Do you love being treated like you’re a child?
Have you felt yourself yearning for the opportunity to make coffee and copies?
Do you hate really weird Americans who post really weird ads?

If so, we probably aren’t the place for you!

Because our internship:

Pays money
Will teach you real-life, legitimately useful skills that no one else teaches
Involves working for a really weird American

--Is this a real internship ad?--

Yup! Amazingly enough, we actually paid money to post this on a bunch of different job sites. And it’s not even a pyramid scheme! Plus, get this: the owner just started paying our 70ish employees with money instead of Pizza Hut coupons - we’re big time, people.

Our careers page is actually worth checking out to learn more about how insane we are (sidenote: it won a web design award in 1993 - we’re a pretty big deal):

http://www.jlstradingco.com/careers/

And check out our reviews on Google, Glassdoor, or Indeed to see that it’s not just the founder’s mother who says we’re cool.

--What do you guys do?--

Our business involves taking random products and then marketing the heck out of them, primarily on Amazon. We have hundreds of SKUs at the moment and are launching a lot more. A small sampling:

- Bad Parking Cards (https://amz.run/5Eya)

- Cable Tie Mounts (https://amz.run/5EyY)

- K2-D3 Capsules (https://amz.run/5EyZ)

We’re also embarking on other related ventures beyond just consumer products. Our business is growing rapidly every year, and it’s our intention to continue that for as long as possible, which means we need good people to help us keep up with the growth.

--What is your company like?--

1. Part or Full Time Remote/Flexible Hours. You will be working from home in your pajamas, on your schedule. And we don’t care if you work 10 hour days 4 days a week or want to catch up on the weekend. You can choose either a full-time or a part-time schedule, and as long as you get a lot of work done, we’re happy campers.

2. Complete Work/Life Balance. If you’re routinely working more than 45ish hours, you’re gonna get a friendly talking-to. We want you to be operating at 100% capacity, which means that you need to rest.

3. You Can Be Yourself. You don’t have to put on a fake, professional face. You can just be yourself. You can talk smack to the CEO, and no one will think anything of it.

4. Major Opportunities for Career Growth. We’re not trying to just be a small business. We plan to be doing $100 million annually in the next few years, and we promote quickly once we identify talent.

5. Strongly Anti-BS. Anybody in the company can (and is expected to) tell the CEO when he is wrong. There are no bureaucratic or BS rules getting in the way of getting work done.

6. No Micro-Management. Once you’re trained and have demonstrated you know your stuff, we are pretty hands-off. In fact, if you need external management to stay on-task and motivated, we probably aren’t the place for you.

7. Supportive Environment. We don’t operate via intense stress or unreasonable top-down deadlines. Everyone wants you to be successful – internal politics are at a minimum here.

8. No Toxic People Allowed. We try very hard to screen out mean people before they get in, but in case they slip through, we fire them quickly. Imagine never having to interact with toxic people at work - how nice would that be?

9. Self-Funded So We Can Do What’s Right for Us. We don’t have to answer to anyone but ourselves, so we can make the right decision for the long-term health of the company vs trying to get big too fast or cut corners to appease some selfish investor.

--What are your company’s values?--

See here: http://www.jlstradingco.com/careers/

Yes, those are legitimately our values. The careers page is definitely worth checking out - it’s not just normal corporate BS. We promise you’ll learn a lot about us.

--OK, so I’ve read like 8 dang pages about you guys. Will you tell me what the actual program is?--

No.

--Wait... What?--

OK fine. Super short version:

You'll be paid to get hit with buckets of knowledge, forced to rapidly absorb all of it, then ask for more.

Longer version:

Most jobs want experience, which usually means putting up with unpaid internships. Here, you’ll get paid AND walk away with actually useful skills.

For most of the program, we’ll focus on teaching you practical, hands-on stuff you can use anywhere—like building systems, fine-tuning them until they’re perfect, solving hard problems, mastering tools that make your life easier, etc.

Towards the end, you’ll get the chance to focus more on an area that interests you most, whether that’s:

Marketing
Product management
Design
Hiring
Potentially something else

Basically, we’re going to teach you loads of stuff, and then see how much of it sticks by testing your skills on some interesting projects.

--Why are you doing this?--

Longer explanation here.

Hiring great people is really, really hard. We’ve tried hiring senior people in the past and have failed almost every time. What’s worked in the past is hiring junior/mid-level folks, training them, and letting them run free. We’ve previously launched a successful Apprenticeship Program (not necessary to read), and now we’re expanding even more, looking to find and shape raw talent into something great.

--Do I need experience?--

Not exactly no. We want special people, and don’t give AF what their background is. Most of our best people did or studied nothing remotely related to their current roles.

--How much will you pay me?--

We’ll pay you a monthly stipend of $600 for a full-time, or $300 for a part-time arrangement.

--Do I need to be in college to apply?--

You just need to be awesome.

--How long does this internship last?--

We know some people are still in school, so we’ve split it into full-time (lasting 3 months) and part-time (6 months) options to choose from.

--This sounds completely ridiculous and fake--

Definitely fair. Check us out online and decide for yourself.

Spoiler: It’s not fake, we’re just led by a crazy person (he insists on “eccentric,” but we all know what that really means).

--This sounds pretty good, though I’m still skeptical that this isn’t a pyramid scheme.--

You sound just like our tax auditor!

--That doesn’t resolve any of my fears, but what do I need to do to apply?--

Please submit your information on the following page to apply. We promise to respond within 5-10 business days even if our answer is No.

There will be multiple steps in this process, FYI, including a long written application, interviews with potentially a few different people, and paid work test(s). Hiring the right people is really hard and very expensive if we do it poorly, so we have to front-load the process. I'm sorry about that and thank you for sticking with us.

Once you’re in our pipeline though, I would anticipate giving you a final answer within a few weeks, depending on how it goes. We definitely don’t want to string you along, and as long as you do what we ask, we promise to tell you “yes” or “no”, and to not just ghost you (like everybody I match with on Tinder).

Thank you for your time and interest, and I hope we can work together soon!

JLS Trading Co.

New Jobs

Paid Intern to Eccentric Millionaire @ Fun Ecom Co | Great People & Flexible Hours