a pair of UGG slippers with proper soles, I reverted. Now UGG slippers are my go to shoes during the winter, and I’m a huge fan of Deckers Outdoor Corporation. They’re the company behind UGG, Simple, Teva (is it Tee-va or Tevv-a?), Tsubo, and Deckers, and they’re headquartered in Goleta, CA with a location in Flagstaff, AZ as well.

Hit the Deckers

I had no idea until today that Outside Magazine has a Best Places to Work list. Now I know about it, and I know that Deckers Outdoor Corporation is on the list (ranked 7th). While Deckers’ Careers page doesn’t say much more than generic stuff like “We are looking for energetic, hard working, success oriented individuals to join our dynamic team” and “All candidates must be team players, have high energy, good organization and excellent communication skills,” it’s pretty obvious that Deckers has a unique employment brand that is well aligned with their product brands. If Deckers sounds like the kind of place that you’d want to work, you should check out their current job openings. Their job descriptions don’t have a ton of detail, so it’s hard to tell which jobs are best suited for new and recent college grads. My guess is that your best bet is to take a look at the following positions: Administrative Assistant – UGG, Collections Analyst, Product Coordinator – UGG, and Programmer at their Goleta, CA headquarters and Search Engine (SEO/SEM) Marketing Coordinator and Web Developer at their Flagstaff, AZ location. You can apply for any of these jobs by sending a cover letter and résumé to hr@deckers.com.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Do you wear UGGs?

Skyhook Wireless

Willy Franzen — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 14:18:48 +0000

In my opinion one of the coolest features of the first generation iPhone was its ability to accurately give you your location despite its lacking a GPS chip. The technology is based on using Wi-Fi access points and cellular tower triangulation to determine your coordinates. Obviously a GPS chip is a better alternative (at least as long as you don’t have a roof blocking your satellite signal), but there are plenty of applications where Wi-Fi location comes in pretty handy. That’s why Boston based Skyhook Wireless is a growing company. They’re behind the technology that provides location to non-GPS equipped iPhones (as the New York Times covered quite well), and they’re also using their technology for geotagging, device recovery, social networking, and much more.

Locate Yourself at Skyhook Wireless

Now, it may sound to you as though GPS is a major threat to Skyhook Wireless’ business, but that’s not the case at all. If you take a look at the graph below, you’ll see that Skyhook’s XPS is a hybrid of GPS and Wi-Fi Positioning, and that it provides an amazing level of reliability in nearly all situations.

Beyond just being able to give people their locations, Skyhook Wireless also focuses on what people do with those locations on whatever device they’re getting them on. We’ve barely even touched the surface with using location data in our every day lives, so I think that Skyhook Wireless has a pretty bright future. If you want to be a part of that future, you should check out their Jobs page. A few of Skyhook’s job openings look like they might be suitable for new or recent grads: Wireless Product Manager, Web Product Manager, and Embedded Device Engineer. To apply for any of these positions (or maybe an unlisted one) send a cover letter and resume to careers@skyhookwireless.com.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Where are you?

MBI Inc.

George Tarakhovski — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 13:53:12 +0000

This is the first guest post by George Tarakhovski. We’re hoping that he will become a regular contributor here. If you’d like to contribute to One Day, One Job, let me know at Willy@onedayonejob.com.

Odds are that you are, know or have heard of someone who has a knack for collecting stuff. Perhaps, it is your grandfather who keeps a prized archive of 18th century stamps or your friend from middle school who proudly laminated every single Pokémon card he could get his hands on. MBI Inc., a Connecticut-based $400 million-dollar consumer-products company, has successfully transformed society’s affinity for collectibles into a highly profitable business. The company markets its products through four in-house operating divisions – Danbury Mint, PCS Stamps & Coins, Easton Press and MBI UK. Each of these divisions is responsible for churning out collectibles such as licensed sports figurines, die-cast models, jewelry, fine leather-bound books, vintage coins, and stuffed animals. MBI has successfully survived several recessions and seems to remain profitable to this day. Considering the current economic climate and the unorthodox nature of the collectibles industry, this is good news for somebody who seeks an unusual business career, yet suffers from cold shivers when the words “lay” and “off” are mentioned together in the same sentence.

The Curious Case of the Collectibles Manager

Although MBI’s generic-looking website is in dire need of a facelift, it does a good job of introducing the prospective applicant to the careers offered at the company. According to the website, the nature of the Assistant Product Manager – the only entry-level opportunity at MBI – is entirely cross-functional. The new college graduate is expected to interact with advertising, marketing, product development and product sourcing departments in order to cultivate a comprehensive set of skills needed to succeed in a management career. The good news is that MBI does not require any professional business experience. Intelligence, ambition and commercial instincts are sufficient factors for consideration and success. While no other jobs outside of product management are listed, there are other career opportunities available at MBI. Those include accounting, customer service, and operations just to name a few.

