by Willy Franzen on August 14, 2008
A company’s home page should make it instantly clear what the company is about. For many companies this is not the case. There’s all kinds of fluff that fails to give potential customers a proper brand introduction. Menlo Innovations doesn’t make this mistake. Their home page introduces a problem: “In 2004, the U.S. wasted over $55 billion on failed and poorly run software projects.” Then it identifies the cause: “These failures can be traced to a lack of understanding of the business issues being addressed and the wrong implementation methodologies being used.” Finally the home page poses their solution:
Menlo Innovations applies High-Tech Anthropology® to help our clients fully understand their business problems and opportunities. If the solution requires software, Menlo either develops the software within our Menlo Software Factory or The Menlo Institute trains your staff to use proven methodologies to develop the software themselves.
It’s clear. It’s concise, and it gets to the point. There’s no misunderstanding about what The Menlo Institute does.
Read the full article →
Tagged as:
all employers,
analyst,
business development,
innovation,
Michigan,
project management,
quality assurance,
software development,
user experience
by Willy Franzen on August 13, 2008
We’re trying to figure out what the :: in thunder::tech is all about. All that we can come up with is that it reminds us of the analogies section of the SATs (some of you are probably too young to have experienced that, since the College Board dumped analogies a few years ago); although, the SAT analogies were in the form of:
One Day, One Job : entry-level jobs :: buffalo sauce : wings
If you have a better analogy for us, we’d love to hear from you in the comments. We’d also love to hear from you if you know what the :: in thunder::tech is about. thunder::tech “is a web design shop, ad agency, PR firm, and design & branding studio all rolled into one.” They are an unbelievably fun company to research (but their website is totally distracting, in a good way), and they seem like an awesome place to start a career.
Read the full article →
Tagged as:
account management,
advertising,
all employers,
design,
marketing,
Ohio,
public relations,
software development,
web development
by Willy Franzen on August 12, 2008
Have you broken down and bought an iPhone yet? Ok, that’s an obnoxious question, but it’s getting less and less obnoxious as software developers continue to push out amazing applications. The iPhone is becoming a serious productivity (job search anyone?) tool, and it’s already “the best iPod that Apple has ever made.” We may even be reaching the point where you can call purchasing an iPhone making a capital investment without cracking a smile. Apple has been largely responsible for the iPhone’s success up until now, but 3rd party software developers have begun taking the iPhone’s popularity to the next level. Pinch Media is a company that helps these iPhone developers grow their businesses. They’re doing so through analytics and advertising software that they’ve created for iPhone developers, but Pinch Media is also sitting down with developers and helping them determine when advertising makes sense, and when it doesn’t. Pinch Media’s business is all about helping other people make the most out of what they do best – the development of great iPhone applications.
Read the full article →
Tagged as:
all employers,
New York,
software development,
telecommunications
by Willy Franzen on August 8, 2008
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.
Read the full article →
Tagged as:
account management,
advertising,
all employers,
California,
engineering,
marketing,
product management,
sales,
software development
by Willy Franzen on August 6, 2008
What do gamers, techies, musicians, and pregnant women all have in common? They are all likely to read magazines published by Future US. My favorite Future US magazine is Mac | Life, while you may favor Nintendo Power, PC Gamer, or Guitar World. I’m not sure too many of you are big fans of Pregnancy magazine, but there’s probably some of you out there too. Anyway, Future US is a media company that focuses on special-interest groups (not the kinds that politicians always say they don’t have relationships with) by publishing high quality magazines and websites.
Read the full article →
Tagged as:
all employers,
California,
communications,
publishing,
social media,
software development,
web development
by Willy Franzen on August 1, 2008
Bowling, billiards, and boating – sounds more like plans for retirement than what you’ll be doing after you graduate, right? Not if you end up working for Brunswick. They’re a company that has been in a lot of businesses since John Brunswick started the Cincinnati Carriage Making Company in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1854. They’ve added and dropped many product lines, even over the last 10 or 15 years, but recently they’ve settled on marine engines, pleasure boats, fitness equipment, bowling, and billiards. These groups of products aren’t necessarily related, but they’ve proved to be the most profitable for Brunswick over the years.
