One Day, One Job » social networking

Communispace

Willy Franzen — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 15:43:37 +0000

We’re already working on new projects based on your feedback. If you want your voice heard, please take 3 minutes (seriously, it’s short) to complete our One Day, One Job survey.

As the preceding note indicates, I’ve been collecting user data over the past week to help me make the site more useful for you. So far the survey has received hundreds of responses, and there are a number of common themes that keep coming up. It’s amazing at how well an 8 question survey can tell me about what you guys want in a job search tool. For companies that need a little more than an 8 question survey, there’s Communispace, a Watertown, MA based market research company. Their name probably wouldn’t have made them too popular during the cold war, but fear of communism has been replaced with community building—which is what Communispace is all about.

Join the Communispace Community

Communispace works with some of the world’s biggest brands (like Pepsi, Hallmark, and Unilever) to build private online communities. These communities allow Communispace clients to interact directly with their customers. They can ask for insights, identify trends, test nearly anything, and build customer loyalty. As a business owner, I know how valuable all of those things are. Luckily, I already have a community of awesome users who are constantly giving me feedback. It isn’t so easy for huge brands. They need help, and Communispace offers an end to end solution. They provide the technology, the expertise, and the community management. The world of market research is changing as it gets cheaper and easier to reach customers en masse, and it seems that Communispace is at the forefront of this change. If you’d like to join them, check out their Jobs page. The most suitable positions for new grads are Associate Community Manager and Sales Operations Associate. There are also some technical/software jobs, but they don’t seem to be geared towards new grads. Most importantly, Communispace allows you to apply for an unlisted position, so you can do some research on their Team page and on LinkedIn to get a better sense of what kind of positions they offer but may not have posted.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Have you taken our survey yet?

Zinch

Willy Franzen — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 15:46:38 +0000

If you’ve been in the job search for very long, you’d probably do anything to go back to Senior year of high school when you were applying to college. It’s not that the admissions process is particularly fun, but at least it has a set timeline and a fixed set of options. Still, there’s plenty of room for improvement. That’s why there are quite a few young entrepreneurs who have built companies that aim to make the college process better, just like I’m doing with the entry level job and internship searches. One of these companies is San Francisco based Zinch, which was founded by Mick Hagen, a Princeton dropout. They’ve created a social network that allows high school students to connect with the colleges that they want to attend. There are more than 700 colleges and universities that invest in Zinch, which is why more than 1.5 million students have created Zinch profiles to show off to admissions counselors and to apply for scholarships and financial aid packages.

Getting a Job Is a Zinch

Zinch’s motto is simple: “I am more than a test score.” They’re all about helping students make their case for why they’re a great fit at a given institution of higher learning. It’s the anti-common app. But what about Zinch’s business model? How does it work? Well, Zinch is free for students, but colleges must pay an annual fee to connect with students. This may seem strange to you, but you have to remember that colleges are essentially businesses, and they need a constant flow of customer. While schools like Harvard and Princeton constantly have way more qualified applicants than spots in their Freshman classes, most colleges aren’t so lucky. They need to market themselves to students. Traditionally they’ve done this by inundating the mailboxes of high school juniors and seniors based on data from standardized test scores. (Side story: My mom forced me to check the “do not mail me” box on all of my testing stuff, so I felt left out when all of my friends were getting recruited and nobody was sending me anything.) Zinch thinks that’s a poor model, so they’ve stepped it up a bit. They’ve created a new marketing platform for colleges, and it seems to be working out pretty well.

This means that Zinch is growing and hiring. If you check out their Jobs page, you’ll see that they are looking for people in Engineering/Software Development, Sales/Marketing, Internet/Search Marketing, Graphic Design, Public Relations, and Videography/Cinematography. To apply for any of these positions, you need to e-mail work@zinch.com with the following:

1) An attachment of your resumé/CV
2) Answers to the following questions:
+ If you could change/add one thing about Zinch, what would it be and why?
+ How would you move Mount Fuji?
+ What are three things you want to accomplish before you die?
+ What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever done (crazy can be defined as, for example, dangerous, silly, stupid, etc)?

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Do you wish that you had Zinch when you were in high school?

Willy Franzen — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 16:39:19 +0000

A lot of people find it ironic that I put an end to my job search by starting a company that helps other people with their job searches. I’ll admit that it’s a bit odd, but it seems to be working out pretty well. Maybe you’ll do something similar by landing a job at a job-search focused company like Mountain View, CA based LinkedIn. There are plenty of other companies trying to build professional social networks and online résumé sites, but none of them seem to have any hope competing with LinkedIn. LinkedIn reached critical mass first, and that’s why they’re one of my favorite online job search tools. Not only do they allow you to visualize your own professional network to see whom you’re connected to, but they also let you browse through the networks of different companies to learn more about their organizational structure. Where else can you get access to the résumé of someone whose job you want to have five years down the road? LinkedIn is an amazing tool for smart job seekers, and it’s also an amazing business—they’ve been profitable for nearly three years (which is impressive for a startup of their size and scope).

Get LinkedIn

LinkedIn is obviously much more than a job search tool, but that’s its most common use for new and recent college graduates. If you’re not already on the site, you should sign up today. If you are, you should invest some time and effort into learning more about how to use the site—we have some great tutorials in our job search training course, Found Your Career. This goes doubly if you want to land a job at LinkedIn—I can’t imagine their hiring anyone who isn’t extremely familiar with their product. It wouldn’t make sense. Oddly enough, LinkedIn’s Careers site and Job Search function leave something to be desired. Maybe it’s because I expect theirs to be best of breed, but I’m disappointed. The Careers site provides all of the normal information that you’d expect, and the Job listings are just that—a list of jobs. They do allow a few ways to sort them, but they’re not very helpful. It’s actually better to use the general LinkedIn job search tool and specify that you’re looking for jobs at LinkedIn. It makes the results a little easier to sort through. None of LinkedIn’s current job postings are explicitly entry level (which I find a bit surprising), but they do have a number of positions on the Software Development side and Account Management/Advertising side that look like possibilities for recent grads with the right background. Since LinkedIn is all about networking, you may even want to skip the job postings, and just focus on using the site to connect with people at the company—that would show true knowledge of how their product works.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Do you use LinkedIn?

