One Day, One Internship » seo

QuoteWizard

Willy Franzen — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 14:58:07 +0000

Most people see insurance as a good thing. I see it as more of a necessary evil. The truth is that the large majority of people are losing money when they’re paying for insurance. Insurers wouldn’t take on your policy if it wasn’t going to be profitable for them. You’d be amazed at how good insurance companies are at predicting risks, which is why their business operations are so largely skewed towards getting new customers. Ever wonder why GEICO, Allstate, State Farm, and other auto insurers are so aggressive with their advertising? It’s because if you sign up, they’re going to make money. This means that generating leads for insurance companies is a huge business, and that’s why Seattle, WA based QuoteWizard came in at #36 on the Inc. 500 this year with 5,950.5% three-year revenue growth. They provide a simple online tool to help consumers find the best quotes for Auto Insurance, Home Insurance, Renter/Condo Insurance, Health Insurance, and Life Insurance. By organizing and presenting information in a simple way, QuoteWizard is able to generate a ton of leads for insurance companies—and for every lead they generate, they get paid.

Are You a Wizard?

There are a ton of Internet business like QuoteWizard. They don’t actually sell anything, but they provide information that is extremely valuable to consumers. Lead generation is big business, and it’s all based on being able to drive traffic. That means that online marketing is essential to businesses like QuoteWizard. This includes a variety of different things like content generation, search engine optimization, ad buying, software/product development, and more. QuoteWizard does whatever they can to get people on their site, and then they use their content and the QuoteWizard application to refer people to different insurance companies. If you want to learn about results-based online marketing, a place like QuoteWizard is a great place to do it. Although they don’t mention internships on their Jobs page, they seem like the perfect place to pitch an internship. Their current job openings include Online Media Analyst, Jr. Sales Representative, Online Media Buyer, and Web Developer, so think along those lines when you’re pitching yourself.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Have you used QuoteWizard?

Gazelle

Willy Franzen — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 14:34:03 +0000

There are a lot of things that you can do to get through college when money is tight. You can get a temporary job, you can do consulting, you can live with your parents, you can sell your blood, and you can even collect cans for the deposit money. But if you’re desperate for cash, you might as well start out with low hanging fruit. There’s a good chance that you have outdated electronics lying around your apartment or house. Maybe it’s a first generation iPhone or a video game system that you never play anymore. Why not sell it? You don’t even have to go to some sketchy neighborhood to find a pawn shop or meet some stranger from Craigslist. You just need to use Gazelle, a Boston based company that provides “a practical, responsible, rewarding way for consumers to get value for used electronics.” The are the “nation’s largest reCommerce company,” and they keep growing—they’re #24 on the Inc 500 list with a 7,119.7% three-year growth rate.

Move Fast Like a Gazelle

Gazelle isn’t just about quick and easy cash for used consumer electronics, they’re also about the environment. They think that reuse is the best way to recycle, so they envision a future where “every consumer electronic is considered for reCommerce and that none ends up in a landfill.” Apparently you can make lots of money and make the world a better place—Gazelle is proof of that. The key to Gazelle’s success is an intense focus on user experience. Selling your stuff on eBay sucks. It’s time consuming, and there’s a good chance that you’ll get scammed. With Gazelle, you know what you’re getting into, and they handle the logistics for you. They may pay a slightly lower price for your stuff, but for many people it’s worth it. If you’re intrigued by the idea of reCommerce, then you need to check out internships at Gazelle. They don’t have any positions posted right now, but I did find this intern experience on the Harvard Business School site. They clearly offer internships, so it’s up to you to reach out to them see whether they’re in Marketing, Software Development, Business Development, or some other area. (And whether they’re paid too.)

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Would you sell something on Gazelle?

Caring.com

Willy Franzen — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 13:00:39 +0000

Over the weekend I was complaining about irresponsible government spending (most of which is the result of the generations that came before us). Now, our parents and grandparents may have left us with a nasty bill to pay, but we still owe them a lot. Which is why I encourage you to take care of your aging parents—much like I do by accompanying my Dad on all kinds of fishing vacations. I’m truly looking out for his best interest. Obviously, I’m being sarcastic, but the truth is that it won’t be that long before we do have to start taking care of our parents. It can be an uncomfortable and unfamiliar situation, which is why resources like Caring.com exist. Caring.com is based in San Mateo, CA and “is the leading online destination for those seeking information and support as they care for aging parents, spouses, and other loved ones.” Their tagline is “You’re there for them. We’re here for you.”

Do You Care?

According to Caring.com’s About page, more than 40 million people in the United States care for someone over the age of 50 (like me for my Dad). That’s an astounding number, and it’s only going to go up as the Baby Boomers continue to age. While taking care of children is something that is supposed to be ingrained in our DNA, taking care of aging loved ones isn’t. This is why Caring.com provides “thousands of original articles, helpful tools, a comprehensive local directory of caregiving services, and the collective wisdom of an involved community.” Their business appears to be completely advertising based; however, they’re very upfront about how they separate sponsored content from editorial. If you’re interested in online media or serving caregivers, then you can check out jobs at Caring.com or you can head straight for Caring.com’s internship posting on Craigslist. They’re looking for paid Marketing Interns to assist them in areas like SEO, SEM, Social Media Marketing, and Display Advertising. It sounds like a pretty cool gig, so check it out.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Do you care for anyone over the age of 50?

