One Day, One Internship » toys

JAKKS Pacific

Willy Franzen — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 16:07:24 +0000

Merry Christmas! I just had a wonderful morning with plenty of presents under the tree, and I hope that you did too. Despite being 25 years old, I am still a kid at heart. I’ve spent most of the morning playing with a remote control helicopter, while my dad is about to put batteries in the EyeClops Night Vision Infared Stealth Goggles that I just bought him. Yes, I got my dad a kid’s toy. I’m hoping he’ll use it for fishing, but I’m sure he’ll find plenty of other uses for night vision goggles too. After purchasing my dad’s gift, I wanted to see which company was behind it. It turns out that Malibu, CA JAKKS Pacific is behind ton of awesome stuff. You’ve got Club Penguin, the EyeClops Mini Projector, Jakks Creepy Crawlers Bugmaker, Discovery Kids toys, Girl Gourmet Cake Bakery, and all kinds of other cool things that you’d like to find under the Christmas tree.

All You Want for Christmas… Is an Internship

I love the holidays as a time for internship searching, even if intern hiring is extremely slow between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day. There are so many great ideas out there. If you like something enough to ask Santa Claus for it, there’s a good chance that there’s a company with internships behind what you’re asking for. JAKKS Pacific is a perfect example. They were founded in 1995, and since then they’ve been pumping out cool stuff for kids (and immature adults like me and my dad). They don’t have information about internships posted on their site, but I did find some former interns on LinkedIn. You should still check out the JAKKS Pacific Careers page to get a feel for their offerings. They’ve grown from a handful of employees to over 500 in the past 15 years, so there’s a decent chance that if you reach out to them they’ll make your Christmas wish come true.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Did you get any toys for Christmas?

Mattel

Willy Franzen — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 15:37:25 +0000

Take a second and think of your favorite toy growing up. Was it a Barbie? Matchbox Car? American Girl Doll? View-Master? Magic 8 Ball? Rock’em Sock’em Robots? Hot Wheels? Polly Pocket? Even if it wasn’t one of those, there’s a good chance that it was made by Mattel. I’m sure that you’ve heard of the El Segundo, CA headquartered toy company before, but I bet you never realized just how many toys they actually make. Not only do they have some of the biggest toy names in the world, but they’re also behind all of Fisher-Price’s toys. If you always wanted to be like Tom Hanks in Big and work for a toy company, Mattel is your chance to live every child’s dream.

All Work and No Play Makes You Dull

Usually, the problem with companies that seem really cool (especially in the fashion industry from what I hear) is that they know they’re hot stuff. That means that they treat their employees (especially interns) like commodities because they know that there’s always someone who wants to work for their brand. This isn’t the case with Mattel according to the FORTUNE list of 100 Best Companies to Work For. There are two ways to get the scoop on internships with Mattel. First, you can check out the Campus Recruiting section on their Careers site. This gives a general overview of Mattel’s Internship programs, but it doesn’t get into specifics. It does say that you can apply by sending a cover letter and résumé to UndergradInterns@Mattel.com; however, you’re probably better off diving into Mattel’s Applicant Tracking System instead.

The ATS is where Mattel posts specific Internship opportunities. These include current postings for Fall 2009 internships like Electronic Engineer Intern – Fisher-Price (New York, NY), Content Design Intern – Fisher-Price (New York, NY), Mechanical Engineer Intern – Fisher-Price (New York, NY), Design Intern – Fisher-Price (New York, NY), Strategic Sales Intern – Fisher-Price (East Aurora, NY), Packaging Intern – Fisher-Price (East Aurora, NY), and Electrical Engineering – Fisher-Price (East Aurora, NY). It looks like everything that is posted right now is for Fisher-Price, so you may have to do some investigating if you’re interested in other positions within Mattel. You can apply online, so get to it! I believe that Mattel offers both paid and unpaid internships, but it’s hard to say which ones these are.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

What was your favorite Mattel toy?

Marvel Enterprises

Willy Franzen — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 14:07:25 +0000

Are you a superhero whose alter ego happens to be looking for an internship? Just for cover, of course, because superheroes don’t actually need to work. You’ve managed to keep it quiet through a couple years of college, but you need something to do between classes besides beating up villains and saving the world. Why not intern at the last place that they’d ever expect you to work – Marvel Enterprises. It’s so obvious that it’s completely unobvious. In all seriousness if you’re not familiar with Marvel, they’re “one of the world’s most prominent character-based entertainment companies.” They made their name in comic books, but they’ve expanded into tv, movies, toys, video games, and more.

Can You Be a Superhero Intern?

From what we hear, Marvel is the type of company that is filled with fanatics. If you don’t have a comic book collection, you’re probably not going to be a good fit as an intern. Because Marvel has such strong brand recognition and loyalty, it seems like they always get plenty of people who want to intern with them. We don’t know too much about what it’s like to intern at Marvel, but this blog post entitled Why Women Don’t Work at Marvel is a cause for some concern. You shouldn’t write off Marvel just because of one person’s opinion (the blog post is 2 years old), but you should certainly research them with caution. You could also try to be the superhero intern who initiates change and brings equality to Marvel while fighting the “Howard Stern/partytime/fratboy/strip club” mentality.