WeTheCitizens

Willy Franzen — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 15:00:47 +0000

As someone who has just tweeted his 5,000th tweet, I have to say that I’m getting a little sick of all the buzz about social media. It’s not that I don’t think tools like Twitter, Facebook, and blogs are valuable—if that was the case I wouldn’t be writing this right now—it’s just that too many people are forgetting that results, not tools, are most important. That’s why it’s cool to see a company like WeTheCitizens that is putting social media to work in a results-driven way. They’ve developed a platform to help “you recruit, mobilize, and track the effectiveness of your supporters.” Ok, YOU may not need something like that, but politicians, non-profit founders, and movie producers do. WeTheCitizens is an Atlanta based startup (with an office in DC) , and they’re going through a bit of an identity crisis right now (it’s not all that uncommon for startups). They’re very confident in their product—Wildfire Platform—but they’re apparently in the process of changing their name from WeTheCitizens to Mobilization Labs. To make it more confusing, a lot of the branding that they’re doing is for Wildfire Platform. If you can look past all of that, you’ll see a really cool company in its formative stages.

YouTheEmployee

I could try to explain to you what Wildfire Platform does, but luckily I don’t have to. WeTheCitizens has a YouTube video on their home page that does just that, and I’ve embedded it below for you (e-mail and RSS readers should click through to view):

Apparently Wildfire Platform “has been tested and proven across non-profits, movies, and political campaigns, including gubernatorial, senatorial, and even U.S. Presidential.” I’d love to see a full-blown case study of a success story, but it doesn’t look like WeTheCitizens/Mobilization Labs has one up yet. For now, that video will have to sate your appetite for information on Wildfire Platform—at least until you reach out to the team at WeTheCitizens. Although they don’t have a Jobs page yet, they recently posted on their blog about Paid Post-College Internships.

I don’t usually cover internships here, but I’m covering these since they’re paid and the post says: “We have multiple full-time positions we’re looking to fill that will open up at the end of the internship period. We’re pretty confident that the interns will get first dibs on those opportunities.” I basically see it as a temp or intern to hire arrangement. They’re looking for people to help in areas like Sales, Social Media, Social Networking, Marketing, but they’re not tied down to any specific positions. They just want “smart, web-savvy college graduates looking to jump in and start making a difference in a small, fast-growing internet startup.” If that’s you, then e-mail your cover letter, résumé, and references to Esther Weathers at esther@wethecitizens.com by January 20th.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Which name do you like better WeTheCitizens, Wildfire, or Mobilization Labs?

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?

Bozell

Willy Franzen — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 15:59:11 +0000

Want a crappy job? You’re in luck. Today I came across WhatACrappyJob.com, which is actually the internship site for Bozell, a Omaha, NE based full-service public relations and advertising agency. There’s nothing extraordinarily special about the site beyond the domain name, but it’s well designed and informative, which is rare when it comes to Careers websites. I guess that’s what you should expect from the agency behind the “Got Milk?” mustache campaign and the “Pork. The Other White Meat.” slogan. Bozell’s history includes quite a few mergers, acquisitions, and buybacks. As of 2001 Bozell has moved away from Wall Street and returned to it roots as “an independent, client-focused, employee-owned agency.” They have an impressive portfolio of work and seem like a pretty cool place to work.

Got Bozell?

Going back to WhatACrappyJob.com, I have to admit that Bozell doesn’t have any entry level opportunities posted right now. However, I am inclined to think that a company that gives as much attention to their internship program as Bozell does must also do a significant amount of entry level hiring. Their internships are offered in Account Services, Art Direction/Design, Copywriting, Interactive, Media, Social Media, and Public Relations, so it would make sense that any entry level hiring that they do would be in those areas. It does seem that Bozell is open to accepting unsolicited résumés, as they post the e-mail address for their Managing Principal, Administration & Business Services on their Careers page. Her name is Robin Donovan, and you can reach out to her at rdonovan@bozell.com. You may also want to do a little LinkedIn research to get a better feel for the types of positions that Bozell ofers.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

What have you heard about Bozell?

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?

ZooLoo

Willy Franzen — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 14:48:44 +0000

I’ve never found a use for start pages and portals. Until Safari came out with a feature that allowed me to view a dozen of my most visited sties at a glance, I just set a blank page as my home page. However, I realize that many people have very different web browsing habits, and a lot of people find start pages really useful. One company that is trying to update the start page by making it social is ZooLoo. They’re a Phoenix, AZ based startup that, despite an unfortunate name that sounds like a bathroom at a wildlife park, is trying to own the market for customizable start pages. They’re competing with behemoths like Google and Facebook to be your home page, but they do have an advantage in that they’re laser focused on start pages and only start pages. They think if they can own that market, they can deliver lots of relevant advertising and make lots of money.

Do You ZooLoo?

One of the things that makes ZooLoo stand out is that you can buy your own domain name to host your start page. That means that your ZooLoo page can be more than just your home page—it can also be an online résumé, portfolio, or other type of personal website. This requires a paid upgrade, which shows that ZooLoo isn’t putting all of its eggs in the advertising basket. I guess it’s working, because ZooLoo seems to be growing pretty quickly. They’re up to 24 employees, and according to their Careers page, they’re looking to add more. They don’t get specific about which positions they have open, but a look at LinkedIn shows that Marketing, PR, Social Media, and Software Development are the areas in which they’re most likely to have jobs. To find out more you can send a cover letter and résumé to careers@zooloo.com.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

ZooLoo.com
Jobs at ZooLoo
About ZooLoo
What Is ZooLoo?
Why ZooLoo?
ZooLoo in the News
ZooLoo FAQs
JeffHerzog.com (ZooLoo CEO’s ZooLoo Page)

Will you create a ZooLoo page?

Oceana

Willy Franzen — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 14:47:50 +0000

I love our oceans—everything about them. I love swimming in them, eating the food that they provide, fishing in them, watching sunsets over them, and all of the other wonderful things that they offer. However, our oceans are both blessed and cursed by the same thing—they seem infinite. That’s what makes them so great, but it’s also what has led us to abusing them nearly to the point of no return. A little pollution will disappear in the vastness of an ocean. Overfishing doesn’t matter because there are always more fish. Scraping up the bottom isn’t a big deal because we can’t see the bottom. I wish that oceans were that resilient, but they’re not. Oceana is a Washington, DC based non-profit organization that “seeks to make our oceans as rich, healthy and abundant as they were in our grandparents’ youth.” They recognize the value of their oceans, and they’re doing something to protect them.