Become.com

Willy Franzen — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 14:58:45 +0000

I don’t do a ton of shopping, but when I do, I almost always buy stuff online. It’s become way too easy not to do. It’s also usually significantly cheaper. I used to shop around a lot online, but I’ve gotten to the point where if Amazon stocks the item, I go with them. They almost always have the best prices, and they’re as reliable as can be (and having free 2-day shipping from Amazon Prime doesn’t hurt—by the way, I think it’s now free for students“>free for students). If you’re not as trusting, and you really want to find the best price, then you’re probably going to want to use a comparison shopping site. Become.com, which is based in Sunnyvale, CA, is one of the big ones. They get millions of unique visitors every month, and they have tens of millions of dollars in investment from a variety of firms. The cool thing about their business is that all they do is provide information. They don’t actually sell anything, but they get a cut of every sale that they refer through affiliate programs.

What Will You Become?

Become.com is a tech company, a content company, and a marketing company. There’s a ton of technology behind the scenes, which helps them find all kinds of relevant information on products including where the best deal is. They then use the content that they collect to add value to the purchasing process. You’ll be a better informed buyer if you use Become.com instead of the retailer’s site. Finally, the most important thing for Become.com is to get shoppers on their site. This is the Marketing side, and a lot of it has to do with search engine optimization (SEO). Become.com wants their content to rank well in search engines, so that when you search for a product, you find their page. You like what you see, so you click one of their links to a retailer and buy. Become.com profits. You can help them do that as a paid SEO Intern or Search Marketing Analyst Intern. You can find the full job descriptions here.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Do you use Become.com?

Indeed

Willy Franzen — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 15:57:25 +0000

The One Day, One Internship LinkedIn Group is growing fast. Join now so you can connect with me and other readers.

It’s story time today! Let’s go back three years to when I was still job searching. I was getting extremely frustrated with the recruitment process, and I was starting to think about how I could make online job search better. Beyond my typical job searching, I was reading everything that I could about the online recruitment industry. I was generating new ideas, and trying to find a way in so that other job searchers wouldn’t have to go through what I went through. I took an especially strong interest in Indeed, not only because they provide an excellent job search engine, but also because they were an innovative and successful startup located in Stamford, CT—just 20 minutes from where I was living at the time (they also have an office in Austin, TX). They were still small, and they didn’t really have any job postings that were suitable for me, so I e-mailed the CEO. I told him why I wanted to work for him and what I thought that I could bring to the table. It worked, and I got an interview (going straight to the top is an underrated job search method). After clearing the phone screen, I got invited to the office to meet with some people on the team, and, to my surprise, that included the CEO whom I had e-mailed my initial “cover letter” to. The interview was kind of a disaster. It went well at first, but I had already started working on One Day, One Job, and telling a potential employer that you’re starting a company in the same space isn’t typically a good idea. I didn’t get offered the job (nor did they ever formally reject me), but I think it all ended up for the better.

Yes, Indeed

Indeed’s business model looks a lot like Google’s. Scour the Internet for information, organize that information in a coherent fashion, and spit it back to users in a relevant way with ads mixed in with the content. While Google does it for everything, Indeed only focuses on jobs. You probably already know all about Indeed, because if you’re job searching and not coming across Indeed at least occasionally, you’re either not searching very hard or using an ultra targeted, networking approach (which I approve of highly). If you don’t have a problem with getting meta about your internship search by looking for a position at a job search company, then take a look at internships at Indeed. They have a bunch of opportunities, and a number of them are either listed as internships or described as such. The one definitive internship is for a Sales Intern at the Stamford office, while there are a number of positions in Austin, TX with descriptions saying they’re looking for a current student. These include positions like Country Marketing Associate – Native Australian, Country Marketing Associate – Native Canadian, Country Marketing Associate – Native Spanish, and Marketing Associate. I’m still a fan of Indeed, even if they didn’t offer me a job, so go see if you can do better than I did with them. There’s no word on whether the positions are paid, but my guess is that they are.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Do you use Indeed?

ManhattanGMAT

Willy Franzen — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 15:50:52 +0000

Join the legion of One Day, One Internship readers who are showing up to their internships in Bonobos pants (or wearing their swim trunks to the beach on days off). Learn about Bonobos here and e-mail me for $50 off your first purchase.

I’m sure plenty of you intend to go to grad school in the future, or you’re considering it now that you’re realizing how tough the job market really is. I have absolutely no intention of going back to school because I’m enjoying learning by doing way too much. I also want nothing to do with standardized tests ever again. But if I was going to take a standardized test like the GMAT, I’d probably want to enroll myself in prep course (because my high school strategy of getting a good night’s sleep the night before the test can only take me so far). From what I’ve heard from friends, ManhattanGMAT is one of the best out there. They’re quite obviously based in New York City, but they have locations all across the country. ManhattanGMAT delivers success for their students by staying true to 3 core concepts: focus, superior curriculum, and real teachers (who scored in the 99th percentile on the GMAT).