While you may scoff at the notion of marketing antiques to seniors in Florida retirement homes, MBI does the bulk of its recruiting at elite Ivy League campuses, which means that they take hiring very seriously. After all, their business model is profitable and historically sustainable. So, if you do well at MBI, there is a chance that you may start your own collection of rare watches sooner than you thought. Just don’t get your hopes up, yet.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Are you ready to start collecting?

Seventh Generation

Willy Franzen — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 15:39:20 +0000

I have to admit that the first time that I noticed the Seventh Generation brand in the grocery store, I was kind of grossed out. That’s because I noticed a big display of toilet paper packages all bearing the company’s name. When I think about what I want from toilet paper, the most important thing is that it’s first generation. We can talk about softness and how many ply it is after that. I realize that my disgust was completely irrational, but I don’t ever want to think that the toilet paper that I’m buying is anything but new. After visiting Seventh Generation’s website, I found out that “the company derives its name from the Great Law of the Iroquois that states, ‘In our every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations.’” This makes sense because Seventh Generation, which is based in Burlington, VT, is aiming to become “the world’s most trusted brand of authentic, safe, and environmentally-responsible products for a healthy home.” They seem to be doing a good job considering that their products have saved 287,359 trees and 584,650 gallons of petroleum at last count.

Be Part of the New Generation at Seventh Generation

What Seventh Generation does is simple. They make simple home products that are better for the environment and for the health of the people who use them. Seventh Generation also puts a strong emphasis on consumer education. Not only do they want people to be well informed, but they are also smart marketers. When you play the role of educator and marketer, you’re in a good spot – as long as the facts are on your side. It seems to us like the facts are on Seventh Generation’s side. Karma certainly is, for they give 10% of their profits to “non-profit community, environmental, health, and responsible business organizations working for positive change.”

So how can you join Seventh Generation’s team? There are a number of ways. I first started looking at their jobs after I saw a job posting for a Green Parenting Blogger. It’s not the best job for new college grads since most of you probably don’t have kids yet, but it shows that Seventh Generation is moving in a cool direction. After checking out this posting I moved on to their Jobs at Seventh Generation which led to me to opportunities like Consumer Insights Specialist, Distribution Operations Coordinator, and Product Manager. These aren’t by definition entry level jobs, but they are certainly worth considering if you have the right internship and educational backgrounds. All of the jobs are based in Burlington, VT and you can apply by sending a cover letter and resume to staffing@seventhgeneration.com.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Don’t forget about our job search training course. It’s a green product too. How can it not be when it’s administered online?

Jennie-O

Willy Franzen — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 14:21:12 +0000

Happy Thanksgiving! Thank you for reading and helping to make the first year of One Day, One Job a great success. Last year we told you about jobs at Plimoth Plantation and Colonial Williamsburg, which are still a great option if you want to be reminded of Thanksgiving every day when you’re at work, but this year we’re going to take the easy way out and talk about turkey. I was first introduced to Jennie-O when I tried some of their turkey bacon. It’s good, if you haven’t had real bacon in a while. Since my Thanksgiving cooking philosophy is that bacon makes everything better (especially when it’s put on top of the turkey and doused in maple syrup, seriously, try it), I’ll let Jennie-O provide the turkey, but I’m getting the bacon somewhere else. In the three or four years that I’ve been familiar with the Jennie-O brand, I’ve noticed that they’ve revved up their branding efforts. You’ve probably seen some of their tv commercials, which are pretty funny, but you may have overlooked the fact that they’re working hard to expand recognition of their employment brand with college students.

Gobble, Gobble. Jobble, Jobble.

Ok, so Jennie-O’s Career page has a corny headline – “It’s everything you’ve wished for” with a picture of a wishbone. Whatever, it works for them, and it’s pretty witty. Their whole Careers site is top notch, so we can’t hold one pun against them. Not only do they have all kinds of information about what it’s like to work for Jennie-O, but they also have a section specifically for college students. It includes a calendar of recruiting events (which have already happened) and other general information. One unique feature is an image that shows which entry level jobs and internships at Jennie-O match up with which college majors. You should find this extremely helpful, although it doesn’t seem like Jennie-O lists specific job openings. It appears that instead they just take applications and then figure it out from there. They do provide a list of jobs that they offer throughout the company and a map with company locations (in Minnesota and Wisconsin), but the Application page asks you to fill out an application form and e-mail it to them. That’s it.

