How She Got so Lucky
After graduating from college with a BA in English literature, Jacklich learned from a friend that wine.com was looking for an associate wine merchant. She got the senior wine merchant’s email address and began her self-promotional cybercampaign. Soon, Jacklich got an interview and was honest about the fact that while she didn’t know everything there is to know about wine, she was enthusiastic and "would do everything I could to quickly become an integral part of the company."

A Day in the Life
Thomas’s typical day starts out sitting around with other writers joking around about various things going on in the world of sports, on college campuses, politics, etc. Everyone throws out ideas for jokes, cartoons, pranks, etc. She will then draw up the ideas as cartoons or gags and they'll toss them around for more ideas or changes. "A lot of time is spent joking around, although it can sometimes get very hectic on deadline," she says. "It's the greatest job I’ve ever had."

How She Got so Lucky
Thomas is a graduate of the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan and was working with Solomon Smith Barney when she gave her resume to a recruiting agency in New York. Her resume said she was looking for "a great place to work where she could have a lot of fun." She says the interview with The Humor Network was the funniest she ever had -- very relaxed and lots of joking around.

A Day in the Life
Yeager holds court over all that is prize and reward related, and says that "some days I feel like the Bob Barker of the Internet, other days like Santa Claus himself." He notifies all the winners via email, but likes to follow up with a personal phone call, where he uses his best game show announcer voice and drops the bomb to people that they've won. " I get goose bumps hearing people screaming and jumping for joy on the other end of the line," he says.

Yeager’s coolest task is coming up in a few weeks, when he will be giving away a bride at her wedding. "The couple met on our site, began chatting and wagering against each other, and eventually met, fell in love and decided to get hitched! Winning $25,000 on our Atomic Bingo is cool, but how much more luck could a man have on a Web site than meeting his future wife?"

How He Got so Lucky
Yeager’s experience in account management and customer service helped, as did his Internet experience. "My resume caught the eye of our HR person because of my offbeat confession of being an Altoids addict. That was the proverbial foot in the door that I needed," he says.

Initially Yeager applied for a different position, but after several interviews and meeting with different people, it was decided that his skill set and personality would be a great fit for the role of prizemeister. What’s his advice for landing a similar type of job? "Always consider the opinions of others, be positive and above all -- be yourself."

A Day in the Life:
Up at the crack of dawn, going strong all day and well into the night, mystery travelers are a dedicated bunch of staffers going the distance to track down the best restaurants, hotels, attractions and other areas of interest to travelers. Because of their nonstop schedules, mystery travelers must be passionate about travel and need to enjoy meeting new people and asking lots of questions. It helps if you know the right questions to ask so you can go beyond the obvious hot spots to the cool places savvy locals frequent.

"Chances are you could never pick a mystery traveler out of a crowd, " said one unidentified mystery traveler. "We pay bills, figure tips and travel the same way you do. Our anonymity gives us an edge because we don’t get, nor do we want, special treatment or extra attention. This way, we can provide unbiased information that our visitors can really rely on to plan their next trip."

How They Got so Lucky
Willingness to travel is not the only criteria for landing this job. A mystery traveler must be a dedicated, detail-oriented person, who is not afraid to try new experiences and to be able to express those experiences in a clear format. "Because your office is in a different city all the time," said Mary Ann Hester of 10Best.com, "you must be organized."

A Day in the Life
Recently, Murken hosted a saffron tasting in the corporate test kitchen for his department of 12. It was a comparative sampling including saffron from Spain and Iran. He reads cookbooks, tastes new things, and writes about food -- his first passion -- every day. "I can't believe how fortunate I am to get paid to expand my knowledge of food, and share it with others," he says. "This is really a dream job for me."

How He Got so Lucky
Murken answered an ad in the paper. "I began as a temp and was pulled on last February full-time. The people I work with at EthnicGrocer have such diverse backgrounds. Like many dotcom companies, it is imperative that the candidate be flexible and have the ability to adapt to several different jobs, since we all wear many hats. I graduated from Kendall College Culinary School and my knowledge of food was key to getting the job. It was also a plus to have majored in English because of the amount of writing the job entails."