One Day, One Job

Crittenton Women’s Union

Willy Franzen — Sun, 11 May 2008 12:54:42 +0000

Happy Mother’s Day! We’re not sure how many moms we have reading, but we know that there are a few out there. If you haven’t told your mom about us, why don’t you? She’d probably be thrilled to help you with your job search. We’re not sure if you’ve noticed, but we only write about non-profit jobs on the weekends, and we like to run with holiday themes. This combination provided especially troubling today, for there aren’t nearly as many Mom-related non-profits out there as you would think there are. From the ones that we could find, very few had any sort of full-time job opportunities. We persisted through our search and found the Crittenton Women’s Union, a non-profit organization in the Boston area, that “transforms the course of low-income women’s lives so that they can attain economic independence and create better futures for themselves and their families.” They turned up on an Idealist search for the word “mother,” so we’re running with it.

Live, Work, Thrive

The Crittenton Women’s Union’s domain name is LiveWorkThrive.org, which is quite fitting for an organization that supports low-income women through advocacy, education, family support services, housing, research, and workforce development. Here’s more on what the Crittenton Women’s Union does. You should also take a look at the Voice Project Blog for deeper insights about how the Crittenton Women’s Union is empowering women to create social change. In fact, the organization’s entire website is fantastic and should be able to answer any questions that you might have before you consider working them.

Celebrate Mother’s Day Every Day

Like we said, we found out about Crittenton Women’s Union on Idealist.org. We then went directly to their website to find out about their internship opportunities. We found some great information on their internships, but couldn’t find anything about jobs. They have a section on their site called Hot Jobs for Women, but that’s part of their outreach and has nothing to do with their organizational hiring. We went back to Idealist to look for another organization to feature, and then we saw that Crittenton Women’s Union does have full-time opportunities, but they don’t list them on their website.

Only one of the two jobs listed is appropriate for new college graduates, but it looks to be a perfect entry-level opportunity for someone who is interested in non-profit work. The job title is Coordinator for Family Literacy Program and the position focuses on serving “at-risk and homeless families with children ages 18 months to 4 years living in Boston.” The description goes into great detail, so take a look if it sounds interesting to you. You can apply by sending a cover letter and resume to rackerman@liveworkthrive.org. The deadline for applications is June 30th, but we’d recommend that you apply much sooner.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

How did you celebrate Mother’s Day? Leave a comment and let us know.

Inner-City Arts

Willy Franzen — Sat, 10 May 2008 12:27:45 +0000

I was always bad at art. From the moment I had my first art class, it was blatantly clear that I had no business using paint, clay, pencils, or crayons to express myself. This probably isn’t too unusual, except for the fact that my Dad is an Architect, my Mom is a Graphic Designer, and my sister is a Painter. Somehow the artistic genes missed me. This led to a love-hate relationship with art class. The fact that you could talk and get messy during a class was pretty neat, but it’s hard to enjoy something when it’s so obvious that you have absolutely no talent for it - especially at a young age. Still, I appreciate having had the opportunity to realize that art wasn’t for me. I had access to art supplies in school and at home, but many children in inner-city schools never even get to give art a try because the programs because funding has been cut at their schools. Inner-City Arts is a non-profit organization that provides art instruction for children who would otherwise miss out on art at their public schools.

Art is Smart

Inner-City Arts currently operates in cooperation with the Los Angeles Unified School District to bring Art back to public schools. They “offer comprehensive arts and language programs during the instructional school day, with classes in visual art, ceramics, dance, music, drama, and animation to over 8,000 children from 35 area public and charter schools.” Inner-City Arts has their own campus in downtown Los Angeles, where students are bused twice a week during school day for their classes. A given class will typically participate in the program for 7-10 weeks. Not only do these programs expose children to art, but they also have real academic impact:

A recent evaluation of Inner-City Arts programs by the University of California Los Angeles provided conclusive evidence that classes whose children and teachers actively participate in Inner-City Arts’ programs scored up to 26% higher in areas such as Math, Reading and English on the Stanford 9 test than did children who had no association with Inner-City Arts.

Inner-City Arts is currently looking for Visual and Performing Art Instructors to teach students to love and appreciate art. If you’re considering applying, you should have a degree in an art related field or in education, and have prior experience working with school aged children. Being bilingual is a huge plus. You can find the full job description on the Inner-City Arts Employment page. There are options for full-time, part-time, and contract work, so even if you have another job lined up in the LA area, you may be able to find a way to work for Inner-City Arts as well.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Unfortunately many of my grade school masterpieces were ruined in a basement flood last spring. Did you create any great pieces of art when you were in elementary school? Tell us about them.