Read the full article →
Tagged as:
all employers,
engineering,
finance,
Florida,
Illinois,
leadership development,
Michigan,
North Carolina,
Oklahoma,
rotation program,
software development,
South Carolina,
Tennessee,
Washington,
web development,
Wisconsin
by Willy Franzen on July 31, 2008
Sugar certainly doesn’t have the cleanest reputation. It’s accused of making us fat, rotting our teeth, and causing hyperactivity. Sugar Inc. is a company that wants you to throw out those bad associations you have with sugar and just think back to when you were a kid and sugar was the essence of everything good. Sugar Inc. isn’t in the business of sweets – they run a network of websites, but their CEO is named Brian Sugar and his wife Lisa Sugar is the Editor in Chief, so they’re running with the sweet play on words. Sugar Inc. consists of 15 style/entertainment sites – PopSugar, BuzzSugar, FabSugar, BellaSugar, CasaSugar, YumSugar, FitSugar, Geek Sugar, GiggleSugar, DearSugar, PetSugar, LilSugar, SavvySugar, CitizenSugar, and TeamSugar. You can probably guess from the names what topic each of the sites covers, but you should probably check a few of the sugars out to get a better sense of Sugar Inc.’s content strategy, which is to be “the definitive online media company for trendsetting, passionate women ages 18-44.”
Read the full article →
Tagged as:
administrative,
California,
editorial,
fashion,
software development,
user experience,
writing
by Willy Franzen on July 29, 2008
There are two kinds of people – those who think that lolcats are the funniest things in the world and those who think that they are symbolic of the sheer stupidity of humanity. I guess there’s also a third kind of person – the ones who are asking, “What’s a lolcat?” This is a lolcat. So is this. This is why lolcats speak the way that they do (if you’re really confused, you can read this About page). I Can Has Cheezburger? is a website that has its entire revenue model based on pictures of cats with funny captions – better known as lolcats. If you’ve stayed with us this long (and haven’t left to go look at pictures of kittehs or in disgust at the not-funniness of lolcats), then you’re clearly intrigued at the prospect of making a living off the backs of lolcats.
Read the full article →
Tagged as:
advertising,
all employers,
design,
software development,
Washington
by Willy Franzen on July 27, 2008
A child’s first sign of teenage (pre-teenage?) rebellion often begins at the radio dial. The parent’s up-to-this-point unchallenged decision of what to listen to while in the car is called into question, and all hell breaks loose. If there are multiple kids in the family (or even just in the car), the negotiation can quickly becom more heated than a multi-lateral peace process in a war-torn nation. The parent will fight hard to maintain his or her right to National Public Radio, but the kid will persist in his or her challenge to hear something that feeds a suddenly “eclectic” taste in music. Often the parents cede this battle in hopes of winning in the future (bad idea!), which results in the parent’s driving the kids around the mini-van listening to rap music that would be a lot more offensive if the parent knew what some of the words meant. Eventually the rebellious tykes will grow up and realize that they too want to be more cultured, and they slowly, but surely come around to listening to NPR. Or maybe some kids just never speak up. They like NPR from the start. Maybe those are the ones who end up taking entry-level jobs at NPR.
Read the full article →
Tagged as:
accounting,
all employers,
analyst,
business development,
editing,
editorial,
information technology,
journalism,
marketing,
non-profit,
production,
radio,
research,
software development,
Washington DC,
writing
by Willy Franzen on July 21, 2008
Are you an adventurous job seeker? We want to try out a new job search technique, and we need volunteers. Click here if you’re intrigued.
Now that’s out of the way, I’m going to tell you something embarrassing. When I was younger, I used to watch a tv show called Pepper Ann on ABC’s One Saturday Morning. When I hear the name Pepperjam, it reminds me how much of a loser I was for watching that show. Now that I’ve admitted that, I can try to regain your trust in my judgment by telling you that Pepperjam looks like an extremely fun company to work for. Their office has “Free Pizza Fridays, Ping Pong, video games (ie: Nintendo Wii, Guitar Hero), free Red Bull and music all day.” Almost sounds like a frat house without the beer… and I bet the floors aren’t sticky either.