Prep Yourself

It astounds me that college students and grads will spend thousands of dollars on test prep, but will begrudgingly turn over $27 for a job search prep course that will help them get a job faster. The people in the test prep business have done a fantastic job of developing their market, and ManhattanGMAT has moved in at the higher end of that market. They’re also doing it with their sister company AtlasLSAT, which offers similar products and services for our future lawyers. If you like the test prep market and think that it could be a cool place to start your career, then you’ll want to check out Careers with ManhattanGMAT. They offer both GMAT Instructor positions and Corporate positions. We’ll take a look at the latter, since they don’t want interns teaching classes. ManhattanGMAT’s job listings don’t mention internships, but they have a number of paid part-time positions that seem pretty comparable to an internship. These include positions in Internet Marketing, Marketing, Operations, and Information Technology. You can apply online for any of these positions.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Have you taken a ManhattanGMAT course?

CafePress

Willy Franzen — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 15:02:51 +0000

There is one, and only one, One Day, One Job t-shirt (and there are no One Day, One Internship t-shirts). It came free with the business cards that I ordered from VistaPrint (see VistaPrint’s internships). I usually wear it to the gym or to play volleyball, and, unfortunately, nobody who recognized the logo has ever stopped me to tell me how awesome my site is. That’s why there won’t be any more One Day, One Job t-shirts (unless more than 100 of you e-mail me and tell me that you want one). But if I was going to give you the option to buy all kinds of One Day, One Job/Internship gear, I’d probably use CafePress. They’re a San Mateo, CA based company that allows you to customize nearly any piece of merchandise—t-shirts, bumper stickers, mugs, underwear, pillows, and even Flip cameras. Webmasters have been using CafePress forever to sell custom merchandise, and from what I can tell CafePress’ quality continues to get better.

Impress at CafePress

Want the CafePress story? Just watch the video below, it will give you the whole rundown of how they got started and what they’re all about.

CafePress has “a community of 6.5 million users, and over 11 million unique visits each month,” which makes them the “world’s largest collection of user-designed products.” Every day 2,000 new shops open up on CafePress and 45,000 new products are added to the catalog of more than 250 million unique products. If those numbers get you excited, then you may want to check out internships at CafePress. Right now they have openings for a Merchandise Intern and an SEO Analyst Intern. There’s no word on whether or not the positions are paid. You can apply online, and let me know if you would actually buy a t-shirt… or underwear with the ODOJ logo on it.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Do you own any CafePress merchandise?

Efficient Frontier

Willy Franzen — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 12:53:03 +0000

Auctions are huge online. You probably know all about eBay, but did you know that Google’s advertising platform (the one that makes them almost all of their money) is also run by an auction model? If you want to advertise on a specific keyword’s search results, you make a bid, and if your bid is the highest (with some kinks thrown in to ensure quality advertisers), then your ad gets shown. What’s really interesting is that our financial markets are also based on an auction system. This means that innovations in the financial markets can also have relevance to the online advertising markets. That’s what Sunnyvale, CA based Efficient Frontier has figured out and built their business on. Their “performance optimization platform harnesses the power of advanced modeling to optimize campaigns and forecast the impact of changing tactics.” Efficient Frontier handles over $900 million in search engine marketing spending for their clients every year, which makes them a world leader.

Explore the Efficient Frontier

The key idea behind Efficient Frontier is portfolio theory, which has been used to develop their optimization platform and predictive modeling. It’s really complex stuff that you’d expect to find at an investment bank or hedge fund, but it may feel a little bit more approachable since it’s about advertising and not financial instruments. If you take a look at Efficient Frontier’s clients, you’ll see a lot of familiar names, and if you want to get a better feel for how those clients use Efficient Frontier’s technology, you should check out their case studies and testimonials. If after reading those you’re even more excited about Efficient Frontier, then you should check out their Careers page. Right now they’re looking for an MBA Marketing Intern. It’s hard to say how tied they are to the MBA requirement, but it looks like a pretty cool opportunity to learn about Efficient Frontier’s business.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

What do you know about Efficient Frontier?

Flightpath

Willy Franzen — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 15:57:29 +0000

I’ve been fascinated by the Internet since I got my first modem when I was in 4th or 5th grade. I knew that I was dealing with something special, but I had no idea how big it would get. What amazes me most now is how effective digital marketing has become. The Internet has truly changed the way our economy works, and it has allowed people like me to build businesses with no physical assets. It’s been fun growing up with the Internet, and I imagine the people at Flightpath kind of feel the same way. They’re a New York City based Digital Agency that was founded in 1994, so they started doing business right around the time I first signed on to eWorld. Since then they’ve been delivering “superior, high-impact digital solutions that drive long-term success for brands and organizations.”

What’s Your Flightpath?

Flightpath creates “dynamic user experiences that leverage deep strategic insight and inspiring digital design to acquire, retain, and satisfy a range of client target customers and audiences.” Those may sound like fancy words, but when you take a look at Flightpath’s clients and look at the work they’ve done, you know that it’s not just jargon. They’ve worked with names like TLC’s Trading Spaces, The New Yorker, and Goya Foods. The services that Flightpath offers to these clients include Website Design & Development, Social Media Services, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, and E-mail Marketing Services. If you want to learn about digital marketing, Flightpath would be a great place to do it. If that interests you, then you should check out their Careers page. They have two unpaid internships posted right now in Social Media and Web Production. These are Summer opportunities, so maybe it isn’t too late for you.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

What have you heard about Flightpath?

