Believe it or not, I started thinking about retirement right after I graduated college. No, I didn’t win the lottery or have a big entrepreneurial success. I started investing and contributing to my IRA. It was a good way to stay productive and get ready to be an adult. If you start thinking about retirement in your early or mid 20s, you’re likely going to be in great shape 40 years down the line. Unfortunately, many people don’t plan that far ahead, so they end up needing help much later in life—and often they don’t have access to good advice once they realize that they need it. Financial Engines is trying to change that. It all started with Bill Sharpe, who won the 1990 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences. By combining “Bill’s pioneering investment methodology with proprietary technology” Fiancial Engines is able “to provide all investors with cost-effective, expert advice and management—the kind previously available only to the world’s largest institutional investors.” Financial Engines, which is based in Palo Alto, CA with offices in Boston, MA and Phoenix, AZ, partners with both retirement plan providers and large employers to offer their services and change the way that people get retirement help.
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Arizona,
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California,
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Internships,
investment,
Massachusetts,
personal finance,
product management,
software development,
web development
After a week of cold weather in Florida, I’m headed back to Chicago. Since I wanted to enjoy the last night of my vacation, I decided that I’d try to get this post to you from 31,000 feet. I’m flying on AirTran (maybe we’ll look at their internships another time), and all of their flights offer Gogo Inflight Wi-Fi, which is a service provided by Itasca, IL based AirCell (I used this promotion to get a free access coupon code). The business of Internet Service Providers was a big one in the 90s, but as we’ve become more accustomed to broadband, we’ve mostly started using major telecom companies to feed our Internet addictions. Now, the business opportunities are all about providing Internet access in locations with captive audiences—hotels, convention centers, airports, and now airplanes, although 3G card providers are offering some fierce competition. Luckily for Aircell, that’s not an option in the air, which means that, for now, Gogo has a dominant market position with their because of their FCC sanctioned rights to be the “exclusive provider of Wi-Fi communications to airlines, business aviation, military, government, and specialty aircraft across North America.”
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account management,
Colorado,
flight,
Illinois,
information technology,
Internships,
product management,
software development,
web development
Do you have a secret? An embarrassing story? Maybe you have a real problem (like not having an internship) or a health issue. It could just be something that you’re passionate about. If you have experiences that you want to share or you want to read about the experiences of other people, then Experience Project is the site for you. It’s a free web site that allows people across the world to share their experiences. It all started when Armen Berjikly, Experience Project’s founder, was inspired by a friend to build a support community for multiple sclerosis patients. It was so successful that Armen decided to expand the project so that it could serve everyone—it’s now “the first social network based upon who you are and not who you know.” The company is based in San Francisco, and according to their data and the data on Compete.com, they’re doing some pretty serious traffic.
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California,
community management,
engineering,
Internships,
marketing,
product development,
product management,
social media,
social networking,
software development,
web development
One of the more effective ways that I’ve found to teach online internship search tactics is to use screencasting. I do a number of screencasts in Found Your Career, and they seem to work really well when walking people through how to use sites like Google, LinkedIn, and Facebook for job search. TechSmith is an Okemos, MI based company that is “the world’s #1 provider of screen capture and screen recording software for the individual and professional user.” They’ve been in the business since 1987—which is an insanely long time for a company in their industry, and they’ve actually been doing screen capture for most of that time. I’ve never used any of their products, but I’ve heard from a number of people who rave about Camtasia, TechSmith’s main screen recording software.
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customer service,
engineering,
Internships,
Michigan,
paid,
product management,
social media,
software development,
web development
I think that e-mail is still the king of social media. We have all of these fancy social networking accounts, but they all send their notifications to our inboxes. If you want someone’s attention, e-mail is the way to go (assuming your message doesn’t look like spam). Heck, you’re probably reading this in your e-mail. That’s why e-mail marketing continues to be a rapidly growing industry. Over on One Day, One Job we’ve already taken a look at jobs with Constant Contact, Aweber, and e-Dialog, and now we’re going to look at an industrial strength e-mail marketing company, ExactTarget. They’re based in Indianapolis, and since 2000 they’ve been focused on “providing the most powerful on-demand software for email communications and finding the best and brightest marketers on the planet to revolutionize the way people think about email.”
