One Day, One Internship » leadership development

ALDI

Willy Franzen — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 15:12:12 +0000

Sweet 16! And if I’m going to find a way to get to the game, I’m going to need to start shopping at ALDI, because flights to Syracuse aren’t cheap. Luckily, the groceries at ALDI are. I’ve never stepped foot in an ALDI store, but I’ve heard plenty about them from friends and articles. They are unlike all other grocery stores. They almost never stock name brands—they have their own private labels. They don’t have shelves—they use pallets. They charge for reusable bags, and taking a shopping cart requires a 25 cent deposit. ALDI also doesn’t take credit cards, and they stock far fewer items than your typical supermarket. ALDI may not offer a luxurious shopping experience like Wegmans does, but they make up for it by offering insane value. If you’re pinching pennies, you have no excuse not to shop at ALDI. Even with their limited selection of products, they’ve found that most of their customers “can do as much as 90% of their weekly shopping at ALDI.”

Find Value at ALDI

ALDI isn’t only different in the customer experience that they offer, they also run their business in a unique way. They’re a German company, and they have a huge presence in Europe. Their U.S. headquarters is in Batavia, IL, but that’s not where most of their entry level jobs are. That’s because another interesting thing about ALDI is the fact that they hire their District Managers straight out of college, and they pay them exceedingly well ($70k per year well). They offer these opportunities across a large portion of the country, and they’re growing at a rate of 100 stores per year. This entry level hiring program is led into by a District Manager Internship program. It’s a 10-week paid internship that immerses students in the District Manager position. You can find all of the details on ALDI’s Careers site, and you should be sure to check out their sections on Intern experiences and Internship Timeline. It’s pretty obvious that ALDI’s cheap philosophy does not apply to how they treat talent. If you’re interested in interning with them, you can find out all of the information on how to apply here.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Do you shop at ALDI?

ING Direct

Willy Franzen — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 15:42:15 +0000

I’m a big proponent of making personal finance part of your career planning. By managing your money wisely (even if you barely have any as a student), you’re creating a project for yourself that you can use to demonstrate to employers how you’ll be an effective intern. When I need information on personal finance, I always look to Ramit Sethi, the founder of a website called I Will Teach You To Be Rich and the author of a book by the same name (he also just launched a course on how to make money freelancing and he’s doing a free webinar tonight at 7 PM PST – affiliate links). One thing that he strongly recommends is using online banks that offer high interest rates and great easy to use features. One of these banks is ING Direct, which is headquartered in Wilmington, DE. While you may have noticed that most banks are on a real estate binge as they try to gain customers, ING Direct is doing the opposite. They operate almost entirely “in the cloud.” Since they “believe saving money should be as simple as having a cup of coffee,” they do have cafés in New York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Wilmington, Chicago, St. Cloud, and Honolulu where you can ” sip a latte, surf the Internet for free and talk to [them] about how [they] can help you Save Your Money.” And by keeping a low overhead, ING Direct is able to offer better interest rates and fewer fees, which gives them a huge advantage in winning over customers.

Saving Towards a Career

It may be hard to imagine not needing a brick and mortar bank, but ING Direct makes it work. They have a huge ATM network, they’ll write and mail your checks for you, and they make transferring money between accounts simple. It’s the way that you’ll expect to bank in the future, but ING Direct is doing it now. ING Direct is owned by ING, the Dutch financial institution, but it seems that they act quite independently—they’re not like other banks. This is where banking is headed, so ING Direct should be the place to be if you want to work in “retail” banking. To get started, you need to check out ING Direct’s Internships page. You’ll see that in addition to their Wilmington, DE location, they also have offices in St. Cloud, MN; Los Angeles, CA; and Seattle, WA, but it seems that they’re only recruiting interns in Wilmington and St. Cloud (at least right now). There are IT Internships that offer opportunities in the following departments: IT Development, IT Project Management, IT Services, IT Application Services, IT Supplier Management, IT Architecture, Data Modeling & Database Systems, and Network Administration. There are also General Internships that don’t seem to get into more specific areas, but the focus is on leadership development. There’s no word on whether the positions are paid, but my guess is that they are. Unfortunately, ING Direct’s applicant tracking system is kind of terrible, so it makes it impossible for me to link to specific positions, but it shouldn’t be hard to find the internships and apply online.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Do you have an ING Direct account?

Southwest Airlines

Willy Franzen — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 13:38:13 +0000

Periodically the news is riddled with stories about how the airlines are teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. Lately the focus of doom and gloom commentary has shifted to finance and insurance companies, but that doesn’t mean that the airlines are doing any better. There’s one company that is seemingly never in the conversation about struggling airlines – Southwest Airlines. If you’ve ever flown Southwest, you probably know why. They do things differently, and it makes flyers happy. Even though it seems like almost no one can succeed flying commercial routes, Southwest continues to impress. Air travel isn’t going anywhere – it’s too important to us, so forget about all the bad things that you hear about the airline industry, and start thinking about an internship at Southwest Airlines.