Reprise Media

Willy Franzen — Fri, 21 May 2010 14:57:39 +0000

Guys, need something to wear to an interview? Check out Bonobos! They make the best pants that I’ve ever worn (I have something like 12 pairs) and they’ll give you $50 off your first order. Just e-mail me at willy@onedayonejob.com, and I’ll send you the coupon code.

Yesterday we talked about how search engines work, and today we’re kind of going to do it again (but I promise today’s internships aren’t nearly as technical). Ranking well in search engines, especially Google, is extremely important for marketing purposes. 75% of the people who visit this site every day come from a search engine, and about 80% of those people are brand new site. That means that Google is providing me with a constant stream of new users. Now, this wasn’t dumb luck. I’ve invested hundreds or maybe even thousands of hours on search engine optimization (SEO) to improve this site’s rankings. Obviously, I’m not the only one doing this. Anybody who is anybody in the world of online businesses has an SEO strategy, and that means that there are plenty of marketing firms out there that specialize in SEO. Reprise Media is one of those firms (they also focus on Social Media), and they’re based in San Francisco and New York City.

A Nice Reprise

Both SEO and Social Media Marketing are great examples of the intersection of art and science. Everything that you do in both fields needs to be data based and supported by facts, but without creativity you’ll never find strategies that work like using Facebook ads to land a job. If you want to see Reprise Media’s approach to this, all you need to do is check out some of the Case Studies listed in the sidebar of their Clients page. For instance you can see how they helped sell more Lord of the Rings merchandise or promote an online writing event for teens. The power of the kind of marketing that Reprise Media does is truly incredible, and I encourage any college student with an interest in the field of Marketing to lean towards online marketing. A good start would be checking out Reprise Media’s Careers page, where they unfortunately don’t seem to post internships. However, I was able to find information on their paid Online Marketing internships in San Francisco on Intern Alert, so you can get all of the details there.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Had you heard of SEO before?

Millennial Media

Willy Franzen — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 14:42:48 +0000

I hate the term Millennial when it’s used in the same way that Generation Y is. A lot of career advice these days is focused on generational issues, but I just don’t buy into it. Yes, old people and young people have different attitudes, but that’s nothing new. There are way more important things to be talking about, which is why I get visibly irked when the word millennial comes up. (And I’m proving my point right now by being a 25 year old grumpy old man.) My bad attitude should explain why it took me a second to warm to the idea of Millennial Media, which is a Baltimore, MD based mobile advertising company. By millennial, they mean next generation/futuristic, so they’re ok in my book. The company apparently has the largest mobile advertising network in the country, and they claim to reach 83% of the U.S. mobile audience.

The Mobile Millennium

It’s very clear that mobile advertising is growing at an amazing rate. Cell phones used to be terrible platforms for marketing messages, but we’re suddenly seeing that change with rich technologies on smaller devices. Getting ads on your phone may not seem all that desirable, but when you realize that it’s subsidizing all those cool, free sites, you have to agree that it’s worth looking at some ads to use Google or whatever other site on your phone. And with location based services popping all over the place, mobile advertising is actually going to be useful soon enough (Foursquare has already netted a free appetizer, a free cupcake, and 10% off of Berry Chill). So how do you get in on mobile marketing while it’s still kind of early? You head for Millennial Media. They’re an industry leader, and they’re already working with big name publishers like ABC, MTV, The New York Times, Digg, and more. And to get a closer look at how their platform works, you can check out Millennial Media’s Case Studies. If you like what you see, you should head over to Millennial Media’s Internships page. Right now they have three internships posted: Brand Communications Intern, Operations Coordinator Intern, and Operations Analyst Intern. You can apply online for any of these positions, and there’s no word on whether they’re paid or not.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Do you pay attention to mobile ads?

Zinch

Willy Franzen — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 16:04:24 +0000

If you’ve been searching for internships 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 an Internship 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 lots of interns. If you check out their Careers 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 intern@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)?

There’s no word on whether these positions are paid or not.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

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

Rosetta

Willy Franzen — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 15:44:44 +0000

I got a tip on this one from a fellow Cornellian (which is cool because a few of my friends from Cornell work at Rosetta). If you ever find a company that you think that we should feature, e-mail me at willy@onedayonejob.com. We feature a lot of interactive marketing agencies because they’re usually pretty big on hiring young talent whether it be at the intern or entry level. Rosetta stands out because of their size and sophistication—they almost seem more like a consulting firm than a marketing agency, at least in the way that they present themselves. For instance, they recently become a “top ten interactive agency” by means of an acquisition. That seems so different from the image that most agencies try to portray, but it’s working. Through “dedication to client work within Consumer Products & Retail, Healthcare, Financial Services, Consumer Technology & Media, B2B, and Travel & Hospitality industries” Rosetta “has created enduring partnerships with [their] clients including Scholastic, Coach, Borders, Johnson & Johnson, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Nationwide, Marriott and Microsoft.” Those are huge names, so you know Rosetta, which is headquartered in Princeton with offices in New York, Cleveland, Boston, Chicago, and Denver, is capable of delivering results.

Relationships Matter

One of Rosetta’s key offerings is their suite of Relationship Marketing Services, which are focused on helping clients segment customers and offer “intelligent, personalized interactions across all online and offline channels.” This is just one part of the story, though. To get the full story on Rosetta’s offerings, you should take a look at this diagram. It shows how Rosetta walks clients through the marketing process—from creating the top-level strategy to using analytics to measure results. This means it’s not surprising that Rosetta’s internship offerings are as varied as their service offerings—their Careers page is titled “Graphic Design Careers, SEO Jobs, and Financial Services Consulting Opportunities at Rosetta.”