Marvel offers a wide range of internships year round in both Los Angeles, CA and New York, NY. We’re pretty sure that it’s too late for a Fall internship, but they do say that they accept applications on a rolling basis (they used to say that started accepting applications for the spring on September 1st). They don’t do a very good job of identifying which internships are located where (maybe they’re really at a secret superhero hideout), so you’re going to have to inquire about specific internships. Marvel is currently offering internships in Art Returns, Editorial, Production, Web / Online, Creative Services, Brand Assurance, Inventory, Business Development & Merchandising, Sales Communications, Legal, Accounting, Publishing Operations, Scanning, Marvel Toys / ToyBiz, Licensing / Consumer Products, IT Desktop, Marvel Studios, and Human Resources. You can find full descriptions for each internship on Marvel’s Careers and Internship page and you can apply through their online form. If you love comics and superheroes, what could be better than interning at Marvel

Although not an internship, there’s also another option for the more creative Marvel Fans. You can submit your writing or art for consideration by their team. If they like what they see, you could be the next Marvel superstar. They get a ton of submissions, but if you’re good, it’s worth a shot. They are very specific about how you should submit your art or writing, so be sure to read over their submission guidelines very carefully. Just imagine telling people that you meet in college that you haveyour own comic book series.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Who’s your favorite Marvel superhero? Leave a comment and let us know.

Radio Flyer

Willy Franzen — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 12:31:25 +0000

Red wagon. Need I say more? I bet you are already picturing Dennis the Menace pulling his Radio Flyer wagon behind his little red bike. Or maybe you’re thinking about your village’s 4th of July parade where all the kids decorate their bikes and pull wagons behind them with their younger siblings in them (ok maybe that’s just my memory). Almost everyone has some childhood memory associated with Radio Flyer. What’s yours? If for some reason wagon rides and Radio Flyer weren’t part of your childhood, check out this video.

Get on the Wagon

When we read a tweet by Kate Fettig Hill, a PR counselor in the mom/baby/toys/food area, we were surprised to learn that Radio Flyer is hiring (hey Kate, looks like Twitter is working, huh?). She was noting her disappointment that Radio Flyer was left off Chicago Mag’s list of 20+ Local Companies That Are Hiring (which apparently isn’t available online). Well that’s ok, because Radio Flyer has been identified as having One of Chicago’s Coolest Offices. We weren’t expecting much from Radio Flyer’s Careers site, because other companies with similar brand profiles (100 years old, family owned, storied product) that we’ve checked out usually skimp on the Careers section of their sites. This is not the case with Radio Flyer, they’ve put a lot of effort into their online recruiting presence. It might do them well to create a separate section for internships, but the position that they have listed appears to be a new one, so we’ll give them a break.

Radio Flyer is looking for an Engineering Fall Co-Op Intern. This looks like a really cool internship that will offer a hands on role with product development. You probably won’t be working to make another version of the World’s Largest Wagon, but you can be pretty sure that you’ll be working on some cool projects. Radio Flyer’s Careers Site says, “When making a hiring decision, we ask ourselves: Is this person outstanding? Will I learn from this person? Do I admire this person? Will this person live our ‘Little Red Rule?’” If you’re outstanding, admirable, and can teach the folks who make little red wagons a thing or two, send a cover letter and resume to jobs@radioflyer.com.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Share your Radio Flyer memories in the comments.

LeapFrog

Willy Franzen — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 13:00:33 +0000

We launched One Day, One Internship less than 2 weeks ago, and we’re already stuck with an extra post because of Leap Day. Ok, it’s not really an extra post, since we write every day regardless of the date. Still, it’s a little disappointing that every 4th year the man manages to squeeze an extra day of productivity out of us – whether it be at school or work. We’ve never checked, but we wonder whether school’s give students an extra day off sometime during a Leap Year. Anybody have answers? Leave them in the comments. We wish Leap Day was a worldwide day off that would allow everyone to find time to do those things that you never get around to doing. Instead, it’s just another day, unless, of course, you’re a college student with no Friday classes. Staying with the theme of Leap Day, we’re going to take a look at LeapFrog and their internships.

At first glance LeapFrog looks like a toy manufacturer; however, they consider themselves “a leading designer, developer and marketer of innovative, technology-based educational products and related proprietary content.” You might be most familiar (especially if you are around children often) with their Leapster and LeapPad products. The former is a educational tool disguised as a handheld gaming system, while the latter is an interactive reading and writing system that is built into a book. We’ve never had the pleasure of using any of LeapFrog’s products, but judging by the fact that Leapster has sold over 4 million units (as of May 2007 according to Wikipedia), kids must enjoy them.

LeapFrog is a publicly traded company, which makes them a lot easier to research. A great job or internship search tip is to use a company’s Investor Relations page to dig for dirt. A company’s health is extremely important in your decision about whether or not to intern for them. Since your time with the company probably won’t amount to more than 3 months, a company’s long-term outlook may not seem all that important, but it can affect the way you’re treated and what types of opportunities the internship presents. A company that is struggling – like LeapFrog – isn’t always a bad thing for an intern, but make sure you do your research and ask the right questions if you get an interview.

LeapFrog only has one internship right now, and it’s as a Software Engineer in their Emeryville, CA office. Although it appears that this internship is focused on web development, you might want to look into whether there will be an opportunity to interact with the developers who work on the educational games for the Leapster product. LeapFrog has an RSS feed of new job openings, which we love, so stay tuned to see if they post any new internships.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

You guessed it! We also wrote about LeapFrog’s entry-level jobs at One Day, One Job.