ShoeMoney Media Group

Willy Franzen — Fri, 09 May 2008 12:35:21 +0000

Jeremy Schoemaker is ShoeMoney. ShoeMoney is probably best known for his picture of the check. Using AdSense, Google’s advertising platform for web publishers, he made $132,994.97 in one month. Since then, he’s had amazing success with marketing ringtones through affiliate deals and a project called AuctionAds, which allows web publishers to market eBay auctions on their sites. There are a lot of web startups that seem glamorous because of their big ideas, but they often lack profitability and end up in the deadpool. ShoeMoney Media Group ignores the glitz and goes where the money is. They follow 3 core principles: embrace new trends and look for opportunities to exploit them; focus on what you know; and small changes can equal big revenue. There is an absolutely insane amount of information about ShoeMoney on the web, so get researching. Google ShoeMoney, visit ShoeMoney’s blog, and read his hilarious, but honest post about his 10 worst money making ideas. There’s also a short BusinessWeek article about ShoeMoney that you should read. It focuses on how he makes money online teaching other people how to make money online.

ShoeMoney is Hiring

Score another one for Twitter! That’s where we first heard about today’s job opportunities. Yesterday, ShoeMoney announced on Twitter and later on his blog that he is hiring for a few different positions. Today we’re writing about it. We’ve been following ShoeMoney for a long time, because he is one of the best minds in the online marketing world. We have no interest in ever selling ringtones here on One Day, One Job, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t learn a lot from how ShoeMoney Media Group operates. They’re a very small company in terms of head count, but they’re bringing in serious revenue. They just signed a new lease on a 2,000 sq foot office that has 7 offices, 1 bathroom, and 1 kitchen, so you won’t be sitting in some guy’s basement or anything like that. Still, this isn’t your typical entry-level opportunity, but if we always wrote about those, we’d be boring.

Right now, ShoeMoney is looking for a LAMPP (Linux/Apache/MySql/PHP/Perl) Programmer and a Web/Graphic Designer. He’s not overly concerned about education or work experience, he just wants someone with the right attitude and the right skills. On Twitter Shoemoney said the following about the jobs:

“We are looking for very passionate people that have no life. We can find people with talent who work 9-5 anywhere.”
“We offer hands on experience with some very cool web projects and from a financial standpoint nobody has ever asked me for a raise in 4 yrs.”
“People who do well are extremely well compensated some have made over 7 figures.”
“Everyone who has become a full time employee is still with us.”

The jobs with ShoeMoney Media Group are located in Lincoln, Nebraska, and it’s essential that you be able to live there. You can apply by sending a cover letter and resume to jobs@shoemoney.com. Odds are that the competition for the positions will be fierce, so you need to blow ShoeMoeny away with your first impression.

In addition Shoemoney is hiring Freelance Contributors for his most recent project, Fighters.com, which is a Mixed Martial Arts site. The work requires a presence in Las Vegas, NV and is paid per contribution. You can apply by sending a cover letter and resume to jobs@fighters.com.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

What do you think of ShoeMoney and the jobs he’s offering? Let us know in the comments.

Dynamic Network Services

Willy Franzen — Thu, 08 May 2008 12:26:01 +0000

For you to get here and read this (or for this to get to you if you’re an e-mail subscriber) a quick but complicated journey through the tubes of the Internet is necessary. In fact, to reach us by our domain name, OneDayOneJob.com, instead of our IP address (which is kind of like a telephone number for websites) takes as many as 7 steps. The story of how our daily e-mails get to our e-mail subscribers is just as complicated. As a website grows, the process becomes even more complex. One Day, One Job is on a single server (and the same server as One Day, One Internship), but a site like Facebook has many different servers. Figuring out which users to send to which servers becomes a very complicated problem. Luckily, there are companies like Dynamic Network Services to ensure that businesses and individuals don’t have to deal with the complicated issues of the Domain Name System.

A Dynamic Work Environment

That’s all you’re going to get from us on the nature of DNS. We’re nowhere near experts on the subject, and we figure that anyone considering employment at Dynamic Network Services probably doesn’t need an explanation of what the company does - at least not from us. Dynamic Network Services consists of three brands, all of which operate in similar spheres. They are DynDNS, Dynect, and DynTLD. There’s also the Dynamic Network Services lab, which is home to their beta services and research endeavors. All of the businesses are located in one office in Manchester, NH. They say there are “no bouncing rubber balls, two story gyms and definitely no organic salad bars,” but they do have a Segway, lava lamp, and a Flickr stream. They boast a casual work environment, that appears to boost creativity and even allows for some fun.

Are You a Dynamo?