As I mentioned in the beginning of the post, Rosetta seems to have a strong connection with Cornell (and probably quite a few other colleges) based on campus recruiting. Interestingly enough, Rosetta doesn’t really have a campus recruiting page—just a former intern. From there you can find their job search function, which is pretty terrible. It does appear to let you search specifically for internships; however, your best bet is to look at their full list of job openings and scan for the word intern. There are currently five positions posted: Associate Consultant Intern, Account Executive Intern, Technology Associate Intern, Business Associate Intern, and Human Resources Intern. Rosetta also apparently offers co-ops, although I didn’t find anything about them. The way that Rosetta lists their jobs and internships is really a mess, so you need to take note that different internships with the same title may be in different practice areas. Additionally, single internship postings may be for multiple locations. They do have some nice pages on their Careers site like Meet Our People and Fun at Rosetta, but the whole thing is disorganized. I expect a lot better from a top ten agency. You can apply online for any of these positions, so forgive Rosetta for the lack of usability on their Careers site and see if you can help them move further up the top ten. Finally, there’s no word on whether Rosetta’s internships are paid, but it’d be a travesty if a company as big as they are didn’t pay interns.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Were you looking Rosetta Stone’s internships?

Dealer.com

Willy Franzen — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 14:11:16 +0000

I know that it sounds like a place to buy illicit substances, but Dealer.com is a legal operation as far as I know. They may operate in the underworld of search engine optimization, but so do I, and I’m not a sleaze bag or spammer. Dealer.com is a Burlington, VT based company that “has become the global leader in online marketing solutions for the automotive industry.” They provide a platform for car dealers to generate leads online. I’d imagine that Dealer.com is a direct competitor with Cobalt, a company that we featured back in January. It’s no surprise that automotive online marketing is a growing industry. Most car dealerships don’t have the resources to do online marketing themselves—cheesy tv commercials don’t translate to the web. So how do they reach the masses of people who are using search engines to aid in car buying decisions? They either build an internal online marketing division, hire a local agency that doesn’t know anything about the industry, or go to Dealer.com. Which decision do you think will sell the most cars?

See What You’re Dealt

The thing that really stands out about Dealer.com is their culture. They’re aiming to be the “most sought after automotive web solutions provider in the world,” and it’s very clear that they think that treating their people well will help them get there. Their “brand-new Green Certified Corporate headquarters has a 35,000 square foot fitness facility and in-house organic cafe,” and they offer half-off ski passes at local mountains. It’s the epitome of a cool place to work, which is why they probably keep racking up awards. This attitude is also reflected in the way that Dealer.com does recruiting. I randomly came across the company’s website last night, and it turns out that they’re having a big recruiting event today at the Sheraton in Burlington. I realize that you probably won’t be able to make it, but you can watch the event live at 6 PM EST today on their Careers page. It’s a recruiting tactic that I haven’t seen before, and I really like it. You can tell that they’re serious about talent. I don’t know if it’s meant for potential interns, but I can’t imagine that it wouldn’t be worth your checking out. Dealer.com doesn’t have a specific Internships page, but they do have an Accounting Internship and an Account Management Internship posted on their site. You can apply online for any of these positions, and I’d bet that there will be more internships posted in the future. There’s no word on whether or not these positions are paid.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Have you seen any companies run live events for recruiting like Dealer.com?

Fantazzle

Willy Franzen — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 15:52:23 +0000

It’s a tough time of year for fantasy sports enthusiasts. The football season is over, and it’s still a bit early to be preparing for your fantasy baseball draft. There’s hockey and basketball, but they’re right in the middle of their seasons. The excitement of the draft is long gone, and the playoffs are still too far away. You need an outlet for all of that fantasy sports energy, and Arlington, VA based Fantazzle might be the perfect outlet. They’ve only been on the scene for a couple years, but they’ve already been acknowledged by The New York Times’ Fifth Down Blog as having the most accurate preseason fantasy football rankings for the 2008 season. I haven’t played any of their games, but it appears that they run weekly games instead of full season games. It’s for players who don’t the attention span to last a whole season (or maybe players who get discouraged by being in last place after a couple weeks).

Dazzle at Fantazzle

When I first came across Fantazzle, I had a few hesitations about featuring them. The only games that they have available today are fantasy golf and fantasy racing. The site also doesn’t seem to be generating much traffic, which means that they’re probably not generating much revenue. They are, however, an early stage startup, and they received $352,000 in funding over the past few months. They do a charge a fee for some games and they do offer cash prizes (hopefully that’s not considered gambling by the government), so they do seem to have a business model that will scale nicely. Despite my hesitations, I think it would be pretty cool to intern at a fantasy sports startup. Fantazzle’s Internships page shows that they’re looking for interns in Fantasy Sports Marketing and Sales and Fantasy Sports Social Media Intern. The positions are unpaid, but they have the potential to become paid after training. You can apply online, but you’ll probably want to do a little more digging to get the full read on where Fantazzle is going first.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Do you play fantasy sports?