Jennie-O typically offers entry level jobs in Accounting, Human Resources, Industrial Engineering, Information Technology, Live Production, Maintenance Engineering, Production Management, Product Marketing, and Quality Assurance with jobs titles like Associate Live Production Supervisor, Associate Applications Analyst, Associate Maintenance Engineer, Associate Product Manager, Associate Technical Analyst, Industrial Engineer, Production Manager, Quality Assurance Supervisor, and Staff Accountant, so you can use these as a guideline when deciding whether or not you want to apply.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Have you ever tried maple bacon wrapped turkey?

Tiny Prints

Willy Franzen — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 15:22:36 +0000

I don’t recall having any friends in college who sent out their own holiday cards, but if you’re planning on sending out cards, you better get on it. Christmas is 31 days away. My family always tried to send out Christmas cards, but it usually resulted in a fight between my sister and me over which picture to use – if we could even get along long enough for a picture to be taken (yes, we were both in college at this point). With my sister’s and my being difficult and my mom’s procrastinating ability, Christmas cards almost inevitably became New Year’s cards, which typically arrived well after New Year’s. I’m not sure that Mountain View, CA based Tiny Prints could have helped with conflict resolution between my sister and me, but they can make it ridiculously easy to produce a beautiful holiday card.

What’s So Tiny About Them?

Tiny Prints is an interesting name for a Stationery 2.0 company that makes normal sized stationery. The reasoning behind the name, I think, is that they started out by targeting the birth announcement market. That’s why they’ve hired designers who “have created birth announcements and related baby stationery for many celebrity parents, including Gwyneth Paltrow, Gwen Stefani, Jaime Pressly, Reese Witherspoon, Debra Messing, Maria Shriver, Adam Sandler, Al Roker, Charles Schwab and Harry Connick Jr.” As a company based in Silicon Valley, Tiny Prints has been influenced significantly by technology, which is why we’re excited about them. Although the cards that they produce are top notch, it’s not what makes Tiny Prints stand out. It’s their simple web-based interface for creating custom stationery that is game changing. Seriously. Go try it out.

Once you take a look at Tiny Prints’ Jobs page, you’ll really start to appreciate how much technology is behind what they do. They don’t seem to have a lot to say about what it’s like working for them – all they offer is a list of their job openings with links to descriptions. The job descriptions aren’t as clear as we’d like them to be, so it’s hard to determine which jobs can be considered entry level, but we’ve done our best to identify them for you. The most likely fits for new grads include Office Manager, Web Application Developer, Data Production Specialist, and Production QA, while jobs like Merchandising Account Manager, Product Manager, Website Programmer, User Interaction Designer, and Customer Order Processor should be considered stretches. All of the jobs appear to be located in Mountain View, CA, and how you apply will vary depending on the position, so look at the descriptions carefully.

Beyond the jobs that we’ve mentioned, we’ve also noticed that Tiny Prints has mentioned that they hire very young designers. We haven’t found any mention of how designers can score their jobs, but you might want to contact Tiny Prints directly if you dream of being a stationery designer.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Do you send out holiday cards?

Bazaarvoice

Willy Franzen — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 14:12:25 +0000

Shopping is supposed to be social. When you were a teenager, you probably liked to hit the mall with friends. Now, you probably lie in bed late at night surfing web sites looking for cool stuff to buy. It’s just not the same. You need social proof to back up your buying decisions. You want to hear what other people think. You want reviews, stories, and answers to questions that you may have about a product or service. Bazaarvoice is a software as a service provider that promotes social commerce by connecting customers to each other. They get their name from the word “bazaar, ” which “symbolizes the beginning of commerce – the initial marketplaces… lively centers of town, buzzing with neighbors, friends and merchants all sharing opinions and building a vibrant community.” That’s what Bazaarvoice is trying to recreate online for their clients.

Bazaar Entry Level Jobs

Bazaarvoice has a number of platforms that they use to promote social commerce. These include Ratings & Reviews, Ask & Answer, Stories, SyndicateVoice, BrandVoice, and the SearchVoice Microsite. Take a look at each of these – you’ll get a much better idea of how a company that uses Bazaarvoice has a huge advantage when it comes to getting consumers engaged online. They have an amazing client list, so if you want to see Bazaarvoice’s software in action, just visiting one of their clients’ sites.