Dynamic Network Services currently has two job openings that might be a good fit for a new college graduate: Customer Support Technician and FreeBSD/Unix Systems Administrator. The Customer Support Technician appears to be a clear cut entry-level job, while the Systems Administrator opportunity is probably best left for someone who has significant experience with the systems outlined in the job description. Application instructions are in a yellow box on the right side of the job listings page, and there are a few specific details that you need to follow to make sure that your application gets read. Dynamic Network Services is also completely open to cold calls, so if you think you’d be a great addition to their team, but not in the capacities specified in their job openings, then send them a letter telling them why they need to hire you. Working at Dynamic Network Services looks like a lot of fun, and they offer great benefits, so give them a look.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Have an idea for a company that we should feature? Contact us and let us know about it.

Pella

Willy Franzen — Wed, 07 May 2008 12:22:40 +0000

It’s hard for me to write this post, because I have a strong allegiance to Marvin, which is one of Pella’s biggest competitors. It started in 7th grade when I was working at my Dad’s architecture firm. The entire office was invited to a lobster lunch put on by some Marvin sales reps. My partner in crime (a friend of mine who was old enough to have the coveted title of intern) and I jumped at the chance to take a break from shooting rubber bands at each other and join the architects for a free lunch. We had to endure a long sales pitch about windows, like that South Park episode where the parents endure a time share sales pitch in return for a free skiing weekend, but when it was finally over, we chowed down. My then overweight 7th grade self put away a couple of lobsters and almost put one in my pocket for the ride home. It was by far the best day during my Summer job, but I’m willing to forget a couple lobsters and start pushing Pella, because they’ve truly impressed me with their college recruiting and entry-level hiring program.

Windows of Opportunity

Pella makes high end windows and doors. You can fluff it up by talking about how they provide great views in your home or office, but when it’s all said and done, they do something pretty simple, and they do it really well. So well, in fact, that they won the 2007 J.D. Power and Associates award for “Highest in Customer Satisfaction among Window and Door Manufacturers.” Pella also has a reputation as one of the most energy efficient window and door manufacturers. It’s logical that windows and doors are two of the places that your house or office is most likely to leak heat (in or out), so it’s great that Pella is so invested in energy efficiency. They even “earned the U.S. Department of Energy’s ENERGY STAR Partner of the Year award for windows in 2007 for its leadership in manufacturing energy-efficient windows and educating consumers about them.” We keep saying it - a company that takes pride in its products takes pride in its people, and that means that Pella looks like a great place to start a career.

The Door to Your Future

Pella appears to have an extremely strong entry-level hiring and college recruiting program. Their College Relations page has links to all the pages you’ll need to research jobs at Pella. They include a page detailing entry-level positions generally as well as a page that lists all of the possible career paths at Pella starting at the entry-level for each. Although Pella does a significant amount of campus recruiting, they still seem to be extremely friendly to new college grads who want to apply online. We wished they’d link their fabulous College Relations section of their website to specific entry-level job openings, but unfortunately they direct all attention to their somewhat disappointing job search function. There’s no way to find just entry-level jobs, so you have to scan the postings for promising job titles (at least there are only 20 listings, so it’s not hard).

Our search turned up job titles like Department Manager, Human Resources Representative, and National Account Retail Sales Representative - all of which appear to be entry-level. There is also a listing for an Engineering Career Development program for new grads. Pella has locations across the country, but they are headquartered in Pella, Iowa. All of the job descriptions are well detailed, so start looking through Pella’s entry-level opportunities and see if you find anything anything that is better than free lobster.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Have the inside scoop on working at Pella? Leave a comment and let us know.

Christie’s

Willy Franzen — Tue, 06 May 2008 12:48:36 +0000

In less than a decade the common perception of auctions has changed dramatically. Auctions used to be reserved mostly for the wealthy, but now much of the world’s auctioneering happens on eBay, managed by a computer. An auction is the purest way to sell an item, for the person who values the item the most typically wins. It’s quite democratic that the luxury of this form of sale has been brought to the masses, but much of the culture and tradition associated with auctions has been lost in translation. Luckily, auction houses like Christie’s have adapted to the online world while maintaining their auras of international glamour. Founded in 1766, Christie’s is now the “world’s leading art business with global auction sales in 2007 that totaled $6.3 billion.”

Going Once, Going Twice

To many the idea of a live auction is extremely intimidating. The prices seem exorbitant, the cultural norms are hard to figure out, and there’s always a chance that you will lose control of yourself and bid more than you can afford. The truth is that even Christie’s, one of the most respected names in the industry, can be quite approachable. The prices of items that they sell range from $200 to over $80 million - there’s certainly some room in there for almost anyone. Christie’s also offers an online video introduction as well as guides on How to Buy and How to Sell at their auctions. Christie’s main focuses are on fine art, jewelry, photographs, wine, furniture; however, they are likely to deal in almost anything that generates cultural interest.

