<p>What do you think about this internship. To me, seems as a great resume builder, a way to develop communication and management skills, and to expand connections. Besides $$$. I know that it was ranked pretty high on Princeton Review Rankings. However, does look attractive to potential employers or when applying to grad school?
Here's a web site: <a href="http://www.collegeworks.com/students/%5B/url%5D">http://www.collegeworks.com/students/</a></p>
<p>I couldn't even find a top 100 list on Princeton Internship Review. This is sounding pretty funky. I got only CollegeWorks and a '94 entry</p>
<p>Looks like a scam to me. Perhaps not in the traditional sense, but they are taking advantage of young college students eager for an "internship" and experience-building. This would hardly qualify as an internship by any traditional standards. You can replace the company name with McDonalds and have it say the exact same thing. All they are trying to do is get cheap labor. You think a real company is going to care that you painted houses all summer long?</p>
<p>In some ways, sounds similar to other scams like Vector marketing.</p>
<p>You just paint... so no. It's funny how much they throw out there on the main page, they hardly even emntion the fact that you'll be painting.</p>
<p>No, you are not allowed to paint. You recruit people to paint and find houses to paint, make sure that that everyone is happy...</p>
<p>The College Works Internship Program is not a scam. A scam would be considered any attempt to gain money, goods, or services from an individual by deceptive means without giving anything in return. This internship does just the opposite. They do not require you to “buy in” to the company, like some similar companies and they also do not require for the interns to take on any form of debt. All the training and mentoring is free as well. I participated in and completed this internship and it was a great experience. I developed and improved my communication, leadership, managerial, and time management skills as a result. The students essentially are trained and then, under their mentors supervision, setup a small business which they run through the summer. Its unlike any other program out there. I made about $13,000 over the summer, which I believe is decent for an internship. Especially considering many of the internships I looked into are not paid. With those internships, your payment is the training, experience, ect. and the possibility that you may be offered a job with the company upon graduation. College works is also a career opportunity. Many interns return to work with the company for many years after. The bottom line is it is easy to write this program off as a scam because there are so many others that are similiar and very well may be scams, or may require the students to pay startup costs or “buy in” to the company almost like it is a mini franchise. This is not the case with college works. I would suggest, in the future, before making posts, that you educate yourselves on the company/ program in question.</p>
<p>Regards</p>
<p>p.s. If anyone has any further questions regarding this internship. Or if you may be interested in participating, please email me for information</p>
<p>^ So we have established that College Works employees are posting in College Confidential.</p>
<p>haha. fail by the college works employee. i’m pretty sure its a scam and there are tons of better internships out there.</p>
<p>what about College Pro?
[College</a> Pro - Home](<a href=“http://www1.collegepro.com/sb.cn]College”>http://www1.collegepro.com/sb.cn)
I’m pretty sure they’re legit. Has anyone worked for them?</p>
<p>I just finished an internship last summer (summer of '09) with College Works. I did not have a good experience…I painted 8 homes with a total revenue of $27,000 and after everything was done I only pocketed $3,100. You might think 3,100 is not bad money for 2.5 months of painting during the summer, but the job description can be misleading in this respect. I started marketing and sales in March. I spent most of my weekends and sometimes weekdays from March until June in my “branch” knocking on doors, dropping fliers, and presenting estimates. In the process I had spent around $2,000 on gas and paying some friends to help me hit the pavement to advertise, so I hardly made ANYTHING at all next to the work I did and the money I made for College Works. My managers would call me unsuccessful, but I learned early on that they care more about making money than providing a quality job to their clients and left me scrambling as a result. I spent many, many hours in sales training and only an abysmal few in paint training. My first three jobs went to **** because I didn’t know what the hell I was doing, or how to paint a house, but I was expected to train and manage my own painting team. My manager was ****ed because I stopped trying to land more clients and at how slow my team was progressing on the work. He essentially disowned me and I was on my own. The problem I faced with College Works was a massive lack of guidance and support from my “superiors” due to their business model. I was largely ignored because of my meager sales; my district manager spent most of his time with the “top-dogs” who were making him the most money. In short, this internship will be great if you can produce a nice chunck of change for management.</p>
<p>I did an “internship” with college works a few years ago and it was a very negative experience. I will explain their financial breakdown: The customer pays you to paint their house. College Works takes 40% right off the top for overhead. (btw, an L&I lawyer told me this is ridiculous- industry standard overhead is 15%). Next, you pay your painters and your materials costs, and their insurance, which doubles their wage. And you can have what’s left. </p>
<p>Long story short, I sold $44,000 in services, completed over $22,000, netting the company around $9,000 and I lost money. I lost money because they encourage you to pay people to market under the table, and I drove around all summer burning gas. I did not receive a single pay check.</p>