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accounting,
business development,
consulting,
design,
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Indiana,
Internships,
marketing,
paid,
product development,
product management,
quality assurance,
quality engineer,
sales,
software development,
strategy,
training
When I was a freshman at Cornell, a bunch of my friends decided to form a group called the Red Revelers. We would go to sporting events and act rowdy. We had t-shirts and everything. I guess that’s why Revel Consulting caught my eye when I was browsing through the Inc. 5000 (expect to be hearing a lot about that list in the next few weeks—it’s my favorite resource for finding cool companies). They’re a Kirkland, WA based consulting firm that has expertise in Product Management, Program & Project Management, Change Management, Process Engineering, Sales and Marketing Management, Strategy Development & Measurement, and Cloud Computing. They’re also the 34th fastest growing private company in the United States. Beyond an awesome growth rate, they were also “named to the list of 100 Best Companies to Work For by Seattle Business magazine based on job satisfaction, work environment, and professional growth opportunities.”
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paid,
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sales,
strategy,
Washington
A child’s first sign of teenage (pre-teenage?) rebellion often begins at the radio dial. The parent’s up-to-this-point unchallenged decision of what to listen to while in the car is called into question, and all hell breaks loose. If there are multiple kids in the family (or even just in the car), the negotiation can quickly becom more heated than a multi-lateral peace process in a war-torn nation. The parent will fight hard to maintain his or her right to National Public Radio, but the kid will persist in his or her challenge to hear something that feeds a suddenly “eclectic” taste in music. Often the parents cede this battle in hopes of winning in the future (bad idea!), which results in the parent’s driving the kids around the mini-van listening to rap music that would be a lot more offensive if the parent knew what some of the words meant. Eventually the rebellious tykes will grow up and realize that they too want to be more cultured, and they slowly, but surely come around to listening to NPR. Or maybe some kids just never speak up. They like NPR from the start. Maybe those are the ones who end up taking internships at NPR.
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analytics,
arts,
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development,
economics,
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finance,
human resources,
information technology,
Internships,
journalism,
law,
library,
marketing,
media,
music,
New York,
non-profit,
paid,
product development,
product management,
production,
public policy,
public relations,
radio,
research,
science,
social media
I was lucky enough to graduate from college without having had to take out any student loans, but even if I had needed to take out a loan, at least it would have been before the “credit crunch.” These days it’s a lot harder for students to finance their educations than it was just a couple of years ago. Credit in general is extremely tight right now, and beyond that, lenders are being very picky about whom they lend to. For students with no credit history, getting a loan can be a big pain in the butt. People Capital is a New York City based startup that is aiming to change that through what they call a “peer-to-peer lending platform.” They’ve developed a Human Capital Score “to assess the creditworthiness of those just starting their credit histories,” and they’re now building out a network of borrowers and lenders to bring the idea to life. It’s kind of like Kiva for education, but with a for-profit incentive keeping things efficient.
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education,
finance,
Internships,
investment,
marketing,
microfinance,
New York,
product management,
research,
social investing,
unpaid
I remember being wowed by a virtual world called The Palace back when I was in middle school. Looking at it today, it’s not nearly that impressive, but in the 90s it was pretty amazing to have an online avatar represent you to other people. I was pretty interested in the technology, but I never really understood the appeal of having an online alter ego. I guess I missed the boat, because Second Life, which is produced by Linden Lab, is absolutely huge now. In case you’re not familiar with Second Life, it’s “a revolutionary new form of shared experience, where individuals jointly inhabit a 3D landscape and build the world around them.” Put simply, it’s exactly what it’s name says it is – a second life. If you want a more detailed look at what Second Life is, you can find an overview here. So, it’s a virtual world. Big deal. Yes, big deal. Many companies are making a big deal out of having a presence on Second Life. They’re opening up stores and evening hold job fairs – for real jobs! In fact, Second Life even has its own economy.
