Happy Election Day! I’m not going to urge you to vote like most other people will, because yesterday I learned that “It’s more likely that you will be killed driving to the polling booth than it is that your vote will change the outcome.” That’d be a lot to have on my conscience, so I’m going to say vote at your own risk. If you’re upset that I’m making a mockery of the political system, then today’s company isn’t for you. That’s because we’re talking about The Onion and their entry level jobs. I can’t think of a more fitting company for election day (except for maybe Diebold, but they’re not nearly as much fun) than The Onion because politics and satire go hand in hand. Without politics satire is hamstrung, and without satire politics is utterly painful. The Onion is not only “America’s finest news source,” but also “the funniest publication in the US” according to the New Yorker.

Many Layers to the Onion

Think about career paths where your best isn’t good enough – investment banking, consulting, medicine… humor? It wasn’t the first thing to come to your mind, yet writers at the Onion go through 600 ideas to generate just 18 headlines. That’s a failure rate of 97%, yet they’re “failing forward” to generate satirical genius every week. Unfortunately, if you want to join this fail happy team of writers, you’re going to have to wait. They don’t currently have any job openings posted on the editorial/writing side. They are also about as cold calling unfriendly as it gets. Their contact page has the following disclaimer (which is in way too serious of a tone for The Onion):

Unsolicited bulk e-mail, e-mail attachments, and junk e-mail of any kind are not accepted and will be discarded/filtered immediately upon receipt. Please do not send/e-mail resumes concerning listed positions unless specifically told to do so in the listing. Any unsolicited Resumes will be immediately discarded.

NOTE: Editorial submissions of any kind are not accepted. The Onion cannot guarantee their return, nor can The Onion guarantee a response to unsolicited submissions. Requests for articles/graphics from past issues are not accepted and The Onion cannot guarantee a response to such requests.

I mean, having your resume immediately discarded isn’t too much of a threat, but it’s clear that The Onion wants nothing to do with you if you’re not applying for a specific job opening. They must get bombarded with resumes and submissions from people who want to work for them, and they probably don’t have the resources to give them all a fair look, so they just trash them all.

This is kind of disappointing, but there is still some hope. If you can sell with a sense of humor, then one of The Onion’s Account Executive positions might be worth applying for (they won’t throw away your resume if you apply for these). They want people with 1-2 years of experience in selling, but at least one of the job descriptions says that they will consider new college grads. There are Account Executive positions in New York, San Francisco, and the Twin Cities. To apply, you should send a cover letter, resume and compensation requirements to scurtis@theonion.com. Make sure that you look at the job descriptions carefully, since The Onion is clearly very anal about how they accept resumes.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

• TheOnion.com
• Jobs at The Onion
• Contact The Onion
• The Onion’s Media Kit

Post a link in the comments to your favorite article from The Onion.

We've identified The Onion as having career opportunities in the following categories:

• account management
• all employers
• California
• holiday
• humor
• journalism
• Minnesota
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• sales

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