Dive in to a Job at Oceana

From what I can tell, most of what Oceana does is based on advocacy and creating awareness. They do this through a number of campaigns including Stop Climate Change, Stop Dirty Fishing, Stop Destructive Trawling, Stop Seafood Contamination, Cut the Bait, Save Seat Turtles, Safeguard Sharks, Dive Into Ocean Conservation, Surf Into Ocean Conservation, Stop Cruise Ship Pollution, Advocating for Ocean Change, and Protect Prey. This approach makes sense because our everyday choices impact the future of the ocean, and until we understand that, we’re not going to take a collective action for positive change. Here’s what Oceana has to say about their campaigns:

To achieve real benefits for the oceans, Oceana conducts focused, strategic campaigns. Each campaign has a specific timeframe and objective that will make a significant difference to the oceans. Each campaign combines scientific, legal, policy and advocacy approaches to reach its goal. Saving the oceans may take decades, but in each of our campaigns we aim to accomplish an important milestone in that effort within two to five years.

If you love the oceans as much as I do, you might want to consider Jobs at Oceana. Right now they have a couple of opportunities that seem suitable for recent grads. These include Grantwriter and E-Activism Fellow. You can apply by sending a cover letter and résumé to resumes@oceana.org with the job title in the subject line.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

What do you love about the oceans?

Do Something

Willy Franzen — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 15:06:13 +0000

Whether you’re trying to land a job, start a business, get in shape, figure out your personal finances, or get a date, there’s one piece of advice that I’ve found to be the most appropriate. It’s really simple and a little disappointing, but it just works. Do something! Get off your butt and take action. It will get you 80% of the way to accomplishing your goal. I’m not the only one who thinks this. Do Something, a New York City based non-profit, has adopted this two word phrase as their name. They’re focused on encouraging teenagers to take positive ideas and turn them into action. Instead of focusing on a specific cause, Do Something is all about getting teens to do something about the issues that matter to them—whatever they may be.

Umm… Do Something!

What impresses me most about Do Something is how they’re harnessing the power of the Internet to reach teens with their message. In fact, Do Something has created an online platform that gives teens the tools and resources that they need to take action. Everything that Do Something does is based on 5 guidelines:

Believe in teenagers. Teenagers can lead today. We don’t require adults.
Trust teenagers. We provide reliable, easy to access information and activation strategies, but teens decide for themselves what to do.
Celebrate teenagers. We think all measurable contributions from teens are valuable.
Respect teenagers. We understand that teenagers have diverse abilities and constraints.
Value teenagers. Our programs and products are free. We’re not after teens’ money; we want their passion, time and creativity.

The result of following these guidelines is a website that encourages teenagers to Act Now by using a search engine to find a project that they can join. Or students can start their own club or apply for a grant. Teens are completely empowered to take action on their own. How can you take action? You can check out jobs at Do Something. They’re a young non-profit, and they have what look to be two awesome jobs. You won’t find the word “experience” in either of the job descriptions, so as a new grad you should definitely consider their Clubs Associate and Digital Media Associate positions. The application instructions vary, so pay attention… and DO SOMETHING!

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Want to get a job? Do something!

Slickdeals

Willy Franzen — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 14:43:02 +0000

We all learn at an early age that we can’t have our cake and eat it too. Everything has a trade off. You can have money or you can have stuff. You can’t have both. Right? Wrong. Since 1999 Las Vegas based Slickdeals has been proving that you can have your cake and eat it too. Or as they put it, “Slickdeals.net is a free, user-driven deal sharing site with a mission to provide consumers an avenue to collaborate and share information in order to make the best shopping decisions.” That’s a fancy way of saying that they are a community of people who help each other find the best deals, so you can buy stuff and have some money left over. In fact, a lot of Slickdeals users find deals so good that they get paid to buy something (after rebate). Seriously. It’s all about free and open sharing of information, and it’s amazingly powerful. The amount of money that people have saved through Slickdeals has to be staggering.

Are You Slick Enough?

Slickdeals doesn’t have a monopoly on “community driven bargain hunting,” but their “thousands of free discounts, promo codes, reviews and price comparisons” have resulted in an insanely successful website and business. From what I can tell, most of Slickdeals’ revenue comes through advertising and affiliate links. They’ve found that giving away a lot of high quality free content can be very profitable. Maybe newspapers could learn a thing or two from Slickdeals. Even though Slickdeals is all about being cheap and frugal, they appear to be willing to spend some of their profits on hiring top talent. Their Jobs page shows a number of listings that include potential entry level positions like Creative Web Developer, Community Relations Manager, Business Development Manager, and Blog Columnist. The application instructions vary, so be sure to check out the specific postings for all of the details. And be sure to enjoy the “employee discount” that is being allowed to read Slickdeals at work.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Have you used Slickdeals beore?

HotChalk

Willy Franzen — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 13:29:41 +0000

Last week I told you about Sramana Mitra’s book Entrepreneur Journeys and how it was loaded with cool companies that would be awesome to work for. One of those companies is HotChalk, an educational startup that provides online learning management systems for free. They enable teachers to bring their classrooms online in minutes without having to worry about administration approval or staying within a budget. HotChalk isn’t just tailored to teachers though; HotChalk also focuses on pleasing students, parents, school administrators, and tech coordinators. The simplicity of the whole thing has enabled HotChalk to gain a ton of marketshare—they have over 7 million monthly unique visitors and more than 375,000 teachers using the service. That’s what “free” will do for you.

HotJobs at HotChalk?

The most interesting thing about HotChalk is their revenue model. Instead of building a freemium product where schools can pay for premium services once they’re forced to by teachers who have adopted the free service, HotChalk has decided that advertising is the key to profitability. They offer extremely targeted advertising to each of their user bases—teachers, students, parents, administrators, and tech coordinators; however, HotChalk has strict guidelines about what kind of advertisements can be targeted towards students, and they can never be shown ads during school hours. Now, how about jobs at HotChalk? Their Jobs page says that they don’t have any current openings, but it also says that they “are always looking for talented people.” If education technology is something that gets you excited, you should send a cover letter and resume to careers@hotchalk.com. According to HotChalk’s LinkedIn profile they have 27 employees right now, and they’re split between the San Francisco Bay Area and New York City.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Have you ever used HotChalk?