In the interest of full disclosure, Bazaarvoice is offering a referral bonus for all of their jobs and we’d be happy to receive a check from them. With that said, we think that they have some great product offerings, an amazing careers site, cool corporate culture, and jobs that look really exciting – that’s why we’re featuring them. We’ve identified a ton of jobs that look well suited for new college grads on Bazaarvoice’s Jobs site (which is seriously one of the top 10 of companies that we’ve featured). Before you look at the specific jobs, you should check out all of the media that they offer – YouTube videos, Flickr photos, a blog, and lots of text on what it’s like to work for them. They’ve been voted one of Austin’s Best Places to Work, and the image that they put forward on their site certainly backs that up.

Bazaarvoice has all kinds of jobs for people with all types of academic and experiential backgrounds. Not all of the jobs listed below are explicitly entry-level, but they all seem within reason for smart, high performing new college grads. Bazaarvoice is based in Austin, TX, and that’s where most of their jobs are located. These include:

Business Analyst
Client Marketing Analyst
Front End Web Developer
Online Community Manager
Operations Database Analyst
Training Team Lead
Web Support Engineer
Software Developer
Web Designer
Associate Product Manager
Market Development Associate
Content Analyst (Work from Home)
Content Analyst Foreign Language (Work from Home)

Bazaarvoice also has a number of international job opportunities that seem to be entry-level.

Implementation Project Manager (London, UK)
Online Community Manager (London, UK)
Market Development Associate (London, UK)
Market Development Associate (EU – Germany, Netherlands, France)

To apply for a job at Bazaarvoice, all you need to do is click the links above and apply through their website. They’re doing a ton of hiring, so they must be experiencing some serious growth. Check them out if you want to be part of making commerce social again.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

What do you think of Bazaarvoice’s services? Would you like to see more e-commerce sites hire them?b

Glam Media

Willy Franzen — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 12:00:46 +0000

Last week we told you about entry-level jobs at Sugar Inc., the rapidly growing online media company targeted to women. Today, we’re going to discuss another major online content player in the same niche, Glam Media. In fact, Glam Media lays claim to being the the #1 online women’s property as their network of over 600 publishers reported 77 million unique visitors last month. That’s an insane amount of traffic, and that’s why there are rumors that Glam Media might have a valuation north of a billion dollars. While Sugar Inc. has built its brand by creating its own network of sites, Glam Media’s rapid growth can be attributed to their advertising agreements with a wide variety of bloggers and site owners in addition to cultivation of their own online properties. Targeting advertising to women online is big business, and no other network can compete with the reach that Glam Media currently has.

Glamorous Entry-Level Jobs

Glam Media’s network consists mainly of sites that cover Fashion, Teen, Beauty, Shopping, Living, Health & Wellness, and Entertainment & Celebrity Style. You may expect Glam Media to have similar jobs to a magazine – writing and editing with some ad sales jobs as well, but that’s actually not the case. Glam Media seems to be laser focused on building the best women targeted ad network online, and that’s why their Jobs page (which only seems to be linked to from their Contact page) says that they’re looking for people in Sales, Product Management, Engineering, and Marketing. This laser focus also seems to get them some significant, and not necessarily positive, attention on TechCrunch. If you’re going to apply for a job with Glam Media, we definitely recommend that you read all of the TechCrunch’s posts tagged Glam or Glam Media. The most recent post is on how Glam Media is using some interesting tactics to ensure that their network of publishers continues to be counted by ComScore, the company that has crowned them the #1 online women’s property. Remember that TechCrunch often has a pretty skeptical tone, so don’t use them as your sole research source.

Glam Media’s Jobs page is actually a bit confusing, because they make it seem like they don’t list specific job openings, but only departments in which they are hiring. Then you see one job listed on the page – Online Ad Operations Technical Producer (it’s not really meant for new grads, unfortunately). We’re not sure if that means that they’re hiring in Sales, Product Management, Engineering, and Marketing, but they REALLY need an Online Ad Operations Technical Producer, or they’re really only looking for that one position, but they’ll accept resumes for the other departments. Either way, they want to hear from you, and although we can’t promise that they have entry-level opportunities right now, there seems to be a good chance that they do. To apply you can send a resume and cover letter (with reference to which department you’d like to work in the subject line of your e-mail) to hr@GlamMedia.com. Glam Media is located in Brisbane, CA, and although they don’t explicitly state that that is where their jobs are located, we think that it’s a safe assumption.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Look below. See the new feature?

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.