Book an Internship at Southwest

Honestly, I’ve never heard of a company cited in more case studies than Southwest is. When I was studying Human Resources in college, I swear that I heard about Southwest’s corporate culture every week. It must make the CEOs of other airlines sick to their stomachs. Just look at the honors Southwest has received recently:

Ranked 12th on Fortune’s “Most Admired” list in 2007
Made Forbes “Platinum List” in 2007
Ranked by Business Week as one of the top “50 Best Places to Launch a Career”
“Most Admired Companies Among Women” by Professional Womens Magazine in 2006
“100 Best Corporate Citizens” by Business Ethics magazine for eight years in a row
“Corporate 100” by HISPANIC magazine since 2000
Included in the “Top 100 Most Innovative Technology Organizations” by InformationWeek in July 2007

And in case you aren’t already dreaming about working for Southwest, they also offer “FREE UNLIMITED space-available travel anywhere Southwest Airlines flies,” casual dress, and social events for and including interns. Oh yeah, and the internships are paid. You can find out more on their Internships page, which is part of a really informative, but simple and easy to navigate Careers site.

Southwest is already “booking” for Spring internships, and the deadlines are coming up fast. It’s not surprising that they have demand this far in advance. Some of the internships have application deadlines of 9/19/08, which is Friday, while others have deadlines of 10/1/08. They currently have 33 internships listed, and 30 of them are located at their headquarters in Dallas, TX (the others are in Chicago, IL; Nashville, TN; and Houston, TX).

We’re not going to link to every single internship at Southwest Airlines – you can find them all here, but here’s a list of areas that you can intern in: Occupational Safety, Marketing, People & Leadership Development, Internal Customer Care, Public Relations, Meteorology, Operational Safety, Purchasing, Maintenance Engineering, Materials Purchasing, Material Services, Product Development, Corporate Sales, Online Marketing, Promotions, Advertising, Flight Operations, Publications, Internal Audit, Legislative Communications, Charitable Giving, Community Relations, Dispatch, Culture Services, Standards an Regulatory Compliance, Ground Operations, and Emergency Programs. Wow.

Applying online for these internships is easy, so get to them before the deadlines pass. Thanks to Rob, a former Southwest intern, for tipping us off on these internships. He said that he’ll be willing to answer any questions about internships at Southwest Airlines in the comments, so fire away.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Have you flown Southwest? Did you LUV it?

Ruder Finn

Willy Franzen — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 12:00:08 +0000

Despite what their name might make you think, Ruder Finn was not founded by someone from Finland with bad manners. They are actually a family-owned public relations firm that was founded in 1948 by David Finn and Wlliam Ruder. Ruder Finn has four specialties – Health & Wellness, Global Connectivity, Corporate & Public Trust, and Life & Style – with many areas of focus within those specialties. The firm’s first client was Perry Como, who was followed by a list of other celebrities; however, Ruder Finn represents more than just celebrities. They work with many major corporations, the United Nations, and they even represented the Bosniaks and the Croats in the Yugoslav Wars. Yes, warring nations choose Ruder Finn to manage their PR – that’s impressive, albeit a bit strange.

Not Quite an Entry-Level Job, Not Quite an Internship

Ruder Finn is obviously well know for their public relations work, but they’re also known for their Public Relations Executive Trainee Program. They run this program thrice annually, and the application deadline for the Fall program was August 1st, but it has been extended (they don’t have a set limit on the number of applicants accepted into the program). We’re not sure how much longer they are accepting applications, so you should probably get your application together as quickly as possible. Before you do that, though, let us tell you a little bit more about the Ruder Finn Public Relations Executive Trainee Program.

This program is not quite an entry-level job, and it’s not quite an internship – that’s why we’re posting it here and here on One Day, One Job. It’s intended for new college graduates, and it’s located in New York City. The program has been running for 30 years, and each session runs for approximately 4 months. Participants are expected to work 35 hours per week and to attend weekly training classes. Ruder Finn pays participants a prorated annual salary of $24,000 (so that should be about $8,000 for 4 months), but does not provide benefits. Participants who excel in the Executive Trainee Program are often hired full-time as Assistant Account Executives. We’d guess that participants who don’t end up getting full-time offers probably go on to work for other great public relations firms.

If you’re a new grad who is looking for a job in public relations and wants to gain experience in writing, media monitoring, media relations, electronic media, special event planning, new business presentation, and more, then the Ruder Finn Executive Trainee Program is a great opportunity. If you can get your act together quickly, apply for the Fall term. If you can’t, don’t fret – they offer this program every spring and summer too. Ruder Finn is very particular about how you apply for this program, so be sure to follow the instructions on their How to Apply page carefully.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Do you know anything about this program? Leave a comment.