JamLegend

Willy Franzen — Thu, 28 May 2009 14:08:44 +0000

I’ve already written posts on Activision (Guitar Hero), Harmonix (Rock Band), and Tapulous (Tap Tap Revenge), but can you ever really get enough of the music playing video game genre? Of course not! That’s why we’re looking at JamLegend today. How are they different from the other game makers that I just mentioned? First, JamLegend is free. Second, it offers more songs. Third, you can use your computer keyboard as a guitar. Fourth and most importantly, it’s social! You can play your friends, you can play the world, and you can even enter tournaments to win prizes. JamLegend isn’t just the name of the game, it’s also the name of the company, a small startup based out of San Francisco.

These Jobs Are Your Jam

If you’re a music loving video game junkie who is fascinated by the social web, then you really couldn’t find a better fit than JamLegend. Beyond that, it’s a good career choice. The video game industry continues to thrive through the recession, and social gaming appears to be the next big thing. That’s why you need to check out Jobs with JamLegend. You won’t find any specific postings on their Jobs page, but that’s ok because I love their philosophy. They say, “Our belief is that we should hire gifted people even before we need them, so send us an e-mail (jobs@jamlegend.com) and tell us why you are interesting.” That’s about it. Awesome. JamLegend does have some positions posted on Startuply for a Flex / AS3 Developer and a Facebook Connect / Social-Web Developer, but it’s unclear whether these are internships or full-time jobs. It really doesn’t matter though, just reach out to them and tell them how you can help them. Don’t constrain yourself by applying for a specific position.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Have you played JamLegend?

IMRE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good Things Happen When You Converge with IMRE

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

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

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

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

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

WooMe

Willy Franzen — Fri, 01 May 2009 14:33:39 +0000

My first experience with video chatting was with CU-SeeMe in an internet cafe in the mid 90s. It was insanely cool, but it was also terrible quality. Things have come a long way, and once again people are using video chat to meet random people online. I was a little creeped out when I first saw WooMe, but I think that I get it now (even if I’m still creeped out). It’s a website that allows you to meet new people through “60 second one-on-one online video sessions.” Basically, it’s speed dating on the web. I was almost too sketched out to cover them here, but I figured if TechCrunch didn’t rip on them too hard and they’re able to get $17 million in investment, there has to be the potential for a real business.

Can You Woo WooMe?

If you’re not quite getting what WooMe is all about, check out WooMe TV. It will give you a chance to watch some recorded interactions of WooMe members. It’s kind of weird, but also pretty entertaining. Ok, so remember that $17 million I mentioned 3 sentences ago? It’s important, as it looks like WooMe is ready to spend it. Their Jobs page is filled with opportunities that include: Systems Admin x 2 (London and Los Angeles), IM Engineer (London), Frontend Guru – HTML / CSS / javascript / AJAX (London), Site Operations Manager (Los Angeles), Community Manager, Site Operations Analyst (San Francisco), Senior Django Developer (London), Flash Developer (London/San Francisco), Product Manager (London/San Francisco), Online Marketing Senior Manager or Director (Los Angeles). Obviously not all of those are entry level positions, but quite a few of them are. You can head over to WooMe’s Jobs page to get all of the details including how you should apply. I wonder if their job interviews are only 60 seconds? That’d be pretty cool.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Have you tried WooMe?

Murphy-Goode Winery

Willy Franzen — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 13:51:42 +0000

I’m not a wine drinker, but I am a sucker for a good PR stunt – especially when it’s related to jobs. I never covered “The Best Job in the World” (a job in Australia as an “island caretaker”), but I figured that you guys wouldn’t want to miss out on the chance to land “A Really Goode Job.” What am I talking about? Murphy-Goode Winery, which is based in Sonoma Wine Country, is looking for “someone (maybe you) who really knows how to use Web 2.0 and Facebook and blogs and social media and YouTube and all sorts of good stuff like that — to tell the world about our wines and the place where we live: the Sonoma County Wine Country.” I believe the official title for the job is Wine Country Lifestyle Correspondent. Anyway, it’s the opportunity of a lifetime, and even if there’s a miniscule chance that you’ll be the one selected out of thousands to get the job, it’s worth a shot, right?

Are You Goode Enough?

Let me give you the bad new first. This job is only planned to last for 6 months (unless you’re so good that they decide to keep you, of course). That’s ok, though, because the rest of the details make up for it. The biggest detail is that you get paid $10,000 per month with full accommodations. Oh yeah, and “working hours are flexible. And all you have to do is experience wine and good living, and then tell people about it.” This isn’t a joke. The real details come out in the application process. Although that’s what they call it, it’s more like a contest. The most important part of the application is a 60 second video that communicates why you’re the best fit for the job. Then there’s also a brief application form. The application deadline is June 5th. Once they get all of the applications (they reserve the right to stop accepting them if they get more than 5,000) they’ll whittle the applicant pool to 50 and then to 10, and then they’ll invite those 10 out to the winery for final interviews. On July 9th they’ll select someone and work begins on August 1st. There’s a ton of information about the job on AReallyGoodeJob.com, so make sure that you read up on everything before you apply. Oh yeah, and obviously, you need to be 21 to apply.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Are you going to apply for A Really Goode Job?

Raptr

Willy Franzen — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 14:32:24 +0000

One of the cool things about all of the social technologies that we have these days is that it removes a lot of social inefficiency. What do I mean by social inefficiency? How about the fact that you’re sitting in an airport waiting for a delayed flight even though your friend is 3 gates away and you have no idea. You’re probably not going to call that friend randomly, but a Facebook or Twitter update might alert you to the fact that you have someone to hang out with for the next hour or two. There are a million examples like this, and Raptr, a Mountain View, CA based startup, has created some technology to address one inefficiency in particular – gaming alone. Ok, so they’re not going to invite your friends over to play video games with you, but they will allow you to find out which of your friends are playing what video games when, so that you can link up and play together. Social gaming is huge, but it’s happening mostly on non-gaming platforms like Facebook. Raptr is trying to bring this technology to more traditional gaming systems and aggregate your information across the social networks that you already use.

Don’t Fear the Raptr

Now, if you’re ashamed of your excessive gaming, then maybe Raptr isn’t the service for you; however, if you are always looking for someone to play against, then it should be a pretty good addition to your gaming repertoire. Apparently Raptr is as easy as setting up a few accounts, so I can’t imagine why a serious gamer wouldn’t want to use it (unless of course they’re one of those people I described in the first sentence of this paragraph). I think Raptr is a pretty cool idea, and I’m excited to see more startups that address social inefficiencies. If you’re excited about both video games and social networking, then you might also want to check out Raptr’s Job Opportunities. Right now there’s only one opening, but it’s perfect for a new grad. Raptr is looking to hire a Community Manager to help them develop and interact with their online community. It sounds like an awesome job, and there’s a ton of information about Raptr on their website. You can apply for the job by sending a resume and cover letter to jobs@raptr.com (and make sure that you paste it into the body of the e-mail – no attachments).