EatingWell Media Group

Willy Franzen — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 16:00:50 +0000

Although we don’t have a Veterans Day themed post for today, we hope that you’ll celebrate by thanking a Vet and possibly checking out our post from last year on internships at the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Earlier this week we took a look at Seed Media Group, a relatively new company that is finding success in an otherwise declining industry by focusing on a specific niche. Another company that is taking a similar approach is EatingWell Media Group, which is based in Charlotte, VT (near Burlington). They are “a fast-growing, independent communications company producing an award-winning national consumer magazine, high-quality food and nutrition-related books, a content-rich website, e-mail newsletters, and serving content to strategic partners with other electronic media.” It’s all about healthy eating without sacrificing the enjoyment of food. Some people think that those two things are mutually exclusive, but EatingWell Media Group has built its business on delivering content that proves otherwise.

EatingWell, InterningWell

EatingWell has grown to reach millions of people through a variety of channels because they are very much a trusted source for health conscious people. The reason for this is that they have been able to combine science based nutrition with the artistry that is essential to creating delicious recipes. They’re a relatively small company, but they do appear to be a growing. A quick look at their Internships page shows that they are offering a number of positions for students. They have both an Editorial Internship Program and an Interactive Internship Program (this includes positions in E-Marketing, Web Development/Design, and Web Writing/Production). The positions are unpaid, but well fed, so check out the full postings for information on how to apply.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Do you eat well?

Covario

Willy Franzen — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 14:55:31 +0000

At this rate I think that I could finish out the rest of the year covering companies that are on the Inc. 5000 (even if a lot of companies aren’t posting their internships on their site). I’m not going to, but I’m tempted by how many high quality internships I’ve been able to find from this list. Today I’ve decided to take a look at Covario, a San Diego based company that makes interactive marketing analytics software with a focus on search. I do a lot with search engine optimization, so I’m quite familiar with the industry, and I know that it’s growing rapidly. Making data driven decisions becomes essential in tougher times, because companies can’t afford not to know if they’re getting a return on investment. Tracking SEO performance through web analytics is a lot easier to measure than tracking the success of a “branding” campaign. I guess that’s why Covario has grown from $1.3 million in revenue in 2005 to $12.7 million in 2008.

Search for an Internship at Covario

While many SEO firms focus directly on consulting with clients, Covario has taken a different approach—providing software that does a lot of work for you. That means that when Covario’s clients set up the software, they can instantly start analyzing both paid and organic search performance and offer suggestions for optimization. Yes, this may sound really complex, but it’s stuff that you’re going to need to understand—even if you don’t want to work at a company like Covario (trust me on this one). And if you do, then you should consider an internship with Covario. Their Jobs page won’t help you find anything, but I will. A little Googling turned up a posting on a college’s list of internship opportunities. The posting is for an unpaid Search Marketing Intern (.doc file), and it looks pretty interesting. Check out the description, and if you like what you see send a cover letter and résumé to nstewart@covario.com.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

How much do you know about SEO?

Smart Destinations

Willy Franzen — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 14:53:16 +0000

Let’s say that you wanted to come visit me in Chicago. You’re not afraid to do touristy things, because you’re willing to accept the fact that you are a tourist. You’re going to visit the Art Institute, the Hancock Observatory, the Museum of Science and Industry, and the Sears (now Willis) Tower. Then you want to take a ride on the Navy Pier Ferris Wheel followed by an Architecture Boat Tour. That’s a lot of separate admission fees (and an exhausting day). With a Go Chicago Card from Boston, MA based Smart Destinations, you can pay once and do all these things and more. The card will even get you a discount on your Lou Malnati’s deep dish pizza. Smart Destinations offers the same service in quite a few other cities, and it seems to be pretty popular. While the Travel industry is struggling with the economy, Smart Destinations has managed 424.7% revenue growth over the past 3 years and #652 on the Inc. 5000.

Take a Trip to Smart Destinations

What Smart Destinations is doing isn’t all that complex, but it’s really… err… smart. By developing relationships with all of these individual destinations and trading lead generation for a substantial discount, Smart Destinations is able to make everyone happy while hauling in the cash. Or at least that’s what their 94% customer satisfaction rate seems to say. It’s a very cool business that has the potential for a lot more growth. If you’d like to be a part of that growth, you should consider Internships at Smart Destinations. They don’t list specific opportunities, but they do say that they offer internships and co-ops in 3 and 6 month periods (and I’m pretty sure that both types are paid). I was able to find a posting for an Online Marketing Internship on Craigslist and an outdated posting for a Customer Service Internship on MyFirstPaycheck. Judging from the fact that they mention co-ops, I would imagine that they also have some type of Engineering or Software Development opportunities too. You can reach out to Smart Destinations to learn more at careers@smartdestinations.com.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Have you tried using one of Smart Destinations’ products?

Triumvirate Environmental

Willy Franzen — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 14:49:01 +0000

In the environmentalist’s ideal world there would be no such thing as hazardous waste. Everything would be pure and natural and “green.” Unfortunately, that will never happen (partially because every living thing is its own little hazardous waste factory). How we deal with this hazardous waste is what truly determines the future of our environment. Triumvirate Environmental has figured this out, and they’ve spent the last 21 years building a business that provides “turnkey environmental and hazardous waste management services to clients across four niche sectors; Education, Healthcare, Industrial, and Life Sciences.” They’re based in Somerville, MA with locations across New England, New York, and the Mid-Atlantic, and they also appear to be masters of social media.