Read the full article →
Tagged as:
all employers,
design,
marketing,
Pennsylvania,
software development,
web development
by Willy Franzen on July 15, 2008
When you hear how McMurry first started, it’s easy to understand how they have maintained a customer-centric view for almost 20 years. McMurry began as a marketing department within a large company – the same group that they now serve. This is where Preston V. McMurry Jr. created Vim & Vigor, a custom marketing magazine for his health-system employer, in 1984. The magazine didn’t make money for the company, but McMurry decided to buy the magazine. This led to the formation of his own company in 1989. McMurry is now a full service marketing communications firm with multiple locations. They used to be the clients whom they serve, so they’re not full of it when they say “full service.”
Read the full article →
Tagged as:
accounting,
all employers,
Arizona,
communications,
design,
marketing,
publishing,
software development
by Willy Franzen on July 11, 2008
Imagine that instead of graduating in 2008, you graduated in 1978. You’re a paralegal, and you’re working on a major litigation for a Japanese auto manufacturer. You are responsible for organizing thousands of pages of documents by keyword so that the lawyers will be able to quickly find relevant depositions. Doesn’t sound like very much fun, does it? Not too long ago this was a reality, and although we’re now mostly blind to the wonders of search, Laserfiche offered a revolutionary product in 1987 when they offered the first DOS-based document imaging system. Now paralegals could just scan these documents, and software would automatically index every single word. This may have been bad for paralegals (software replacing humans), but it was good for anyone who might consider working for Laserfiche. Although it may seem that companies could easily manage their documents now that most things have gone digital, they can’t. That’s why Laserfiche is still kicking around, helping organization manage information.
Read the full article →
Tagged as:
account management,
all employers,
California,
China,
consulting,
engineering,
marketing,
quality assurance,
sales,
software development
by Willy Franzen on July 9, 2008
We talk about Twitter a lot – we’ve featured Twitter’s entry-level jobs, and we’ve found a number of the companies we’ve featured on Twitter. Unfortunately, Twitter’s servers sometimes goes down because it is too popular. A lot of the people I interact with on Twitter are nearly fed up and have decided to give Plurk a try. Plurk is also a micro-blogging service, but they differentiate themselves by advertising that they are a “place that lets you publish your thoughts, emo-ness, #^@%!%(&, and loves.” They also have a different feature set than Twitter, but it’s generally the same idea – you share short messages with your network. I haven’t tried Plurk, because I’ve already invested a lot of time in building my network on Twitter. How would you like to leave Facebook and then refriend everyone on a new site (if they’re even on the new site)? That’s exactly why I haven’t left Twitter for Plurk. By the way, we have a new article about Facebook and resumes dropping this afternoon. It’s by a new writer for us, Rich, who is very funny, so come back later today to read it.
Read the full article →
Tagged as:
Canada,
information technology,
marketing,
product evangelism,
public relations,
software development
by Willy Franzen on July 8, 2008
I’m traveling today, so this post is going to be short and sweet. Hopefully my trip will be filled with memories and photo opportunities that will give me the material I need to put together a Mixbook. What’s a Mixbook? It’s a photo book, but it’s not just any photo book. You can collaborate with friends on the photo book over the Internet. You may have made photo books before (I have with iPhoto), but from what it looks like Mixbook puts even Apple’s iPhoto to shame. It’s all about the software, and Mixbook’s web based software appears to be phenomenal, although I haven’t had a chance to try it yet. If it’s as easy to use and powerful as it looks on the site, then Mixbook is going to be a very successful startup.
Read the full article →
Tagged as:
all employers,
software development,
web development
by Willy Franzen on June 30, 2008
The word “faction” usually insinuates dissension, discord, or disagreement. We hope that Faction Media media chose their name because they are dissenting from the norm in the marketing solutions that they offer their clients, not because of a factious office political climate. Faction Media’s focus is on “business-to-business digital marketing with measurable ROI.” They do so through services such as strategic planning, digital marketing, search engine marketing, interactive development, systems integration, analytics and insight, media buying and planning, and content development. They sound like an interesting company, and they are hiring at the entry-level, so let’s take a look.