CastTV

Willy Franzen — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 13:17:01 +0000

Video is the future of the Internet. People are lazy, and watching is easier than reading. We’re not going to stop writing any time soon, but we’ve hopped on board by including video in a couple of posts over the past week. As the concentration of video on the Internet becomes greater, finding what you’re looking for is going to get harder. Search engines are built to comprehend text, so making sense of what keywords are relevant for a given video can be quite a challenge. CastTV is a startup that is attacking this challenge and attempting to index every video on the web.

Ever Heard of Google?

You have to be a little skeptical about any company that is trying to organize information on the Internet. Google is just too big of a presence to ignore. In CastTV’s case they think that they can give the big G a run for their money. Considering how limited Google’s Video Search is, we think that they might have a shot. Google’s purchase of YouTube looks pretty smart now, but it hasn’t done all that much for video search. Look at YouTube’s search results, they often give you completely irrelevant videos. TechCrunch also seems to have a high opinion of CastTV considering they included the startup in the TechCrunch40. If you want to try CastTV out, you’ll have to sign up for their public beta. We requested an invitation, but haven’t had a response yet, so we can’t tell you our opinion of CastTV’s product. We can tell you that the competition sucks and that CastTV certainly has the opportunity to make a name for itself in video search.

Help Make Video Search Great

CastTV not only has a great idea, but they also have $3.1 million in funding. They have a small team in place, but they’re looking to build on it with more great people. The CastTV Jobs page shows a number of job opportunities, a few of which are geared towards new grads at the entry-level. Open positions that might suit our readers include Software Engineer / Software Architect (Data Acquisition), Web Application Engineer, and Product Associate. The job descriptions are specific about what CastTV is looking for, so head over to their Jobs page for more information.

CastTV offers many of the perks that you’d associate with today’s Internet startups: stock options, free lunch, in office Wii, lots of snacks, Macs, and big flat screen displays. You’ll also be working at a place where you won’t be reprimanded for watching YouTube videos. That’s probably the biggest perk of all. CastTV is located in San Francisco, CA and you can apply for a job with them by sending a cover letter and resume to jobs@casttv.com.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

What do you think of video search? Is it frustrating? Or are you relatively happy with the results you get?

Google

Willy Franzen — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 12:45:35 +0000

If you don’t know what Google is, you have no business conducting your job search online. You should be typing your resume on a typewriter and sending it by carrier pigeon. We’ve been saying it over and over, but Google is the ultimate job search tool. They’re also the ultimate employer according to Fortune Magazine. With that said, many of you know that getting a job at Google is nearly impossible, especially now that most of their campus recruiting efforts are finished.

I’m Feeling Lucky

There’s no need to go into detail about what Google does, so we’re going to jump right into the jobs that they are offering for new college graduates. In fact, we were actually surprised to learn that Google still has some entry-level hiring left to do. One would think that they would be in the same boat as the investment banks and consulting firms – having a new recruiting class signed up and ready to go. That is the case for many of their positions; however, Google is growing so quickly that they need to keep bringing in new talent. It seems like Google is pretty good about keeping the Students section of their Careers site up to date, so you shouldn’t have to worry about getting your hopes up for positions that have already been filled.

We’re going to focus on opportunities in the United States today; however, Google does offer entry-level jobs all across the world. Here’s a list of countries where Google is hiring students. Google separates entry-level hiring into two categories: Technical and Business and General.

Jobs Google Is Famous For

When you hear that Google is hiring, you probably think that they’re only looking for the best software development minds in the world. That’s not completely true, but it appears that they are still looking for top notch entry-level talent in some of their technical departments. Open positions include: Software Engineer in Test (Irvine, CA; Kirkland, WA; Seattle, WA; Mountain View, CA; New York, NY; Pittsburgh, PA; and Santa Monica, CA), Software Engineer (Boston, MA; Boulder, CO; Chicago, IL; Irvine, CA; Kirkland, WA; Seattle, WA; Mountain View, CA, New York, NY; Phoenix, AZ; Pittsburgh, PA; San Francisco, CA; Santa Monica, CA; and Waterloo, ON), Associate Product Manager (Kirkland, WA; Seattle, WA; Mountain View, CA; and New York, NY), and Associate Webmaster (Mountain View, CA). These are all jobs specifically tailored to college students, and they’re the best of the best when it comes to jobs in software development. We’re not sure what Google’s timetable is for hiring, but we’d imagine that they’re itching to get the process moving. Don’t dawdle.

Not a Programmer? That’s OK.