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Have you tried Raptr yet?

OMGPOP

Willy Franzen — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 14:25:47 +0000

So, when I first typed the name of today’s company into the title field in WordPress, I wrote OMGPOOP. Most companies probably wouldn’t be very happy that I made that mistake, but I feel like NYC based OMGPOP wouldn’t mind so much. They seem to have a penchant for the ridiculous. I mean, they just changed their name from ImInLikeWithYou.com to OMGPOP. Since you probably have no idea what I’m talking about, we should probably start from the top. OMGPOP “is a place to hang out, play free online multiplayer games, chat, and make friends.” They’re very different from other online gaming sites, although it’s hard to describe how. You really need to check them out to get a feel for what they’re all about. When you land on their home page, you’ll see this: “Why hang out with your friends in person when you can do it on the internet? No need to wear clothes that way. Seriously, this is bigger than unicorns and wrestling put together.” That about sums it up.

OMGJOBS

So, you’re probably thinking that I’m nuts for talking about real jobs with a company called OMGPOP. Well, they just secured $5 million in funding, which means that they are for real (and so are their jobs). They don’t have a traditional jobs page, but they just posted 3 awesome opportunities on their blog. They’re looking for a Community Manager / Director of Social Media, a SEO Guru, and an E-commerce / Virtual Goods Manager. These aren’t typical entry level jobs, but if you have a background in any of those areas, these are opportunities that you need to take a look at – especially if you’re interested in social gaming. How you apply should vary depending on the position that you apply for, but you can apply for all positions with an e-mail to jobs@omgpop.com.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Have you played games on OMGPOP?

Meetup

Willy Franzen — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 14:22:48 +0000

One thing the Internet has done for us that doesn’t get talked about a lot is that it has made it so much easier to organize real-life events. You can send a meeting request, create an event on Facebook, organize a Tweetup, or a Meetup. It’s amazing that phone calls and invitations are nearly obsolete when it comes to organizing an event. With that said, there’s still a lot of room for improvement when it comes to online tools to getting people together. That’s what Meetup, which is based in New York City, is all about. They provide a place for people to organize meetups and to share them with the rest of the world. Whether you want to join The Chicago English as a Second Language Meetup Group or The NYC Cranium Meetup Group, you can do so with the help of Meetup.

Meetup with a New Job

Meetup is a pretty simple idea – make it easy for people with similar interests to find each other. It’s put well in The Meetup Manifesto:

Let’s be fearless. Let’s exercise our human right of assembly. Let’s exploit it big-time. Let’s use the Internet to get people off the Internet. Let’s bring back the handshake. The verbal debate. The smile. You know, some good ol’ face-to-face, eye-to-eye contact. When people get together amazing things happen. They advocate, argue, learn, laugh and share. Let’s be a group. Let’s be a real group. Groups have a history of making history. People unite, motivate, activate and mobilize. Groups give us the power to face a health crisis, start a political movement, pursue a passion, launch a business, and turn strangers into friends. To be bigger than ourselves. Let’s step away from our screens for a moment. Do without the PC, the TV and the phone. People are more powerful than pixels. A real group can beat up a virtual group any day of the week. Let’s find the others. The ones that want the same thing. Let’s meet in real time, in real places, and make a real difference.

Let’s Meetup.

Meetup’s business model is also simple. They charge Meetup organizers a monthly subscription fee to use the site. Meetup has been around since 2001, and they moved to this revenue model in 2005. They’re still around, and they’re still hiring, so it must be working. Current entry level opportunities at Meetup include Software Engineer, User Interface Engineers, Quality Assurance Engineers, and Bilingual Customer Service Specialists. You can apply by sending a cover letter and resume to jobs@meetup.com, but be sure to check out the individual job descriptions first.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Have you ever been to an event organized on Meetup?

Plaxo

Willy Franzen — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 15:38:30 +0000

I’m not quite overloaded yet, but I’m getting to the point where I have too many ways that people can communicate with me. Everything important flows through e-mail, but with notifications from LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, WordPress, and many more, it’s a lot to manage. I haven’t bitten the bullet and joined Plaxo yet, but it looks like a pretty cool way to manage contacts and centralize all of my online social accounts. Not only can you link accounts from all over and access them all through Plaxo Pulse, but you can also integrate all of this information with your address book and calendar. It’s a pretty cool implementation of technology, which is why Plaxo might be a startup that you want to consider working for. Even if you don’t consider working for Plaxo, you may want to consider signing up to use their (free) product to manage your contacts for networking purposes.

Get Connected at Plaxo

Plaxo is based out of Mountainview, CA and they’ve already reached the startup pinnacle of being bought out – they were acquired by Comcast for $150 million. They still seem to be acting independently though, and they’re currently looking to add to their team. Plaxo’s Jobs page shows a number of opportunities, and a couple of them look perfect for entry level candidates. Both of them require strong technical skills, but only one is a software development position (Web Engineer). The other job opportunity is Data Analyst, which looks absolutely fascinating, as the focus of the job is “analyzing web site and application data to advance our understanding of the behavior of visitors and customers on Plaxo’s web sites and how to optimize site design, flows, and content.” If either of these jobs sounds interesting to you, you can send your cover letter and resume to jobs@plaxo.com.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Ferrazzi Greenlight

Willy Franzen — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 15:46:01 +0000

Over the past month I’ve had at least three people ask me whether I’ve read Never Eat Alone: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time. Usually that would be enough of a push to get me to order the book from Amazon and give it a quick read, but I haven’t had time to because I’ve been so focused on developing a curriculum that will teach you how to find and land a job. The last person who asked me if I had read Never Eat Alone also suggested that I take a look at Ferrazzi Greenlight, the company started by the book’s author, Keith Ferrazzi. The company focuses on strategic relationship management through consulting, speaking, and professional development services – or as they say it, they share their “passion for infusing relationships with intimacy, accountability, and generosity to achieve the greatest of success.”

