<p>Nice. I went to one round of interviews in Grainger, and then a phone interview. Mr. L…y then scheduled an interview with one of the regional managers. luckily I did some digging on the internet before taking this job. Called him back and told him to shove it.</p>
<p>RE: Greenpast
</p>
<p>Are you serious? Only Legitimate companies reimburse you for gas? Oh well, let’s see how many that DO NOT which are legit. Century 21, Keller Williams, Commercial Real Estate companies (Grubb & Ellis, Sperry Van Ness), Wells Fargo has divisions, B of A, Trade shows, Online advertising companies for multiple industries. I know this 1st hand since I work with them. Oh and let’s not forget the Entertainment Industry, (Craft Service, Production Assts, location assistants, national appraisal companies,… </p>
<p>Greenpast and anyone else who thinks not being paid back for gas is a no-no, or a also-ran company grow-up. You are in sales/ marketing not a cashier at Wahlgreens doing a local run in the neighborhood. Hey I was never a delivery driver at Dominoes do they reimburse. Maybe you should get a j-o-b there…eh? </p>
<p>Now back to business-101; you deduct your mileage expense from your income tax return. Who could expect newbie rookies in the workforce who have been coddled all their life to actually invest in themselves. You know very well people do apprentice type work for free or little salary to gain experience and knowledge for big earnings down the road.</p>
<p>Is this your biggest gripe? Really?
You gained nothing from the experience? you just picked the wrong industry. Home improvement trades involves using your own gas. Electric Garage repairs, electrical contractors, real estate developers, national pest control companies and their crew are not ALL reimbursed for gas some are, some are not. Plain & simple.</p>
<p>bencc87…wow…did you really look up all the companies that didn’t pay for mileage reimbursement? You got some time on your hands. Your logic is flawed…for some reason you think that big companies aren’t allowed to take advantage of their employees. Plus companies that you mentioned actually pay a real salary unlike collegeworks. So again, your logic is flawed. At this point you are just trying to save face. I get it. No one wants to be a “sucker”, but you are if you think this so-called internship is actually going to get you somewhere then have at it. Since you have so much time on your hands lets try a little experiment:
Step 1: go to google.com
Step 2: type in collegeworks painting
Step 3: DO NOT HIT ENTER
Step 4: Look at what comes up second in the autosearch function of google. </p>
<p>Just to save you time, it says, “collegeworks scam”…how many of the other companies that you listed have “scam” next to there name as a very common search word…Only a crap company like collegeworks would get googled with the word “scam” next to it. I think I proved my point.</p>
<p>GP,</p>
<p>I hear what you’re saying. They could be what you experienced or say. I am harping over the fact that young college kids have too many expectations for an internship like getting reimbursed for everything. </p>
<p>Do a Google search for __. OK, do the same on google for Walgreens. There are tons of them for other companies too. Should I believe everything I read on the internet? (talk about flawed arguments)
Who wants to do door-to-door sales anyway? Personally, I wouldn’t do it for other reasons than gas but open forums do help people look at all the negatives and positives.</p>
<p>Time on my hands? not really. I am waiting in line at the gas station.(LOL) . Anyway, those were some companies I worked for or looked into applying with & talking to people. I am far removed from those industries. Now, if you are not getting paid what you expect and you have to drive 20 to 40 miles per day & no chance of a big bonus, then yeah go somewhere else but you better believe most reputable companies will not reimburse for you gas doing outside sales. You may get an allowance but not reimbursed fully. Get over that part. I know firsthand. </p>
<p>As far as the internship getting you somewhere name some alternatives. I’ve encountered a couple of guys in home improvement who started out with CW and now do very well. For some it works and others it doesn’t. Basically, if you do not see yourself in that industry then do not go into it. Should everyone go into it? No.
If people believe they will make $50,000 in the summer as a college intern, you will be slapped into reality. Life doesn’t work that way unless you are doing [mortgage</a> loans](<a href=“http://www.mortgageloanshop.net%22%5Dmortgage”>http://www.mortgageloanshop.net) in 2004 or are a relative of Trump, Hilton or Vinnie or Dominic in Jersey.
In construction and home repair you do work your ass off physically and even when selling. It depends on were and who you work for. I don’t think each intern will get Rex Reed from CW wherever. Some will benefit while others will fail.
FYI - I never went to their meetings nor do I know of their promises.</p>
<p>bump…</p>
<p>so from what I’m reading, being an intern SUCKS and you get scammed and all. But what about being a painter?</p>
<p>Yeah, I just did an interview today and had the same process. You fill out a sheet, someone calls and sets up something. We had four students in our interview session and all of us pretty much walked out. I think it is a smaller type of a pyramid scam.</p>
<p>There are some website however that gives internship reviews and you can see what they say. Many say they paid in some money and barely got anything out after working 45 hours a week.</p>
<p>Hey guys,
Just saw this thread and I just got done doing collegeworks. I got to tell you that the work is hard. Probably harder than anything you will ever do. There were so many times where I wanted to quit but I wanted to test myself and prove that I could do it. Quitting doesn’t fly with me so I just worked harder. It sucked a lot sometimes but in the end it was worth it for me. There was no instant gratification but at the end of the summer when I closed out my account I had made more money then my friends do in 3 or 4 summers. Would I do it again? No way but I do not regret doing it. I would not change the fact that I spent my summer doing this. I learned a bunch of stuff about myself, business, and other people. I ran over 100k and made over 19k. I also made some great life-long friends. If you think you can handle it do it but if you aren’t cut out to work hard and you are someone who needs instant gratification then forget about it.</p>
<p>One more thing… the reason there are so many people who say this is a scam is because they didn’t finish and they left halfway after investing all that time. The number of people who fail or don’t finish eclipse the number of people who succeed. I think a lot of you have no knowledge of the internship or what it takes. I can tell you that it does suck at times but if you stick through it you gain a lot.