In Business and General, there is only one job title that Google is still hiring for: Associate Product Marketing Manager. We first heard about this position when were forwarded an e-mail that was sent by a former Cornell student who is currently working in this job at Google via the Cornell Career Services office. The former student had nothing but great things to say about this job, which is a two year rotational program. The word is that they are looking to get the process moving fast for this position, so you should apply as quickly as you possibly can. Also, the e-mail we got said that you should include your SAT scores and GPA, although Google’s online application doesn’t appear to require these. This may bother many of you, but SAT performance is actually a much better predictor of job performance than an interview is (no, I don’t have a citation for this, but I learned it multiple times in my college HR courses).

The Best Place to Work

For two years in a row, Google has been named Fortune Magazine’s Best Place to Work. There are many reasons for this, as you’ll find out if you browse Google’s Jobs site. There’s life at Google, amazing benefits, and employee profiles. Google offers a plethora of information about working for them on their site, but they also have a brilliantly simple layout that makes navigating their jobs a breeze. YouTube videos are integrated into job listings and job descriptions are well written and generally jargon free. Most importantly, though, Google has given students their own section of the Careers site to peruse. The #1 employer also has one of the best online recruiting presences we’ve seen, but that’s no big surprise, since it is Google.

I have fond memories of Google’s campus recruiting efforts, because they often put puzzle inserts in the campus newspaper. If I remember correctly, that’s how I was first introduced to the game of Sudoku. These were generally targeted towards engineers, but the branding still stuck with me. Many great employers ignore entry-level talent, but Google has always shown a commitment to hiring the best college students. We do know that Google can be slow when replying to job applications, but we think that they are urgent to hire for the positions that we mentioned. If you don’t hear back from them soon, you probably didn’t get the job (and that’s ok, Google turns down a lot of qualified applicants). The thing that amazes us is that these are jobs that college students dream of, and they’re still available in April!

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Google.com
Jobs at Google
Jobs at Google for Students
Jobs at Google in North America for Students
Life at Google
Google’s Locations
Getting in to Google

As if we haven’t plugged it enough. Read our article How to Use Google to Find a Job.

YardBarker

Willy Franzen — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 12:00:59 +0000

We’re often asked to write more posts about jobs in sports. Because the supply of jobs in sports can’t possibly meet demand (most of the payroll in the industry is devoted to the athletic talent), starting a career can be especially tough. So much of hiring in sports is based on networking; hence, former college athletes gain access to some of the best opportunities through strong connections with alumni and boosters. We’re out to help the average Joes, who don’t have an easy in, find new opportunities in sports and more easily navigate the hiring process process. Today’s jobs were found when some late night Facebooking turned up a recruitment advertisement for YardBarker, which is a blog and social network for sports fans and athletes, so always keep your eye on those Facebook Flyers.

Sports blogging is quickly becoming a major industry, and just as ESPN changed the game in the 80s, companies like YardBarker are seriously influencing the way sports news and opinion is disseminated. What we love about YardBarker is that they’ve brought a ton of pro athletes on board. From Dontrelle Willis to Greg Oden. From Cincinnati Reds prospect Jay Bruce to Donovan McNabb. That means you get inside perspectives from real athletes mixed in with sports news, opinion, and humor. Most importantly, YardBarker has far surpassed the critical mass needed for a successful social network – their site is extremely active. YardBarker also appears to be barren of advertisements — we imagine that it’s because they’re trying to develop a relationship of trust with their audience before they go down that path (that strategy sounds eerily familiar). So how are they going to pay you? They’ve got funding.

Before we talk about YardBarker’s entry-level job openings, let’s analyze the Facebook campaign that introduced us to YardBarker’s recruiting needs. We think using Facebook ads to recruit is really smart, but it must be done right. If YardBarker had hired us to help them with their Facebook recruitment advertising campaign, we would have given them a few tips. First, the logo in the ad looks like crap. They should take 2 minutes to make sure that it looks good. Second, they need to use an actual e-mail address. It looks unprofessional to say “address at company dot com.” Third, a landing page goes a long way. Clicking the ad takes you to YardBarker.com. It doesn’t take you to their Careers page, and it surely doesn’t take you to a page tailored to entry-level job seekers (they don’t have one). In fact, the web engineer position that they mention in their ads was listed as a Product Management job (now the listing calls for a Web/Rails Developer) on their Careers page – it was a little confusing. It seems that YardBarker is trying to be cheap and doesn’t want you to click on their ad; they want you to e-mail your resume without researching the company at all. They should just spend the 17 cents per click it takes to get qualified applicants, and then send them straight to a page with a strong entry-level recruiting message.