<p>If a job goes over-budget either because an accident happens or because you gave people a fixed price in the spring when you had zero experience painting houses, your piece of the pie is the only variable and it disappears at at least $36 an hour (two painters with insurance). I am not alone- my two buddies in the internship each made under $2,000 which works out to one or two dollars an hour.</p>
<p>Here’s the problem: Management has NO financial incentive to help you work better. They get the same check from overhead (their part of the 40%) whether or not you make money.</p>
<p>Also: You will be painting houses alongside your crews. Will you be insured? No, they discourage that because it cuts into your profit, and you’re technically a “manager” or “intern,” Will your parents’ insurance cover an injury? NO, because it’s on a job-site where you’re employed. So don’t get hurt. Or better yet, stay the hell away from College Works.</p>
<p>I am currently involved in the program and I would have to say that the bad experiences come from your own loss. I work really hard for every job I book and every estimate I set and ultimately I have gained a ton of experience and booked a ton of work. No where does it say that the internship will be easy. Painting is easy, managing is a bit harder.
More than anything you have to learn time management and have the motivation to be out there booking work and keeping track of your crews when no one is necessarily telling you too.
My experience has been great, but I honestly believe that has alot to do with my motivation to succeed and make something of myself. Your failure might very well be your own lack of motivation so please think twice for blaming others. </p>
<p>To the person who only made $3100: You pulled an 8% profit on a meager bit of sales. Ask yourself, did you really work as hard as you could have? </p>
<p>And to the person who was worried about insurance: What were you doing painting in the first place? Your painters paint, you manage. Very simple concept. If you had leveraged your business properly you would have never been painting. </p>
<p>And who ever said 40% is too much: Think of an actual franchise you buy in to. First you pay a ton of money. Then you pay a consistent 15% to the company plus the flat rate they tag on which could be another 5%. We’re up to 20% already. Now we figure that we open our office doors and we start paying rent, electric, employee salaries, etc. We just tagged on 30%. Now we’re at 50% before we even start buying supplies. </p>
<p>Think about what your saying before you say it.
Thanks</p>
<p>I am currently an intern for CWP. Honestly, I’m sick of reading all of these posts saying, “I didn’t make any money and I tried really hard. They just didn’t give me enough instruction and I felt misinformed. Blah, Blah, Blah.” This internship is really hard and requires a certain type of personality and a lot of DRIVE. I went through over seven interviews over the phone and in person to get this internship and I had to complete a two hour personality test online to make sure I was compatible. I have invested a steady 30+ hours of work per week on this experience on top of a full work load at school. Yes, the internship is big on sales experience, but the point is that the interns are selling themselves and their abilities to manage a small business and ensure their customers’ satisfaction. A huge part of my business is based off of reference letters so making sure I do a good job is really important.<br>
I don’t understand how these interns are saying they didn’t get enough training when THE ENTIRE INTERNSHIP IS A TRAINING EXPERIENCE. If I don’t know how to do something or need an answer to a question, I can call my personal manager, two other managers I am acquainted with, or the head of my division and get assistance with my issue within at most- half an hour.<br>
I have read numerous posts online from interns who think that this internship is about running a business for College Works Painting and not for themselves. YOU ARE RUNNING YOUR OWN PAINTING BUSINESS!! What the company does is back you with a massive $1,000,000 of liability insurance as well as full workman’s comp and some tools to help with getting your business started and support from your managers whenever you need it. The fact of the matter is: you don’t HAVE to do anything for the internship. What separates those who are successful from those who are not is simply their drive to succeed and gain the most out of the program. I have learned a lot about being an entrepreneur, relying on myself to figure things out and get things done, scheduling, and gained TONS of communication skills. Don’t do this internship if you need to be told what to do; do it if you like to figure things out for yourself and want to gain confidence and experience in doing so. It’s not easy and there are many bumps in the road, but such is life.</p>
<p>Note that once again, when there’s a question of “scamming,” nearly all the posters responding are first-timers here on CC.</p>
<p>Sorry to disappoint worried_mom, but here comes another “first-timer”. We had College Works contact us for painting our house. After receiving an estimate I came in search of information about them and the program. So here I have found posts on how the program is run, with some happy and not-so-happy interns. If we decide to have this done I will return to post of our experience form a customer satisfaction standpoint. Now, on to other sites to find information on the actual paint job.</p>
<p>Here comes another “University of Dreams” thread, where everyone from the marketing department makes posts about their POS “internship” program.</p>
<p>I did something for a similar company last summer. It’s not worth your time or effort. As stated, the company takes out 40% off the top. Think about what they do for you-management training? Is that all? is that worth your time? I co-ran the business with my buddy and their advice was to show pictures to customers of houses you didn’t paint, but the company did once upon a time. Just don’t do it.