Sold! to the College Kid Sitting in the Back Row

Christie’s has “85 offices in 43 countries and 14 salerooms around the world including London, New York, Los Angeles, Paris, Geneva, Milan, Amsterdam, Tel Aviv, Dubai and Hong Kong.” At a few of these locations, they appear to be hiring at the entry-level. Their Careers site is simple to navigate, but quite light on information. For instance, they have job listed in New York, but there are no descriptions for the jobs. Openings such as Exhibition Coordinator (Jewelry), Inventory Controller (Jewelry), Senior Administrative Assistant/Junior Writer (Proposals), and Junior Specialist/Sale Coordinator (Sporting/Maritime/19th Century Paintings) all sound like they could be perfect for a new college grad, but there’s just no way of knowing without contacting them. Their job listings outside of North America, such as Junior Specialist (South-East Asian Art) in Singapore, do include job descriptions, which is strange.

We often hear that working at auction houses entails hard work and low pay, but it’s hard to pass up the glamour of working at Christie’s. We wish that we could tell you more, but you’ll have to do the rest of the research on your own. It will be good practice for becoming an expert in 19th Century Sporting Paintings, or whatever you choose to pursue.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

What’s your auction experience? eBay? Live auction? Date auction?

Help Us Research Online Job Search

Willy Franzen — Mon, 05 May 2008 12:25:36 +0000

We’re always trying to figure out how to better reach college students who are looking for jobs, because we think that we have something great to offer them. You can obviously help by telling your friends who are looking for jobs about us, but you can also help us with a little research project that we’re doing.

We want to know what kinds of Google searches college students use to find jobs. If you wouldn’t mind, please take 30 seconds to visit this site and fill out the search box. It will ask you to answer this question with a search: You are a college senior who is looking for your first job, what do you search for?

Thanks to everyone who helps us reach more students by participating in this research.

Party City

Willy Franzen — Mon, 05 May 2008 12:13:32 +0000

Happy Cinco de Mayo! To be honest, today is the first time that I’m going to be celebrating the holiday, but I’m pretty excited about it. I did a little research (yes, those job search skills also help when you need to find semi-useful facts) and found that Cinco de Mayo is actually a very minor holiday in Mexico, but has become quite a celebration in many areas north of the border. This article from the Albuquerque Tribune does a nice job of telling the history, and includes this quote from Jeffrey Candelaria, vice president of membership and marketing at the Albuquerque Hispano Chamber of Commerce: “From my perspective as a marketing professional, Cinco de Mayo has morphed into a national holiday designed by Fifth Avenue to sell alcohol and excite consumership around a party-type theme.” Well, party-type themes are fun, especially if classes are over for you, so we’re going to run with it and talk about jobs at Party City today.

Party On!

Party City is a party retailer that offers all the necessary accoutrements for a themed occasion. These are important because in college (and probably always after) themed parties are essential to justifying questionable behavior. Partying during the daytime is frowned upon even by some of the most hardcore partiers, but it suddenly becomes ok when you’ve purchased some of these Cinco de Mayo party favors. And don’t forget about how people dress on Halloween! A few touches from a Party City purchase can justify almost any costume idea. Yes, parties are fun, but themed parties are almost always more fun. Just remember, keep the pictures private if you put them on Facebook.

No Work Experience, 4 Years’ Partying Experience

Party City has realized that college students have this partying thing figured out, so they’ve put together a college recruiting program to attract those kids with 4 years of college partying experience. Ok, we might be overplaying the fact that partying habits have any relevance when it comes to getting a job at Party City, but it’s fun to run with the theme. There appear to be three career tracks for new graduates at Party City: choosing a Corporate Division and going to work, entering the Management Training Program and rotating through 3 divisions, or taking the Management Fast Track towards becoming a general manager of a retail store. Each of these options (all of which are located in Rockaway, NJ) looks pretty interesting, so follow the links and take a look at the additional information on the Party City website.

What we really like about Party City is that they don’t ask entry-level applicants to apply for a specific job, but instead ask them to choose a program. They understand that many new grads are unsure of what they want to do, so they provide open ended options. All you need to do to apply is send a cover letter and resume to jobs@partycity.com, but not until after you’ve enjoyed Cinco de Mayo.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

We know that our daily e-mail didn’t send yesterday, which is the 2nd time in two weeks. The process is automated, and we have no idea why it’s failing. We’re really sorry, and we’ll do our best to make sure that we fix the problem. If you’re one of those people who never gets our daily e-mail, you should stop missing out on the action and subscribe by e-mail now.

The Open Planning Project

Willy Franzen — Sun, 04 May 2008 12:23:30 +0000

There is a constant struggle that almost all non-profits endure - it’s organizing people. Whether they are rounding up volunteers, reaching out to donors, hiring employees, or putting together a leadership team, non-profits rely on well managed groups of people to enact change. The most effective non-profits are the ones that navigate these challenges without a hitch. Many people complain that non-profits are disorganized and suffer from poor leadership, and that is often true; however, The Open Planning Project, a non-profit itself, is hoping to change that by offering a suite of online tools to help other organizations become better organized.