It almost looks like YardBarker renamed the Product Management job that we saw listed a few days ago and is now calling it Web (Rails) Developer. The other possibility is that they filled that job, and this is a new listing, which may be more likely – the requirements are more technical now. The Product Management listing had more emphasis on looking for someone who has been running his or her own blog and wants to take his or her web skills to the next level, while the Web (Rails) Developer listing is more focused on straight up software development. The word “experience” is/was used a few times in both job descriptions, but the fact that they’re targeting college seniors on Facebook and they say “You have designed and implemented software systems on your own, or as the leader of a team. -OR- You are super-smart and motivated, and can convince us that we should hire you anyway,” makes us pretty confident that this is an entry-level job.

You can send a resume and cover letter to jobs@yardbarker.com to apply. If you’re not quite sure about a job at YardBarker, and you’d rather run your own blog, you can join the YardBarker Network instead. It’s a great way for sports bloggers to make money.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Spring Break is over. It’s time to get serious about your job hunt, so subscribe if you want to hear about more great jobs at companies like YardBarker.

Redfin

Willy Franzen — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 13:00:05 +0000

What’s the job market look like for a new college grad who wants to go into the real estate industry? Craptastic. Unless you’ve got a great connection or know something we don’t (which is actually pretty likely), you can head for another industry to get some work experience or you can take a stab at Real Estate 2.0 jobs. We’ve already looked at Zillow.com as one company that has insulated itself from sub-prime woes by breaking away from the traditional real estate business model, and today we’re going to look at another one. Redfin is an online real estate brokerage. They currently operate in only 7 markets, but they’re gaining ground by offering new services to people who think a realtor isn’t worth 6% of a house’s final sale price.

Zillow and Redfin are both Seattle based, online real estate companies, so there must be a big rivalry, right? Wrong! In fact Redfin has integrated Zillow’s features into their website. Still, people (like students at a college career fair) sometimes overlook Redfin’s revolutionary simple business model for the flash of Zillow and their Zestimates. Zillow will make you an informed real estate buyer or seller, but Redfin could potentially save you tens of thousands of dollars in your next real estate transaction.

So what exactly is Redfin doing that makes them so different? They offer many of the same services that a traditional real estate agency offers (they list your house online, aid in negotiations and contingencies, and assist with paperwork), but their rate structure is completely different. If you’re selling a house, you can do it for a flat fee. If you’re buying, Redfin will refund 2/3 of their commission (which is up to 3% of the sale price, so the refund is up to 2%). So while most real estate transactions result in up to 6% of the sale price going to real estate agents who sometimes don’t do much to really help their clients (read Freakonomics for more on how your realtor’s interests may not align with yours). Beyond their game changing rate structure, Redfin also offers some really great web-based tools that are integrated within their house listings. Unfortunately, their listings aren’t compatible with Safari, which is lame. Although their website and their rate structure are what make Redfin a true threat to traditional real estate agents, it’s their Satisfaction Guarantee that shows how serious the threat is – we’ve certainly never heard of a traditional real estate agent guaranteeing that you’ll be happy with his or her service. How can something so simple be so innovative for an industry?

If you’re intrigued by Redfin’s offerings, you can look a little deeper and read about how Redfin works. If it’s their business model that interests you, why not read their comprehensive first-year report. You might also want to look at the posts on TechCrunch that are tagged for Redfin.

Redfin’s jobs website shows off a great college recruiting program. Typically, they hire for 4 entry-level positions: Test Engineer, Developer, Product Manager, and Marketing Analyst. It’s a great mix of jobs for students whether you have a computer science background or studied liberal arts.

Another great thing about Redfin is that they’re all over the blog thing. There are few better ways to gain insight into what a company does and what it’s like to work there than reading blogs written by real employees. One post that we especially enjoyed was this one on a college intern’s experience at Redfin. Well any company that has a great internship program should also be a great entry-level employer (that’s the whole point of interns, right?). Take a look at all of Redfin’s blogs: Development Blog, Los Angeles Blog, Orange County Blog, San Diego Blog, San Francisco Blog, and Seattle Blog.

We know your Mom thinks you should take a job with a well respected company with a long track record of success, because she thinks it’s safe. Well look who killed the real estate market. It was those big, conservative banks – the safest of the safe. She’ll tell you that start-ups are too risky for someone with nothing to fall back on. We think it’s too risky to miss out on the future of a company that is about to eat traditional real estate brokers’ lunch.

Note: On April 23rd we revisited entry-level jobs at Redfin.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Do you have any other ideas for real estate jobs that are insulated from the sub-prime “problem?” Leave a comment and tell us what you’ve come across.