Join the Triumvirate

I’m surprised that I hadn’t heard of Triumvirate Environmental until today. They’re totally on top of employment branding and social media use, so you’d think they’d be on my radar screen (I actually have an internship radar that gives me ideas for posts). This is impressive because they’re doing a great job making hazardous waste management exciting for job/internship seekers and customers alike. Triumvirate Environmental has 9 blogs on topics that include The Environment, Environmental Careers, Higher Education, Healthcare, Industrial and Manufacturing, Life Sciences and BioPharma, Engineering Blogs, National and International Environmental News, and Social Media. It almost seems like too much, but if blog readers turn into customers, employees, or interns, then it’s well worth it. Triumvirate is all over Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube as well.

Although I find Triumvirate’s social media use impressive, I’m more impressed with their customer service philosophy, which is built off of their mission to “build the most productive, long-term, customer-intimate, environmental services firm by WOWing! each employee, and each customer, every day.” It’s all about WOWs! I’ve found that companies that treat their customers well, also treat their interns well, and the same can be said for companies that have Career blogs. That’s why you should definitely check out Triumvirate’s Career Center. Right now they have two unpaid Fall internships at their Somerville, MA office posted: Human Resources Intern and Marketing/Communications Intern. Additionally, Mark Campanale from Triumvirate recently tweeted that he’s looking for Fall interns in SEO/Web Marketing. Triumvirate’s interns are very active on the blogs, so you can even get an inside look at what it’s like to intern at Triumvirate. You can apply for internships at Triumvirate online, but I’ll bet that using social media to reach out to them may be a more effective way to get noticed.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Have you heard of Triumvirate Environmental before?

Deckers Outdoor Corporation

Willy Franzen — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 15:19:13 +0000

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

Hit the Deckers

I had no idea until today that Outside Magazine has a Best Places to Work list. Now I know about it, and I know that Deckers Outdoor Corporation is on the list (ranked 7th). While Deckers’ Careers page doesn’t say much more than generic stuff like “We are looking for energetic, hard working, success oriented individuals to join our dynamic team” and “All candidates must be team players, have high energy, good organization and excellent communication skills,” it’s pretty obvious that Deckers has a unique employment brand that is well aligned with their product brands. They also fail to mention their internship program on their website. Luckily, you have me to keep digging for you. I was able to find a page from Northern Arizona University that lists Fall internships with Deckers. The opportunities are all at the Flagstaff, AZ location and they include: Web Data Analysis Intern, Web Design Intern, Affiliate Marketing Intern, Email Marketing Intern, and Search Marketing Intern. All of the positions are unpaid, and you can find more in-depth descriptions here. You can apply by sending a cover letter and résumé to hr@deckers.com with the internship title in the subject line. If you want information on other internships at their Goleta, CA location, I’d recommend doing some Googling or reaching out to them and asking. I can’t seem to find any other internships posted.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

ShoeMoney Media Group

Willy Franzen — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 14:56:04 +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 an Intern

If you want to learn Internet Marketing, there are few people in the world who can teach you better than Jeremy. This isn’t like most of the internships that you’re used to seeing – there’s no HR office, it’s a 4 person company, and stuffiness is non-existent. This really is the internship opportunity of a lifetime – I wish I could drop everything and do it myself. You can find all of the details on ShoeMoney’s blog, but here’s the quick rundown. The internships are located in Lincoln, NE, and they’re unpaid; however, everyone who works at ShoeMoney Media Group is on track to be part owner. It’s a full-time internship, which means always on – not 9 to 5. They’re open to all kinds of applicants, but they particularly want people who have a serious work ethic, are good with numbers, have street smarts, and have skills in PHP/MySQL/Graphics editing/Video Editing. Sending a cover letter and resume isn’t going to land you one of these internships, so figure out a way to get creative and blow ShoeMoney away with your drive. With that said, the contact to apply to is brienna@shoemoney.com

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Have you ever heard of ShoeMoney before?

HubSpot

Willy Franzen — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 15:39:18 +0000

Beyond writing about a new company and its internships every day, there’s a lot of behind the scenes work that I have to do to continue growing my busines. A huge portion of that work falls under the categories of internet marketing and search engine optimization. Maybe I’m biased because I’m doing the stuff every day, but I think that being able to understand and implement online marketing concepts will be essential in many of the career paths that today’s new college grads take. If you want to set yourself up with the internet marketing skills that aren’t being taught in most undergraduate curriculums, you should consider an internship at a place like HubSpot, a Cambridge, MA based internet marketing startup.

What’s a HubSpot

HubSpot is all about helping businesses with inbound marketing to generate sales. Let’s use our new job search training course, Found Your Career, as an example. HubSpot offers web based applications in addition to consulting services that could help us bring more job seekers to our site. Beyond that, they’d also help us specifically target job seekers who are likely to enroll in a training couse. They’d use tools that they’ve created to analyze what we’re doing, how well it’s working, and what we can do better. It’s a pretty cool concept, and they seem to be having a lot of success with it. Put simply, HubSpot uses their internet marketing expertise to make small businesses “hubs” for incoming sales leads.