Organizing People Through Open Software

The Open Planning Project consists of a number of different projects, all of which are web-based. OpenPlans is their flagship project, as it’s “a platform for social activism.” They have used this platform to launch other projects specific to their communities. These include NYCstreets, StreetFilms, Streetsblog, and Streetsblog LA. There is also GeoServer, which is TOPP’s effort at helping to build “a more open, interoperable infrastructure of Geographic Information.” The common theme in all projects that TOPP works on is using open source software to improve the operations of non-profit organizations.

Are Your Plans for After Graduation Still Open?

The Open Planning Project’s Careers page shows that they are hiring new grads for two entry-level positions. They are looking for Recruitment Associates to help them build their team as they look to grow in 2008 and Systems Administrators to help them maintain and build their technical infrastructure. Both jobs are located at TOPP’s office in the West Village of New York City. The descriptions that we linked to are thorough, so go read them for a better sense of what TOPP is looking for. There aren’t currently any software development openings at The Open Planning Project, but the fact that they are focused on open source software and are hiring recruiters makes us think that some new positions may pop up soon.

The Open Planning Project says that they offer new hires competitive salary, great work-life balance, and excellent benefits (health, dental, 401k, 5 weeks of vacation, free lunch). You can apply by e-mailing a cover letter and resume to jobs@openplans.org. Applicants for the Recruiting positions should also include two writing samples.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

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Common Threads

Willy Franzen — Sat, 03 May 2008 12:34:49 +0000

Considering that we’ve written an article about watching tv to find jobs, it shouldn’t be a surprise to you that we actually practice what we preach. We’re big fans of Top Chef and watch its new episodes every week. We like it because we learn from it, but also because it’s a reality show that rewards people for talent, not for being jerks. Although we sometimes manage to completely zone out, we do our best to pay attention and keep an eye out for entry-level job ideas. The most recent episode of Top Chef featured Common Threads, a non-profit organization that educates children on the importance of nutrition and physical well-being and fosters an appreciation of cultural diversity through cooking. We made a mental note on Wednesday night, and here we are on Saturday morning writing about them.

Delicious and Nutritious

Although the Top Chef fans probably already know, Common Threads is a Chicago based organization that offers free cooking classes and summer camps to kids who are 8 to 12 years old and qualify for free or reduced price school lunches. By teaching these kids to cook, Common Threads helps students and their families become healthier, more cultured, and more economical in their food buying decisions. It’s amazing that a few free lessons can do so much for children, but it really is empowering for a young child to prepare a meal for his or her entire family.

How can you be a part of Common Threads’ good work? You can volunteer, or you can consider a job with them. The difficulty with finding job prospects on television is that the research can be a little more difficult, and the likelihood of finding an actual job opening can be quite low. Still, you’ll never know if you don’t look. So many jobs that are offered are never listed, and the only way that you’re going to find out about them is if you ask; in fact, sometimes asking isn’t enough. Sometimes you need your first contact to tell a potential employer why they need you for a position that may not even exist. This is a scary thing to do because the risk of rejection is quite high, but the possible reward is worth it. Now is the time to suck it up, read our article on cold calling, and approach Common Threads (or another employer) about an unlisted opportunity.

Common Threads has made it easy for you to apply for a job by including a field in their contact form for employment inquiries. Just because they don’t list any job openings doesn’t mean that they’re not hiring.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Do you watch Top Chef? Who do you think is going to win?

CustomInk

Willy Franzen — Fri, 02 May 2008 12:07:05 +0000

Today’s post is coming live (ok, not quite so live) from Cornell University, where it’s Slope Day! For those who aren’t familiar with Slope Day, it’s Cornell’s version of Spring Weekend. In other words, it’s the last day of classes, when college students do all those stupid things (and often take photographs of themselves doing them) that they’ll have to hide from employers on Facebook. It’s a really big, campus-wide party. If today is your Spring Weekend, we urge you to behave yourselves well enough that your actions today don’t ruin any chance of future employment. Still, we want you to enjoy the day and have some fun. You’ve worked hard and earned it. Instead of writing about a company that reinforces bad behavior, we’ve chosen to feature a company that supports one of our favorite Slope Day traditions - funny group t-shirts. CustomInk is an online provider of custom t-shirts.