Ning

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

Social networking has become kind of a big thing over the past few years. MySpace and Facebook have been duking it out, and it’s pretty clear that Facebook has taken the lead as the social network of choice (especially for our demographic of college aged job seekers). But what about other options? Nobody is going to beat Facebook head to head at this point, but there are some interesting companies out there that have put together really cool social networking products. Ning is one of those companies.

Instead of trying to get you to join their network, Ning wants you to create your own social network. Whether you want a website for your campus organization or club, would like to bring together people who are obsessed with raw food, or need a site for your family reunion, Ning provides a brilliant platform for doing so – in fact there are already 130,000 Ning Networks out there. Facebook groups are great, but they don’t offer the full list of features that creating your own Ning network can offer. We’re sorry that we keep mentioning Facebook in a post about Ning, but if you’re going to apply for a job at Ning, you need to understand why Ning can thrive in a world where Facebook dominates social networking (end of the article). Ning gives you the ability to create a network and an identity that is separate from your other networks and identities. The idea of your Mom on Ning isn’t nearly as scary as getting a friend request from her on Facebook. We’re a member of a couple of Ning networks, and we’re pretty impressed with their platform. Beyond the elegant design and feature set, it offers the luxury of keeping our business social networks distinctly separate from our personal social networks.

Want to know more about Ning? Watch this video interview with CEO, Gina Bianchini. Still have questions? Shoot an e-mail off to Gina, who was named by Business 2.0 Magazine as number 48 on their list of 50 People Who Matter Now. You may also be interested to read Co-Founder Marc Andreessen’s personal blog – especially his post from when Ning signed up its 100,000th network. And if you’d like an outside opinion on Ning, read TechCrunch’s posts about them.

We can tell Ning is a great place to work by how they write their job postings. They’re descriptive, clear, and direct about the skills that you’ll need to succeed in the position, while at the same written in a voice that is personal and inviting to the reader. We don’t need to tell you any more, take a look at the current job openings at Ning: Product Manager (which says MBAs should not apply – score one for entry-level!), Community Advocate, Developer Support Engineer, Application Developer (PHP & AJAX), Core Platform Engineer (Java), Interaction Designer, and Visual Designer.

If you’re as intrigued by the jobs at Ning as we are, you’ll want to make sure you get familiar with their product before you apply. Go do some more research and then start a Ning network for people who share one of your passions.

Note: On April 22nd we revisited entry-level jobs at Ning.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Do you think Ning has what it takes to become a social networking powerhouse? Leave a comment and tell us your thoughts.

Burton

Willy Franzen — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 13:00:16 +0000

“Many Burton employees will snag freshies first thing in the morning before coming in to work during the winter.” Being non “riders,” we’re not quite sure what that means, but it sounds like Burton is a place where people love what they do. As if that wasn’t enough, their logo matches our color scheme, so we had to do a post about the world’s first snowboard factory.

Burton currently has three great entry-level opportunities that are perfect for someone fresh out of college. In their Irvine, CA location there are two positions: they are hiring a PR Coordinator (preferably someone who is positive, enthusiastic – especially about snowboarding, and a great communicator) and a US Apparel Sales Manager (this time they’re looking for somebody who is independent, investigative, and into traveling a lot). At their headquarters in Burlington, VT, they have an opening in product development as an Assistant Product Manger – Burton Binding for someone with excellent Adobe Illustrator skills and basic knowledge of how plastic injected parts are manufactured. The cool thing about these postings is that the job descriptions are honestly written (one job description that is sadly not entry-level used the word “stoked”) and provide the goals they have set for their future hire. Burton wants to hire passionate people, and that is certainly reflected in the way they write their job postings.

Furthermore, Burton’s web site is a great example of how a Careers site should be. We like it so much, because it tells a story. They give you all the information that you’d want to find as a job seeker – job listings with meaningful descriptions, blurbs on all of their locations, a jobs FAQ, information on benefits, and an employee photo gallery. Unfortunately, because of the way their site is scripted, we can’t link directly to the pages, but you can access it all from their Jobs page. Also take a look at Burton’s home page and their company site. We’re keeping it short today, because Burton’s site should answer all your questions on its own.

Note: On April 22nd we revisited entry-level jobs at Burton.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Want to experience the thrills of snowboarding but hate the cold? Enter our contest to win a Nintendo Wii. Ok, you’ll have to buy your own snowboarding game, but we’re giving away a freakin’ Wii. You’ve only got one more week to enter, and all you have to do is be an e-mail subscriber and become a Fan of One Day, One Job on Facebook.