Redlight, Greenlight

First of all, if you’re going to consider a job with Ferrazzi Greenlight, you better go read Keith’s book. Applying without having read it would be asking for rejection. Then you should get familiar with what the company does. In terms of Consulting, they focus on Executive Communities, Partnership Roadmaps, Thought Leadership
Sales, High Touch Marketing, Development, and Pinging Response Systems. As for professional development, they specialize in Cultural Alignment Strategies, Peer-to-Peer Accountability Groups, Relationship Management for Sales, ERM for Executives, Silo Busting Strategies, and Team Coaching. Beyond these two main focus areas, they also help companies with Vendor Alignment Strategies, Loyalty Marketing, Ambassador Dinners, Internal Communication Strategy, Brand Strategy, Channel Strategy, Brand Relationship Management, and Product Strategy. That’s a lot of buzzwords, but it all comes down to relationships. Communication and relationships are a key theme throughout what Ferrazzi Greenlight does – it’s also the main theme of their home page.

Basically, Ferrazzi Greenlight does for companies what we hope to do with you when it comes to your job search. We want to enable and empower you to build relationships that will lead to results (getting a job). Ferrazzi Greenlight’s Jobs page doesn’t appear to list specific job openings, but they welcome cold calling. I did a little research and saw that over the past few months they’ve had openings for positions like Webmaster/Social Networking Specialist and Strategy/Marketing Consultant at their office in Los Angeles. I couldn’t find full descriptions for these now filled jobs, but they seemed like they had entry level potential. If Ferrazzi Greenlight sounds like a “professional fit” for you, then send your resume and cover letter to jobs@ferrazzigreenlight.com.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Have you read Never Eat Alone?

Mashable

Willy Franzen — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 15:20:27 +0000

Our HP Magic Giveaway Contest has ended, and we will announce the winner some time tomorrow. That’s not the end of the excitement though, we have a fun 4 question quiz for you all to take to evaluate how you’re approaching your job search. And of course, we have another exciting entry level job for you today. If you love social networking and social media, then you probably already follow Mashable. It’s the “world’s largest blog focused exclusively on social networks.” They get 5 million pageviews a month, and they’re constantly breaking news on “all that’s new on the web.” They’ve even had a lot to add to the online job search. They’ve published articles like 70+ Tools for Job Hunting 2.0 and 9 Sites for Successful Job Interviews. They have seem to have missed one important site on both of those lists, but we’ll forgive them.

This Job Mashes

Journalism is changing before our eyes, and Mashable is a perfect example of how’ that’s happening. If you wanted in-depth information about a niche topic like social media, you used to have to subscribe to a magazine that would come out monthly, quarterly, or even semi-annually. Newspapers might occasionally give you something to chew on, but for the most part you’d be out of luck when it comes to getting the latest info on social networks. Now, you just subscribe to Mashable’s RSS feed, and that’s it.

So, Mashable is looking for a Day Time Social Media Blogger. They want someone who can write, meet deadlines, and is passionate about the web and social media – not necessarily in that order. If you’re going to apply, you better have a serious footprint on the web – participation in lots of social media sites and lots of Google results for your name. This job is full-time or part-time and can be located in New York City or virtually. To apply for this job with Mashable, send an e-mail to jobs@mashable.com with your “E-mail Address, Location/Time Zone, Links to 6 recent (past 4 months) writing samples, Resume or List of proof of about Criteria, and Social Media Links (Twitter, Facebook, etc).” I’m sure that the competition for this job will be fierce, so make sure that your application shows why you know more about social media than everyone else.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Are you a Mashable reader?

myYearbook

Willy Franzen — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 15:39:12 +0000

When I was a senior in high school (2002), I thought that my class was cutting edge to include a CD with our yearbook. Then I was greeted by “The Class of 2006 Website,” a site very much like Facebook (before there was a Facebook) for my incoming Freshman class at Cornell. Finally, Facebook arrived on the scene in 2004, and the idea of a yearbook was forever changed. At least it was for college students. Facebook didn’t open up to high schoolers until September of 2005, and in that time both MySpace and myYearbook had already started tapping the high school social networking market. You may not have heard of myYearbook, but you should have. They have the 14th most pageviews of any site on the Internet, surpassing both Amazon.com and Wikipedia. What makes this more impressive is that New Hope, PA based myYearbook was founded by a 15 year old and a 16 year old brother and sister during their Spring Break.

Were You Voted Most Likely to Get a Job with myYearbook?

myYearbook has done an impressive job of targeting the high school market, and I’m surprised that I just realized how big they are. They’ve gained a considerable amount of venture capital funding ($13 million) beyond the initial $250k investment that came from the founders’ big brother, who is now the CEO. With a growing user base and cash to spend, it’s no surprise that myYearbook is hiring. They have four job openings posted on CareerBuilder right now, yet they don’t even have a Jobs section on their site. Three of these jobs look well suited to new college grads – Senior Sales Planner (only requires 1 year of experience), PHP Web Developer, and QA Analyst / Application Tester. The jobs look pretty cool, and it would be hard to believe that myYearbook wouldn’t be a fun company to work for. The added bonus is that they’re a social networking company that isn’t based in Silicon Valley – they’re in New Hope, PA. To apply for a job with myYearbook, you’ll have to go through the job postings on CareerBuilder.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Have you used myYearbook? What do you think?

Causecast

Willy Franzen — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 12:09:56 +0000

By featuring one job a day, we like to think that we make job search easy to digest. Causecast is trying to make finding cool causes easier by featuring ten every month. That’s just the start of it, though. They have a community/social networking aspect, and they also link non-profits with brands and celebrities. For exapmle, Generation Rescue is supported by Jenny McCarthy and sponsored by, well, it looks like Causecast is still working on the sponsorships. They use the power of Web 2.0 to collect a ton of relevant information on organizations, and they even provide an easy way to donate to the causes of your choice. You can see what the total donations from the Causecast community are to date, which is also cool. The community, so far, is still pretty small, but Causecast’s website is excellent and will certainly generate a lot more interest in the future.

.Org or .Com?

One funky thing about Causecast is that they’re apparently both a for-profit and a non-profit (so we had a hell of a time whether our post about them should be during the week or the weekend when we feature non-profit jobs). There’s no information about this on their website, but I asked a question on the post about Causecast on TechCrunch and was told that by two people. This is something that I think Causecast should be more forthright about. With a .org domain name and a name like Causecast, one would think that they’re entirely non-profit. All donations through Causecast go through their non-profit entity, so they’re not taking a cut of donations, but it seems as though they make their money through the partnerships that they create between non-profits and brands. I don’t have a problem with a company’s trying to make money while doing good, but I don’t think that it’s ok to give the impression that you’re solely non-profit when you’re not. I don’t think this intentional, and I know that Causecast just launched, but I hope they’ll be more clear about this in the future.