Getting a Job… is Gorges

Here at Cornell, one of the most common t-shirt themes is to play on the “Ithaca is Gorges” design. You get such gems as “Your Mom is Gorges,” “Ithaca is Cold,” “Ithaca is Gangsta,” and my personal favorite - “I am Gorges.” One year an entire sorority here did “(Sorority name) is Gorges,” only to be outdone by a fraternity that didn’t like them so much and responded with “(Sorority name) is Ugly.” It’s an ever-escalating arms race to have the funniest Slope Day t-shirt, and there’s no better company to help you than CustomInk. They allow you to submit a design online, and within a week you can have your custom designed t-shirt at your doorstep. Their online T-Shirt Lab makes it really easy, and CustomInk guarantees customer satisfaction. Not only do they offer a money back guarantee, but they also have uncensored customer reviews on their home page as they come in - that takes confidence.

Wear T-Shirts to Work

We always like writing about companies that offer great customer service, because we know that they’ll be great places to work. CustomInk is no exception - they’ve been named One of Washington’s Great Places to Work by Washingtonian magazine. They’re also an employer that is especially friendly to new grads. Maybe it’s because the company was started in 1999 by a few recent graduates, or maybe it’s because college students are an important customer base. Either way, CustomInk has some great entry-level jobs listed at their office in Tyson’s Corner, Virginia. These include Desktop Support Technician, Production Artist, Web Developer, and Service / Sales Representative. The descriptions are quite detailed, so they should give you a good idea of whether or not you’d be right for the job.

Save your research for another time and go have fun today. Just be safe.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

What’s the best custom Spring Weekend t-shirt that you’ve seen? Tell us in the comments.

Rumsey Engineers

Willy Franzen — Thu, 01 May 2008 12:00:26 +0000

My house in college was not energy efficient, unless you consider the heating system’s not working half the time a feature of design. The doors and windows all leaked cold air in the winter, and it was impossible to cool the house down below about 95 degrees in the summer. We even tried covering the windows in the winter for added insulation, but it didn’t help much. Our monthly heating bills were outrageous despite the fact that my roommates were cheap and insisted on turning the thermostat down below the point at which our landlord warned us that the pipes would freeze. Energy efficiency was clearly not a priority for whoever built our house, but if it had been they could have hired someone like Rumsey Engineers to design it.

An Environmentally Minded Company in the Bay Area? No Way!

If you were to start a company that offered green engineering services, where would you locate it? Probably ~~in an area with a lot of smug~~ somewhere that people are relatively well off and generally environmentally conscious. Well there’s no place that better fits that description that the San Francisco Bay Area, and that’s why Rumsey Engineers has located themselves in Oakland, CA. They are a company with a “passion for high performance, environmentally sustainable and energy efficient heating, ventilating and air conditioning system designs.” So that’s what they design. It’s smart to follow your passions. Not only are energy efficient designs something that customers can feel good about, but they’re also a great response to rising energy costs. I’d certainly be considerably richer if my college living quarters hadn’t sucked up energy like a 3 hour lecture right after lunch.

They’re Hiring… Wait for It… Engineers

A quick look at Rumsey Engineers’ Careers page shows that all of their job listings require 2+ years experience. So why are we posting about them? Because companies often say things like “2 years experience” but really don’t mean them. This isn’t just some speculation on our part, for we’ve found these same jobs advertised on a college job board as entry-level. Rumsey is hiring new engineering graduates for jobs such as Energy Modeler, Energy Analyst, HVAC Design Engineer, and Plumbing Engineer. Rumsey Engineers prides itself on having a relaxed environment, but a high performance workplace. That sounds just right for a new grad from a top engineering program.

Resumes and cover letters can be sent to cbonner@rumseyengineers.com. Even if the positions listed don’t appeal to you, but you have an interest in green engineering or energy issues, they’d love to hear from you.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

How energy efficient are your living quarters? Has your college provided energy efficient housing, or are you stuck with a landlord who couldn’t care less? Leave a comment.

DailyLit

Willy Franzen — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 12:00:10 +0000

Judging by the number of you who enjoy reading about jobs in your e-mail or RSS reader, there seems to be a pretty big market for delivering fresh content in an easily digestible format. There’s something really nice about having information delivered to you instead of having to seek it out. Well, we found a company that uses the same methods as we do to deliver content, but brings you literature instead of jobs. They’re called DailyLit, and they can bring people full length books through RSS or e-mail.

One Day, One Book?

Not quite. If DailyLit delivered a new book in your e-mail every day, you’d never read any of them. That’s why they break books up into installments - chunks that you can easily read while you’re going through your e-mail. You can get one, two, or four installments a day. If that’s not enough, you can click a link and have the next installment sent immediately. Many people claim that they never have time to read for pleasure, but somehow they manage to get through 100s of mostly useless e-mails every day. DailyLit makes reading e-mail and reading for pleasure one and the same. They have a variety of books, some that are public domain and free, and others that are copyrighted and have a nominal cost. All you have to do is sign up, pick a book, and start reading.