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international,
Massachusetts,
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public relations,
software development,
united kingdom,
Washington,
web development
I don’t think that we’ve featured any internships in Venture Capital yet, but today that’s going to change. From what I’ve heard, it seems like there just aren’t that many internships in VC to start with, and when there are, they get snapped up almost immediately. That’s why I was pretty interested when I got word that vSpring Capital is now recruiting for their Summer Internship Program. They’re based out of Salt Lake City, UT, and they’ve funded a portfolio of companies that work in the Software, Communications, Internet, and Life Sciences industries. I don’t recognize any of their portfolio companies by name, but some of them look pretty cool, so you should check them out.
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product management,
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research and development,
Utah,
venture capital
Happy Thanksgiving! Thank you for reading! One Day, One Internship wasn’t even around yet last Thanksgiving, but on One Day, One Job we talked about jobs at Plimoth Plantation and Colonial Williamsburg. Those are still a great option if you want to be reminded of Thanksgiving every day when you’re at work, but this year we’re going to take the easy way out and talk about turkey. I was first introduced to Jennie-O when I tried some of their turkey bacon. It’s good, if you haven’t had real bacon in a while. Since my Thanksgiving cooking philosophy is that bacon makes everything better (especially when it’s put on top of the turkey and doused in maple syrup, seriously, try it), I’ll let Jennie-O provide the turkey, but I’m getting the bacon somewhere else. In the three or four years that I’ve been familiar with the Jennie-O brand, I’ve noticed that they’ve revved up their branding efforts. You’ve probably seen some of their tv commercials, which are pretty funny, but you may have overlooked the fact that they’re working hard to expand recognition of their employment brand with college students.
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food,
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Internships,
Minnesota,
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quality assurance,
Wisconsin
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.
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advertising,
animation,
arts,
business development,
California,
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human resources,
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Internships,
law,
marketing,
merchandising,
New York,
product management,
production,
publishing,
toys,
writing
Say that you need to ship something – a mini donkey for instance (this is a real example). UPS, the USPS, DHL, and Fedex don’t ship donkeys. With uShip all you need to do is list that you need to ship a mini donkey, receive bids, select a winning bid, and ship that donkey where it needs to go. You don’t need to worry about your prized donkey, because you can check the shipper’s feedback and see that he has shipped all kind of livestock to all kinds of places, and every time his customers have been happy. It’s pretty simple, huh? A lot easier than bringing the donkey into your local post office only to find out that even mini donkeys are too big to ship. uShip calls themselves “the online shipping marketplace” and they back it up with their raving fans.
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analytics,
Internships,
marketing,
product development,
product management,
Texas
Real estate. Don’t let those two words scare you away. Just because the market is ugly right now doesn’t mean that you should stop considering a future career in realty. First of all, you’re at least a year from graduation – market conditions will likely change (although not necessarily for the better). Second, we’re really good at finding you great internships in struggling industries – like how we told you to look at non-profit internships in finance. Third, a bad market almost always yields new opportunities for innovative companies. Redfin is a company that we’ve found that is insulating itself by using technology and price competition to take advantage of a weak market, and they’re still hiring interns.
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engineering,
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marketing,
product management,
real estate,
software development
Two weeks ago we talked about Google’s Summer of Code, which isn’t really an internship program. Then today we featured Google’s entry-level jobs on One Day, One Job. And we’re sure you’ve read our article How to Use Google to Find a Job (or Internship). Google, Google, Google. Well when we saw that Google still had internship opportunities listed as available on our website, we couldn’t turn down a chance to write about our favorite topic.
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design,
Internships,
product management,
research,
software development,
user experience