Working at Causecast

Causecast is located in Santa Monica, CA, and they’re looking for both a Web Application Developer and a Cause Account Coordinator. The former is a perfect position for a new college grad who wants to make the world a better place (but get paid a decent salary) with his or her coding skills, while the latter is probably not the best fit for new college grads (they want 3 years of experience). You can get the full scoop on Causecast’s Jobs page. Causecast is a brand new startup, so this is a chance to get in near the beginning. If you think that working at Causecast would be awesome (even if there isn’t a job listing just for you), send your cover letter and resume to jobs@causecast.org. Causecast is also offering internships, and one of the descriptions adds that they plan to do a lot more entry level hiring in the next 6 months, so keep an eye on them (or intern now to give yourself a leg up).

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Swift Kick

Willy Franzen — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 14:01:07 +0000

The other day I was ranting on Twitter about how so many companies fail to list their locations on their Jobs pages and even on their websites. Kevin Prentiss replied that his company exists “in the cloud” or in other words virtually, so they purposefully don’t list location. I thought that was pretty cool, so I asked him why they don’t they advertise that, and he agreed that I had a point. This is important, because Kevin is the CEO at Swift Kick, the company that makes Red Rover, and they’re hiring.

Swift Kick? Red Rover? Huh?

Swift Kick is a company that provides technology and training to engage college students with their schools. The technology that they are talking about is Red Rover – software that integrates with MySpace and Facebook to improve the college orientation process. It’s something that I wish I had when I was going into my Freshman year, as it recommends groups and activities based on interests that you input. By merging this with Facebook and MySpace, Red Rover is using a platform that almost all incoming students are already familiar with. If you don’t entirely get it, take a tour of Red Rover and see what it’s all about. Schools love it because it gets students engaged, and students love it because it helps them acclimate to college much more quickly.

Get it? Ok, good. Swift Kick just announced that they’re hiring on their blog. They have a small team right now, so the position is only part-time as an independent contractor, but it sounds really cool. They’re looking for an Account Manger for Red Rover. They want someone who is really excited about the job because he or she is a Facebook whiz, passionate about improving education, a great problem solver, and has a bigger left hand than right (huh?). There are a few other things that they’d love to see in applicants, but we’ll let you go to the blog post to learn all about the job. It looks perfect for a new grad, so if you’re already excited about it, send a cover letter and resume to tom@redroverhq.com. This job exists “in the cloud,” so you need to be comfortable with working remotely. Even though it’s only a part-time opportunity right now, it appears to have the potential for growth. Swift Kick is going places, and if you do well in this job, there will probably be a future for you with them. And don’t forget, if you’re still in school and have a lot of free time, this is a job that you could do from your dorm room or apartment.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

What do you think of Red Rover? Would you have used it when you were an incoming freshman?

Meebo

Willy Franzen — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 13:46:01 +0000

Since you’re looking for an entry-level job and not in one, you may not be familiar with corporate policies on instant messaging. That’s ok, since they tend to be all over the place. At some companies you are required to be available by IM, since it’s the main form of communication used in the work place. At other companies instant messaging is strictly forbidden and even blocked by the IT department. We’re not trying to get you fired from the job that you don’t even have yet, but if you absolutely need 5 minutes of contact with the outside world while at work, Meebo offers an easy way to get around company filters so that you can log into your AIM, Yahoo, Gchat, MSN, icq, or Jabber accounts. In fact, IMing behind your boss’ back probably isn’t a good idea for any entry-level employee, so maybe you should just use Meebo at home for its simple web-based interface, ability to log in to multiple accounts, and ease of use. Then again, you could just get a job at Meebo so that you’ll be encouraged to have Meebo open in your web browser all day long at work.

Youbo at Meebo

Meebo’s business plan is pretty simple, get lots of users, and make money through advertising. To learn more about it, you can listen to this podcast with Meebo founder, Seth Sternberg. Some would say that IM services have lost momentum with the advent of social networking sites like Facebook, but Meebo continues to stand strong with over 35 million users. They’re also putting their $37.5 million in venture capital funding to good use by developing cool new productss like chat for communities while continuing to refine their main instant messaging service. Meebo has some serious growth potential, and that’s why they have a ton of job openings right now.

The median age of Meebo’s users is 21, and we’ll bet that the median age of their workforce isn’t too much older. All of the jobs at Meebo are located in Mountain View, CA, the job descriptions are fantastic, and the people already in jobs at Meebo look pretty darn happy. We’ve picked out the jobs at Meebo that are most likely to get new college grads excited and which we would consider to be entry-level. At Meebo, you can be a Javascript Ninja, ActionScript Assassin, Usability Researcher, Web Stylist, Web Producer, Interaction Designer, Technical Account Manager, or Account Manager – Sales (for this job you can also work in New York City).

Whether you’ve been coding since you were 7, have an amazing eye for what works for users and what doesn’t, or know how to sell, there’s a job that you’ll probably love doing at Meebo. If you’re interested in working at Meebo, send a cover letter and resume to jobs@meebo.com. Also make sure to include answers to the questions posed at the end of each job description.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Do you use Meebo for your instant messaging needs?

Zynga

Willy Franzen — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 13:43:48 +0000

We haven’t been able to find any hard statistics to back it up, but we’re pretty sure that a lot of people use their dog’s name for their passwords. Just look at Paris Hilton, whose cell phone supposedly got hacked because someone was able to find her dog’s name on her MySpace page. That story has since been discredited, but it can be a fable for the 21st century. Instead of “The Boy Who Cried Wolf,” we will tell our kids “The Girl Who Used Her Dog’s Name As Her Password.” So, if you’re trying to guess someone’s password (which you shouldn’t be), their dog’s name is a great first guess. If you don’t know their dog’s name, guess “Max.” Apparently 1% (which is a lot) of dogs in the U.S. share that name. Marc Pincus really blew it when he decided to name is social gaming network startup after his dog. Nobody would have ever guessed Zynga – he wasted a great password.

Social Gaming, Huh?

