<p>According to the Wall Street Journal, tech startups are signing up volunteer marketers, aka "ambassadors," on college campuses and, soon, at high schools.<br>
[quote]
Students are slipping into lecture halls to write brand names and company URLs on professors' white boards, making cold pitches to strangers on college-town streets, creating Facebook pages, producing videos and lobbying school newspapers to plug the businesses of entrepreneurs in New York City and Silicon Valley.
<p>These volunteers don't get paid and they don't get academic credit. They may get some freebie swag, but mainly, it seems, they do it to bolster their resume.</p>
<p>Record labels have used college ambassadors for years, but now all kinds of sites and brands are doing it. The article describes one a fashion-oriented social network, Stylitics, that has an aggressive college program underway. Their University of Texas Austin ambassador, Christi Williams, created and manages a Stylitics-UT Facebook page, handed out flyers at SXSW, and promotes the site to fellow students.</p>
<p>What do you think - is this unpaid activity valuable on a resume (either for college admission or employment), or just free labor for the companies?</p>
<p>Yes. A bunch of kids who think working as a ‘brand ambassador’ is so cool and will ‘OMG, get me the job/internship of my dreams.’ Still, getting into SXSW (probably for free) is a great thing!</p>
<p>The position itself is not necessarily ‘valuable’ or ‘prestigious,’ at least not more than any other entry-level job or internship. The positions that I’ve seen don’t require much skill or ability - creating Facebook pages and handing out flyers does not particularly require skills or training. The experience/learning is as good as any other job, basically.</p>
<p>Some brand-ambassadorships I’ve seen offer commission if they bring revenue in directly, e.g. by getting customers to print items or buy T-shirts. This ends up with the kids petitioning the clubs that they are involved in in (high) school or the school board to shift business towards the company. This doesn’t sit particularly well with me, as the student’s ‘endorsement’ is rarely the most sound decision for the club economically. Of course, the companies know this and thus are increasing their hiring rapidly.</p>
<p>Some get paid, some don’t. Clever marketing people often try to sign up volunteers to work for them and call it various things, often no pay involved. I think people quickly catch on to efforts to ‘advertise’ a product/business/website that is disguised to NOT look like advertising. Today’s ‘hot’ website quickly becomes yesterday’s news.</p>
<p>I don’t see how working for free, as a brand ambassador, could possibly be a good hook. It’s not like these volunteers are going to be in an office environment rubbing elbows with anyone at the company. So, there is no real chance to make connections or even meet people in the business. I guess the only thing that might come out of it is some free item?? But if you work you can buy whatever you want to right?</p>
<p>Many companies have brand ambassadors. It can be a good gig, and they pay. Those girls that you see walking around in bars sometimes giving away free cigarettes are getting paid, sometimes pretty well if it is considered a modeling/ambassador job.</p>
<p>One of the nice things about being a brand ambassador is that you work independently, you can sample whatever it is that you are giving away, and it is temporary. I knew someone that was a drink ambassador, some kids orange drink, and we had supplies of the sweet beverage for a few months because if it. That was a paying position too.</p>
<p>My daughter was paid to do this at her university for a brand that you all would recognize. She was paid and was provided with all the latest goodies: laptop, notebook, voice recorder, etc. No sales. But the downside was that her U. Did not allow people to just set up and demo products.</p>
<p>Getting paid for part-time work is something a lot of college students do. I don’t see anything wrong with that. However, when websites or even some companies trick people into being unpaid workers (i.e. ‘ambassadors’) for them, I consider that more of a scam vs NOT something you could put on a resume.</p>