You spend the months of March up until summer going out every single weekend and cold calling door to door. You’re lucky to get 3 people in an 8 hour period to accept your estimate. From there, you’re still highly unlikely to have someone accept your offer over a respected company. </p>
<p>What else do they offer? T shirts? YOU have to pay for your own supplies. YOU have to do your own marketing and estimates. YOU have to higher people and manage them while they take almost half of your profit. </p>
<p>The $1,000,000 liability insurance? Look up a quote for yourself, the insurance they provide isn’t very expensive.</p>
<p>My advice is to start your own business, painting may be easiest. Spend the money to get licensed and insured by yourself. The monthly costs for insurance aren’t that high.
You’re doing all the work, you should get all the money.</p>
<p>I got a message for all those 1 post count posters in this thread. ■■■■, take your marketing approach and shove it up your … </p>
<p>If you have the guts to tell someone in person that this program is legit. Then you have no morality at all. How can you still live with yourself knowing that you rip someone off?</p>
<p>I worked for College Works Painting as a Branch Manager for about 4 months. I was told that I was going to be required to work 20 hours per week during this PAID internship (which I would have been perfectly fine with) but in all actuality, College Works made me work about 35 hours per week even while in school! We were required to go to multiple trainings all across the state (the shortest one being 1.5 hours away) and we’re NEVER reimbursed for our time or miles driven including the weekend training, food and hotels that we had to purchase before we got started working for them.
Please check out student painters or one of the other college internship programs if you are looking to get your home painted, or even a local painter would be fine. The only thing that college works does different than any other company is making sure that a home is correctly power washed, scraped (but only partially) sanded and spot primed (only on bare wood) any painting is done. If you make sure that your contractor does the same thing, you will be getting the same job except without their warranty and without 3 times the price. And they’re 97% customer satisfaction rating is a load of bull. They make sure that the Branch managers tell every customer about their rating, but it is actually a false statement! I’ve also been on a few job sites as they were being painted, trust me, NOT THE QUALITY JOB YOU PAY FOR!
If you need a job or internship, LOOK SOMEWHERE ELSE!!! I promise that this is not worth it. I have NOT been paid even after trying multiple times to contact my District Manager and the Vice President, Danny Bingle. My calls never get returned! I have spent about $1200 in expenses out of my own pocket between gas, hotels, and paying the marketers that we’re hired under me out of my own pocket (with being promised to get paid back… even though I never was!) There is so much that I could write but honestly do not have the time to tell it all! I hope that everyone will trust me and NOT have anything to do with this company! I PROMISE that they will take advantage of you in every way they can!
In my opinion, this is a terrible way to treat any college student that is trying to make it through getting their college education. Thanks to them my power has been shut off and also my phone. Please DO NOT book any work with them or if you don’t take my warning into consideration and plan on working for them, don’t trust ANY of the district managers or the V.P. Danny Bingle, they are all crooks! One of their defenses is that people only write reviews when they are mad at the company, but take it from me, i always write reviews and unless you want to end up like me or support crooks, PLEASE DO NOT DO BUSINESS WITH THEM! YOU WILL REGRET IT, and that’s a true guarantee! Thanks for your time!</p>
<p>Wow, ridiculous posts. I had a friend who did this internship two summers ago (I think), and he said it was overall a good experience. Apparently the training they give you is pretty solid if you’re a marketing person, but it is also a TON of work and you don’t get much guidance. Basically you have to find your own workers and your own jobs, so you should be prepared to put a serious amount of time and dedication into it.</p>