We really love startups like this. They’re not going over the top with trying to be revolutionary. They took technology that already existed and paired it with a great idea to create a compelling product. They’ve offered free books to get people hooked, and if what they say is true, they’ve elegantly designed a system that makes reading more realistic. We’re definitely going to try some free books, so if you have any recommendations, please leave them in the comments.

Are You a Bookworm?

DailyLit has two job openings right now, and both are 100% entry-level. Their Jobs page lists an Editorial Assistant position and a Software Developer position. The descriptions are detailed and explicitly ask for new college grads. DailyLit is located in Mamaroneck, NY, and we can’t find too much more information on what it’s like to work for them. We do know that they’ve hired the former President of Del.icio.us and they’re going to give new grads a ton of responsibility from the start. This looks like a really cool opportunity for the book lovers out there, so get researching!

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

We want to get to know you. Take a few minutes and tell us about your job search by answering the questions in this post.

Vineyard Vines

Willy Franzen — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 12:28:22 +0000

Where do you summer? If you’re not familiar with the use of the word summer as a verb, then you probably aren’t familiar with Vineyard Vines either. They’re a company that is all about living the good life - going on vacation to preppy paradises like Martha’s Vineyard.

Tie One On

Vineyard Vines started with two brothers selling ties out of their backpacks in bars, on boats, and on the beach. Before they knew it, Vineyard Vines ties were adopted as an essential part of the prepster dress code. What they do is pretty simple. They make great clothes for people who like to have fun - they are their own target market. Vineyard Vines even has a College Collection, so check to see if your alma mater has been included.

Summering All Year

We’ve been watching Vineyard Vines’ Jobs page for months, hoping that they’d post something for the new grads. Judging from their website and their employee photos, we think that Vineyard Vines looks like a really fun place for young people to work. For some reason, though, they seem to be light on the entry-level opportunities. The only openings that they currently have are for Graphic Artists. They say that their ideal candidates have some experience in a similar role, but we think a new grad with a killer portfolio probably has a pretty good shot. As long as you have great design skills and a solid understanding of the Vineyard Vines brand, you should at least get an interview.

We also think that sending a resume and a cover letter to Vineyard Vines for an unlisted position might be worth a try. They make clothes and they sell clothes, so think about ways that you could be valuable to them. You can apply to careers@vineyardvines.com.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Become a Facebook Fan of One Day, One Job!

What Kind of Job Are You Looking For?

Willy Franzen — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 20:24:15 +0000

We’re taking a cue from Naomi Dunford’s post on IttyBiz called Let’s Play a Game - What’s Your Small Business? and adapting the idea to job search. By the way, here’s our response to Naomi’s post.

So.

Let’s play a game.

What kind of job are you looking for?

We always love to hear reader feedback, so we’re going to open this post up for our readers to leave comments. If you’re visiting One Day, One Job, then you’re probably looking for an entry-level job. Tell us what you’re looking for, so that we can better serve you with our daily posts and articles.

The Questions

Answer these questions by leaving a comment or writing a post in your own blog and linking to this post.

1. Who are you? What is your background and what are you good at?

2. What do you want to do after you graduate?

3. Do you have a particular field or industry of interest?

4. Are there any companies that you’ve focused your job search on?

5. What job search techniques or skills would you like to learn about?

Why You Should Participate

We take requests.

For every company that we write a post about, there are dozens that we don’t write about. We might have found the perfect job for you, but we didn’t write about it because the company was light on other entry-level offerings. We won’t know to tell you unless you tell us what you’re looking for. Not only can we help you individually with your job search, but you (readers) can help each other by publicly sharing what you’re looking for. If there’s enough interest in one area, we can refocus our research to better address reader demand.

Beyond giving us feedback, you never know who might see what you’re looking for. There are plenty of employers who visit One Day, One Job regularly, and they might see your comment and want to hire you. Make sure that you use a valid e-mail address (we won’t publish it), so that we can contact you if we find any specific opportunities for you.

Be sure to share this post with your friends. If more people participate, the information in this post will be more valuable.

What is One Day, One Job?

Willy Franzen — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 20:21:40 +0000

We recently hired Naomi Dunford of Itty Biz Marketing to help us grow our readership and our business. We really like reading her blog, so we figured we’d see how she can help us. She recently wrote a post called What’s Your Small Business? which asks readers to talk about what they do. She says it’s amazing how often you interact with people without realizing that they could be potential friends, business partners, clients, or customers. We know that you read One Day, One Job, but do you know what we do?

Naomi’s Questions

Naomi posed the following questions in her post and invited her readers to answer them, so that’s what we’re doing. Read our answers and let us know if you’d like to work with us!

What’s your game? What do you do?