Now that you know why Zynga has its name, we should probably talk about what Zynga does. They claim to be the “#1 social gaming company on the web.” Social gaming isn’t really a new concept, but it seems like it is. If you can remember, games used to be played in-person with cards and boards. You and your family or friends would sit around a table, play a game, and have a good time. For a while the social aspect of gaming disappeared as personal gaming devices became all the rage. GameBoy, GameGear, computer games, and even many of the consoles focused on a single player experience. The Internet has gradually been bringing the social nature back through online multi-player gaming, but for a long time it seemed like it was easier to play against strangers than your own friends. Now that companies like Zynga are leveraging social networks (Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, Friendster, and meebo), you can play casino games (Texas Hold ‘Em is their biggest hit), word games, board games, role playing games and party games with your friends while you’re both working at your first entry-level job. We can be sure that Zynga won’t frown on that practice, although your friend’s boss might.

Game On!

Zynga’s gaming network has 18 million players and 55 million registered users. That’s a lot of people to show ads to, and that’s what Zynga is doing. That’s why they’re already breaking even without having laid a finger on their venture capital yet. They’ve already raised a total of $39 million in VC funding and have swelled to 80 employees. You can bet that number is going to grow as they start to dip into their funding to develop games that are better suited to withstand competition from video gaming behemoths like Electronic Arts. They’ve already swiped EA’s former Chief Creative Officer, Bing Gordon.

So how can you join Zynga’s team? Take a look at their Jobs page and find an opportunity that is right for you. Currently they have a number of jobs that might be well suited to new college graduates. These include Accounting Coordinator, Application Developer, 2D Graphic Designer, UI Web / Game Designer, Flash Developer, Web Developer, and Online Ad Sales Rep. Most of these job descriptions say that the jobs require slightly more experience than a typical entry-level candidate may have, but we think that if you knock their socks off by sending a standout cover letter and resume to jobs@zynga.com, they’ll at least give you a look. Maybe instead of a job interview, they’ll challenge you to a game over Facebook – if you win, you get the job. You can add Zynga to the list of companies that do a crappy job of telling you where they’re located, so we did some Googling to determine that they’re based in San Francisco, CA.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Don’t even ask in the comments, I’m not going to tell you what my dog’s name was.

Twitter

Willy Franzen — Mon, 19 May 2008 13:08:28 +0000

You may have noticed that we keep mentioning our use of Twitter and how it’s a great tool for finding, researching, and getting jobs. We were really skeptical when we started using it – we thought it would be a huge time waster – but every day we’re more impressed with the service. In fact, we’re working on an article about using Twitter to find a job. Don’t wait for us to publish it though. Go try Twitter for yourself, and if you like it and have great software development skills, consider a job with Twitter.

Tweet Tweet

Twitter is a really simple service that started with a simple idea. Unfortunately it’s still hard to explain to the uninitiated. It’s not that most people can’t grasp what Twitter does, but it’s that they can’t understand why in the world you would waste your time using it. The buzz term for Twitter is “micro-blog.” The idea is that you share information in the form of “tweets,” messages that are 140 characters or less in length (that’s not an arbitrary number – it allows for complete integration with SMS systems). For the Facebook fiends out there, we describe it as a cross between Facebook status updates and Facebook walls. The real beauty is in the network, because Twitter allows you to “follow” the updates of anyone (the default is to have your updates publicly available, you can hide them from people you don’t approve). The best part is that quite a few people people who are kind of a big deal are are active users and easily accessible on Twitter. While they may not respond to your e-mails, phone calls, or Facebook friend requests, they’ll reply within a minute or two to your tweets. Twitter has helped us build some great business relationships, and we’re definitely sold on it now. If you’re still skeptical, take now that the mainstream media is singing Twitter’s praises as well. Read this article about Twitter in BusinessWeek and see if you still have your doubts.

A Little Birdie Told Us That Twitter Is Hiring

Twitter’s biggest challenge to this date has been that their service keeps going offline. That sounds really bad, but it’s because Twitter is too popular – the online equivalent of being sold out. Both their software and hardware are having trouble keeping up with the demand. That means that Twitter is looking for great people to help them improve their service and deal with scaling issues.

Twitter currently has four opportunities in their San Francisco office listed on their Jobs page (be aware that twitter.com/jobs is a user’s profile, not their jobs page) – three of which might be appropriate for new college grads. They are currently looking for an Operations Engineer, a Systems Engineer, and a Front End Engineer. The Front End Engineer job appears to be the most “entry-level” of the three, and the Systems Engineer job is best suited for candidates with a Master’s Degree in Computer Science. From the looks of the job descriptions, which are quite detailed, these jobs require a lot of experience and know-how. If you’re going to apply, you better have worked on some impressive projects during your free time or at the very least been an academic all-star.

Right now, the way to apply for a job at Twitter is to send a killer cover letter and a resume to jobs@twitter.com. We think that Twitter should require job applications to be submitted via Tweet and kept under 140 characters instead.

We love Twitter. Please go help them make it better. They offer a fun startup atmosphere with fewer than 20 employees and everyone gets free iPhones.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Follow me and One Day, One Job on Twitter.

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.

Facebook

Willy Franzen — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 13:00:07 +0000

Since so many of our readers find out about One Day, One Job through our Facebook advertisements, we’re going to make the assumption that you have a solid idea of what Facebook is. What we want to emphasize today is how big of a company they’ve become. Based on the most recent investment in Facebook by Microsoft, Mark Zuckerberg’s creation now has a higher valuation than the Ford Motor Company. Is that justified? We can’t say, but some are pretty sure that it is. Whether Facebook is overvalued or not, they’re spending a lot of money to keep growing, and that means they’re hiring (they want to double their workforce). We can even back that up with a link to a report of Facebook’s leaked 2008 numbers.

If you’re looking to get really rich by being part of a startup, it’s probably too late with Facebook; however, if you want a fun work environment with cool offices and a leadership team made up of 20-somethings, then it really doesn’t get any better than Facebook. We’re pretty sure that Facebook doesn’t need our help getting your attention, but we think getting a job at Facebook will give you the chance to be part of something special while it’s still in its early stages. Beyond the excitement of working at a place like Facebook, the pay should also be excellent, considering this TechCrunch post on the bidding wars between Google and Facebook for new Computer Science grads.

There are a ton of job openings at Facebook, many of which are entry-level friendly. Most of them require programming knowledge (PHP) – even marketing and web design positions (and obviously the software development jobs that make up most of their openings). There are very few jobs that don’t require some amount of technical knowledge, but there are some (i.e. Customer Operations Analyst, Media Delivery Coordinator, or Sales Planner). You really should browse through Facebook’s jobs for yourself. They know how to do a career site right, and they’re hiring in all areas of their business. Maybe there will even be a bidding war for your talents.

Note: On April 24th we revisited entry-level jobs at Facebook.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

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