Read the full article →
Tagged as:
account management,
all employers,
Colorado,
marketing,
project management,
seo,
software development,
web development
by Willy Franzen on June 27, 2008
I used to be that kid who would come home from college, see someone who was in my 3rd grade class, and want to say hi. “Hey, I’m Willy Franzen, you sat next to me in Mrs. Phoenix’s class while we learning about multiplication. Do you remember me?” Questions like that would typically be returned with a blank stare. At some point I realized that just because I could remember almost anything, I didn’t have to make a fool of myself like that. Now that I’ve started a business and I’m constantly thinking of new ideas to help you all find great entry-level jobs, my brain has turned into swiss cheese. I have an almost constant feeling that I’m forgetting something. I can still remember my 3rd grade classmates, but those new ideas of how to double One Day, One Job’s daily readership with 5 minutes of work seem to escape me quite quickly. I need a 2nd memory, and Evernote is a web based service/application that can provide me with one.
Read the full article →
Tagged as:
all employers,
California,
design,
marketing,
software development,
user experience
by Willy Franzen on June 23, 2008
For some new grads it takes them a realization before they can get anything done in their job search. For some companies it takes Realization to help them get projects done and accomplish the goals that they set out to achieve. Realization provides their clients with execution management systems that help managers do 2 simple things:
1. Keep all work across all departments and across all levels of management tightly coordinated.
2. Exercise proactive control – stamp out small problems before they become big problems that require firefighting.
These may sound like things that companies should be able to take care of themselves, but clearly they can’t. Otherwise, Realization wouldn’t exist.
Read the full article →
Tagged as:
all employers,
California,
engineering,
operations,
project management,
software development
by Willy Franzen on June 20, 2008
This is what we like to see! One of our readers contacted us earlier this week to tell us about a company that he is interning for this summer. He’s been a Fan of One Day, One Job for quite a while, so he knows the drill around here. He says he’s really enjoying working for Echo Global Logistics, and that we should do a post about their entry-level jobs. There’s nothing like a firsthand recommendation from a loyal reader, so lets figure out what Logistics actually means and how it might be an interesting industry to consider in your job search.
Read the full article →
Tagged as:
all employers,
California,
finance,
human resources,
Illinois,
information technology,
logistics,
sales,
software development,
Utah
by Willy Franzen on June 17, 2008
We’ve said before that using magazine lists to find a job can be extremely helpful in terms of idea generation. Today we’re going to talk about the company that is behind two of the most helpful magazine lists for job searchers. The Great Place to Work Institute is responsible for compiling Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For and HR Magazine’s Best Small & Medium Companies to Work for in America. After more than 20 years of research, the Institute has found that “trust between managers and employees is the primary defining characteristic of the best workplaces.” If you’re looking for a job where you can trust your manager, why not consider the company that is known for identifying great places to work?
Read the full article →
Tagged as:
all employers,
business development,
California,
Delaware,
project management,
research,
software development
by Willy Franzen on June 16, 2008
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.
Read the full article →
Tagged as:
account management,
all employers,
California,
information technology,
marketing,
Michigan,
Missouri,
North Carolina,
Ohio,
product management,
sales,
software development,
Tennessee
by Willy Franzen on June 11, 2008
Yesterday we talked about a company that is using the iPhone to improve the field of medicine, but today we’re going to talk about a company that is using mobile platforms to give you better access to sites like BaboonTunes.com. Hey, it might not be life saving, but everyone (ok, some people) love silly ringtones. I mean, would you rather be able to look up a drug to make sure it doesn’t interact with another drug that your patient is already taking or have a monkey hooting for your ringtone? Yeah, we thought you’d pick the ringtone – you don’t have patients. That’s not all they do though, Fli Digital is a web software development agency on Long Island that looks like a pretty fun place to work.
Read the full article →
Tagged as:
account management,
all employers,
design,
marketing,
New York,
software development
by Willy Franzen on June 10, 2008
We didn’t get a whole lot done yesterday. We were slightly distracted by the events going on at the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), where Apple announced a 3G iPhone along with some amazing software updates, and a daytime Yankees game on tv. A lot of people complained that too much time was spent at WWDC talking about software, but we couldn’t get enough of it. A couple really cool apps in the medical field (Modality and MIMvista) were showcased, but neither of the companies that developed them appeared to have entry-level jobs; however, Epocrates is a company that was featured at the announcement of the iPhone Software Development Kit (SDK) and is also putting the iPhone into use in the practice of medicine.