One Day, One Job is a blog about entry-level jobs (and One Day, One Internship is a blog about internships). We put ourselves in the shoes of college students, and we search for great companies who are looking to hire young talent. Every day, we profile one of the companies that we find and talk about the company’s employment offerings for college students and new grads. We also write in-depth articles about how to use the Internet to become a better job searcher.

Working on One Day, One Job has helped us figure out how to engage college aged job seekers online. Now, we want to help employers do the same. Since even the biggest companies can’t make recruiting visits to every campus, online communication between employers and college students is essential. This is something that we’ve mastered - just look at our archive of daily posts.

Our first offering to employers is our advertising package. Our readers are already engaged with us, we can help you reach them (as long as you meet our standards as an entry-level employer). Not only will your company get great candidates, but you’ll also significantly increase awareness of your employment brand.

Our second offering to employers consists of our consulting services, which are geared towards companies that want to make online communication with job seekers a business priority. Some areas that we specialize in are social media, blogging, search engine optimization, copy writing, viral content development, and Facebook advertising. We tend to focus our attention on entry-level recruiting, but the principles that we’ve learned apply at all levels.

Why do you do it? Do you love it, or do you just have one of those creepy knacks?

I’ve job searched. It sucks. It’s not fun. It should be like shopping. The anticipation should be thrilling. Reading a job description should make you say, “I want to work there!” Not, “I guess I’ll send my resume - it only takes 30 seconds to e-mail it.”

I’ve also worked in HR at a company that had awesome brand recognition, but wasn’t using it effectively to attract top talent. Not only was the company missing out on great candidates, but the candidates were missing out on great jobs because they didn’t know about them. It was a bummer.

Job search is important, and I think that One Day, One Job can make the process better for both sides.

Who are your customers? What kind of people would need or want what you offer?

College students are our customers! They may not pay us for the services that we provide, but they are the people we need to make happy. Our focus is always on addressing the job seeker’s point of view, even if we’re working with employers in a consulting capacity. Recruiting is often done from the buying perspective, but we think that it should be done from the selling perspective.

What’s your marketing USP? Why should I buy from you instead of the other losers?

One Day, One Job is a proof of concept. Our successes in promoting our site and growing our audience have proved to us that there is a lot of room for improvement in how employers promote their jobs online. Not only can a job search be enjoyable for the end user, but companies can attract top quality candidates through great copywriting, search engine optimization, use of social media, and Facebook advertising.

If companies and job boards were engaging job searchers, we wouldn’t have thousands of visitors every week.

What’s next for you? What’s the big plan?

We want to continue finding new ways to make online job searching easier. We have some ideas for great web applications, but we also want to expand our business in regard to helping employers. We’re not sure where we’re going, but that’s part of the fun of starting a business.

On Another Note

We’re going to steal Naomi’s idea, and do our own take on her idea with a post called What Kind of Job Are You Looking For? We’ll ask a few questions, and you can reply by leaving a comment or writing a blog post that links to our post.

Sun Microsystems

Willy Franzen — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 13:06:58 +0000

So what? I’ve become a mild Twitter addict. I keep finding internships by scanning tweets and following the links in them, but, unfortunately, I can’t say the same about entry-level jobs. The term entry-level is reserved mostly for job postings, while the word internship is near universal - so it’s used conversationally (like on Twitter). Yesterday, I found a link to a post by a Sun Microsystems employee who is looking for two interns. Her post led us to Sun’s main Careers site, which truly impressed us - especially because of the way that they present their entry-level job offerings.

The Sun Also Rises

You’ve probably heard of Sun Microsystems, but I’ll bet that you’re not quite sure what they do. It’s actually quite likely that you’re using their technology right now, and you don’t even know it. Their About page says that Sun provides “software, systems, services, and microelectronics that power everything from consumer electronics, to developer tools and the world’s most powerful datacenters.” They’re a huge company, with 33,350 employees worldwide and a ranking of 187 on the Fortune 500. They’re certainly a technology company at heart, but because of their size, their entry-level job offerings extend well beyond technical positions.

Looking for Bright New Grads

It’s pretty cool to find a big company with a blogger who posts about the company’s jobs, since it’s usually smaller startups that use social media for recruiting. Our first impression was to be totally impressed with Sun, but we were doubly impressed when we visited their main Careers site. It is by far the most usable Jobs site that we have come across yet. They have a Student Employment Zone, a Recruiting Blog, and the best job search feature that we’ve ever seen on a corporate site. All you have to do is check a box, and all of their jobs for new grads (all 167 of them) appear. Check another box and you only get entry-level jobs that are located abroad (none available right now). There’s no need for us to list specific entry-level jobs at Sun Microsystems, since should have no problem finding something that interests you - they even organize their search results by department. They are so easy to navigate!

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Looking for internships at Sun Microsystems? We’ve got you covered.