Last year HubSpot landed an additional $12 million in VC funding to bring their total funding to $17 million. What do companies do with huge investments like that? They usually hire people, and that’s what HubSpot has been doing. They’re an exciting and growing company, so they’re the perfect place to intern if you want to learn more about the online marketing world. Right now they’re looking for Internet Marketing Summer Interns who can do everything social media. You can find the full description by checking out HubSpot’s Jobs and Internships page. There’s no word on whether these internships are paid, and there aren’t a lot of administrative details about the internships, so hopefully someone from the HubSpot team will stop by and answer some questions. You can apply for the internships directly from the posting on their site.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

What do you know about HubSpot? Leave a comment.

Omniture

Willy Franzen — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 16:00:30 +0000

Maybe it’ll sound sad to you, but web analytics are a big part of my life. When your job is running websites, it’s often the best feed back that you can get. I have to admit that it makes me feel better about myself when I get more visitors, more subscribers, and more comments. And I really like it when people sign up to learn more about a job search training course that I’m releasing in the next few days. I’d imagine that employees at large corporations aren’t nearly as emotionally tied to web analytics as I am, but maybe they are – they often hold titles like Web Analytics Manager. While I’m happy with the information that Google Analytics provides me, many companies have much greater needs when it comes to tracking users on their websites. That’s why the big boys like Apple, Adobe, NBC, Chevrolet, Gap, Neiman Marcus, The New York Times, PayPal and Target use Omniture, a Utah based web analytics company. If those names trust Omniture for analytics, then you can be pretty sure that Omniture is the best out there.

Analyze This

If you don’t know a lot about web analytics, then maybe you should. Not only is it going to be essential for many jobs in the future, but it’s also good to know how much websites actually know about you (it’s kind of scary). A company that uses web analytics properly can significantly improve their bottom-line by constantly adjusting to the continuous flow of feedback that they’re getting. Companies can now adjust their marketing and advertising campaigns within the course of a day and know what’s working and what isn’t. In the days before the Internet, adjustments were often made over the course of months or even years. I find it absolutely fascinating, and if you do too, then an internship with Omniture might be something worth considering. They don’t have any specific information about internships on their site, but it’s pretty clear that they do offer them because you can select “Internship” in the “Desired Employment” drop down on their Job Application page. (They also start out letters recruiting interns with “Yo.”)

We’re not exactly sure if this is the right way to go about it, but we think that you should take a look at the jobs at Omniture (unless otherwise noted, jobs are located in Orem, UT) that appear to be suitable for new college grads like: Search Engine Optimization Consultant, Administrative Assistant, Web Analytics Consultant (Dulles, VA), Business Consultant/Analyst, Software Engineer, Financial Analyst (San Francisco, CA), Accountant, Network Operations Center Technician/Linux Administrator, Optimization Specialist – Client Services, Professional Services Engineer, and Technical Support Consultant. You can apply for them and then select Internship in the drop down menu. That might not be the best way to about it, but that’s what we’ve figured out. Omniture has a great website (big surprise there), so it shouldn’t be hard for you to find all of the information that you need to make an informed decision about interning for them (except of course for specific information on their internships). By the way, there’s a secret advantage to applying for internships that aren’t made readily apparent on a company’s website – LESS COMPETITION!

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Are you fascinated by web analytics?

Scripps Networks

Willy Franzen — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 12:21:14 +0000

Ok, we’re going to stick it out for one more week on the Summer internship front. We know that there are still quite a few of you out there who haven’t landed an internship yet, but it’s getting really late. After this week, we’re planning to take two weeks off from writing about internships to recharge and reload (read: go fishing). When we come back, we will shift our focus to Fall internships. Gotta start planning early for those! That’s our plan. If you have a problem with it, leave a comment or contact us and tell us what you’d like to see us do. If you really want us to keep looking for Summer internships, we’ll see if we can stick it out longer. Now that the administrative stuff is out of the way, let’s talk about the Scripps Networks. They include HGTV, Food Network, DIY Network, Fine Living, and GAC, and they appear to have all kinds of Summer internships that are still available.

Internships in Lifestyle Media

Scripps Networks is all about lifestyle media. You probably could have gathered that yourself from their logo, or from the list of their TV networks. They are a part of the larger E.W. Scripps Company. You can do your own research on them, we’re going to get straight to their internships, since they’re a little hard to find.

Scripps Networks has an Internships page on their Careers site which tells you what interns should expect, but it doesn’t mention specific internships. They ask you to apply to internships that you find through their Job Search feature. Sounds easy? It’s not. There’s a keyword box. You type in “internships.” You get an error. You type in “intern.” You type in nothing and try to get all results. You get an error. There’s a message below the keyword box that says “use +/- signs to include/exclude a word from your results.” Ok, so you try “+internships” and get another error. Hmmmm…. After a second review it seems that the errors only happen sometimes, but it’s bad news. We’re just going to link straight to the internships and let you browse them from here.

Internships at Scripps Networks

Business Development: Emerging Ventures – New York, NY
GAC Programming – Nashville, TN
GACTV.com – Nashville, TN
Interactive, Food.com – New York, NY
Interactive, Food Network – New York, NY
Promotion – Nashville, TN
Research – New York, NY
Search Engine Optimization – Knoxville, TN
Event Marketing – Knoxville, TN
Emerging Ventures – Knoxville, TN

We saw some of these internships posted recently on a job board, so we know that Scripps is still actively hiring interns. The job descriptions don’t say a lot, but they should give you a sense of what the internships are about. You can apply online directly from the job postings, although you’ll have to register an account to do so.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

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