Read the full article →
Tagged as:
all employers,
California,
medicine,
operations,
quality assurance,
software development
by Willy Franzen on June 8, 2008
Think about some of the reasons that you might be hesitant to give money to a non-profit organization. Somewhere on that list is probably something about not knowing where the money is going and how it will be used. You want to know that your money directly changed lives and didn’t pay for the new carpet in the organization’s headquarters. GlobalGiving is a new non-profit that aligns donors directly with projects instead of organizations.
Read the full article →
Tagged as:
all employers,
non-profit,
software development,
Washington DC
by Willy Franzen on June 6, 2008
I spent last summer building One Day, One Job – the site, the idea, and the business. A lot has changed since then, but I remember that the test post that remained on the home page through much of the site’s development was titled “Hello.” Today’s post will be a fitting replacement as it is also titled “Hello,” and it is about web development. Hello is a Culver City, CA based interactive design agency. They have an extremely impressive portfolio, and they also look to be hiring at the entry-level.
Read the full article →
Tagged as:
all employers,
California,
design,
flash,
project management,
software development
by Willy Franzen on June 5, 2008
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.
Read the full article →
Tagged as:
all employers,
California,
product management,
software development,
video
by Willy Franzen on June 4, 2008
There’s nothing better than free wifi. Ok, there are a lot of things better than free wifi, but it’s still pretty great. Opening up your laptop in an airport to see that it costs $9.95 for 30 minutes of Internet use is really irritating. So is trying to connect to a network called “Free Public WiFi” and not being able to get online – here’s the explanation for that. JiWire is a company that helps you get online, wherever you are. They not only help you find available WiFi hotspots, but they also “subsidize access fees with premium, location-driven advertising.”
Read the full article →
Tagged as:
account management,
advertising,
all employers,
California,
design,
New York,
sales,
software development
by Willy Franzen on May 30, 2008
Since it’s Friday, we’re going to try something a little different. We keep hearing that video is the future of the web, and we found a great video of Astadia CEO, Ernie Riddle, describing what his company does, so instead of introducing you to Astadia ourselves, we’re going to leave it up to the person who knows them best. We hope that this video works for everyone, and if it doesn’t, please let us know. It may not show up in the feeds or e-mails, so all the subscribers will have to click through to the main post to see the video. We want to hear feedback from everyone. Is this something that you like? Do you prefer to read instead of watch? Please use the comments section to let us know your reactions.
Read the full article →
Tagged as:
all employers,
California,
consulting,
Georgia,
international,
Massachusetts,
sales,
software development,
Texas,
training
by Willy Franzen on May 29, 2008
Most people like shoes. They protect your feet, offer support, and keep you warm. Some people love shoes – love them to the point that their loved ones (not the shoes) are likely worried about them. Oddly enough, the people who deeply love shoes often seem most interested in shoes that barely protect their feet, offer little support, and provide little or no warmth. We don’t really get that. Zappos.com puts these people to shame. As a company they have a shoe obsession that is far worse than that of the most Sex and the City addicted, Daily Candy reading, New York City fashionista. Why do we say that? Because Zappos.com is obsessed with everything shoes, not just the shoes of some designer whose name you’re supposed to know.
Read the full article →
Tagged as:
analyst,
apparel,
design,
editing,
finance,
human resources,
Kentucky,
merchandising,
Nevada,
photography,
project management,
quality assurance,
software development,
user experience
by Willy Franzen on May 27, 2008
There’s no getting around it – when it comes to the web, how you look matters. The easiest way to separate a spammy site from a quality site is a quick glance at the design. Yes, there are examples like Google and Craigslist that have become wildly successful despite (or because of) their sparse designs, but they are rare exceptions. When a visitor hits a web page, there are just a few seconds to convince the visitor not to press the back button. There is almost no better way to draw in and engage a visitor than a beautiful, usable design. Judging from Viget Labs’ own site as well as those of their clients, we’re pretty sure they understand the importance of great web design. Beyond design, they also help their clients focus on creating “solid web strategies” and developing “functional applications that actually work” while leveraging “the latest online marketing tactics to grow their reach.”
Read the full article →
Tagged as:
all employers,
design,
marketing,
North Carolina,
project management,
software development,
Virginia
is the funniest, most in-your-face career guide on the market.