In regards to underage drinking- no one forces us to drink or tells us we should. That was on us. District managers are usually undergrads just like branch managers. Mine was my brother who was 1 yr older. So I don’t think it is too pathetic for him and other DMs to hang out with me and have a good time.</p>
<p>I love the amount of rounds of interviews you have to go through for something like this… like its very competitive to get one or something? Hahahahaha.</p>
<p>Let me paint you a mental picture with my imagination brush…</p>
<p>A 20s something man in a button up shirt and slacks walked into one of my classes today talking about how as an intern I could be making $17/hr in Sales/marketing. I think to myself “Wow! I was just thinking about how I needed an internship. Its paid too!” So I fill out the information card hand out, it gets collected and the young man leaves. </p>
<p>8pm rolls around and I get a phone call from an unknown number. I answer it and the man I saw in class today was on the other line. He gave me information on the internship and it had almost NOTHING to do with marketing at all. Basically the most marketing experience I would get helping design a flyer that I would be having to hand out myself on top of going door to door trying to sell painting services after I told him I WAS NOT INTERESTED in going door to door and cold calling. He literally asked me the same question three times when I had already answered him then started telling me about how the top sellers basically party all of the time on the company’s dime in Windsor Canada and Cancun. </p>
<p>He scheduled me for a “reverse interview” with some 23 y/o entrepreneur to get more information at 6pm after I told him I had work at 615… He bumped it up to 530 after telling him yet again I wanted to do some research before even meeting with anyone. Besides, do you honestly think it is professional to hold any sort of meeting in a college cafeteria? </p>
<p>After researching and talking to some friends they told me that yes, this is the same “internship” that had students come to this “interview” only to realize that it was a group interview and when they weren’t interested in you anymore the CollegeWorks guy votes you off of the island… So yeah, I am looking for an internship where they don’t listen to a single word I say when they call me to ask me questions…</p>
<p>I would like to thank all of the posters out here who shared their experiences with this company and helped me to avoid making a huge mistake.</p>
<p>When something seems too good to be true, it usually is. Something stunk about this company the minute I heard about it, but I decided it wouldn’t hurt to look into it. </p>
<p>I went to a group interview. Two other guys and myself interviewed with this smooth-talking salesman type. It seemed to be going okay (I got asked typical questions like, “How would you be a good manager?” and “What makes a good manager?” etc.). After a while, the guy pulled out a business card, gave it to one of the guys, and told him to call him later that night with 5-6 reasons why he wanted the position. I figured the interview was over for all of us- WRONG! He then proceeded to ask me and the remaining guy why the guy he had sent away wouldn’t be good for the position (and told us that he wasn’t going to send him to the next round of interviews. Why give him a task if that was the case in the first place?). It just seemed extremely cruel…</p>
<p>More questions for me and the guy remaining. Finally, the interviewer literally asks me why the other guy I was interviewing with wouldn’t be good for the position. Seriously?!? I didn’t even know this guy…it was extremely unprofessional and rude. I couldn’t do it. I know that in order to get a job, one must be competitive. But, usually this involves asserting your own skills, not degrading some other person to his face. Terrible. He pulled out his business card, told me to think of 6-8 questions I’d like to ask the head manager, and told him to call him later that night. Well, I pretty much guessed what that entailed- that my fate was the same as guy #1.</p>
<p>After checking this board, I’m glad I decided not to call and put this whole thing behind me. I’ll be looking for a summer internship with a real company.</p>
<p>First post to share my view of what I’ve experienced so far before even considering to part take in this intership. I am a student at UCSC.</p>
<p>Like many people who have posted already, one guy (the regional consultant) from the intership enters my class and rambles on about this being a great intership and students who participated in it made an average of about $8000 for the summer. Within this entire introduction of the intership, he did NOT once mention of the program or what it is called. There was no description of what the interns will do if they were hired. We were asked to filled out a small form stating our name, year in college, age, have we interned anywhere before, do we have leadership skill, and what do we seek from the internship.</p>
<p>A couple of weeks later I got a call from them asking if I was still interested in the internship. I was, and the guy told me to meet him at a library on campus at a specific time and told me not to be late because it was a group information session with other potential interns. He asked us questions to see whether or not we were qualify to move further with the process of hiring. He sent the first two people away saying that “here’s my number and if theres anything, I will be contacting you.” I was the only person left and he handed me a letter that claims that I was a potential candidate for the intern (he didnt give this to the two people who he sent away). On the letter, he wrote down his number and told me to call him at exactly 9:00pm that day. At 9:00pm, I called him and no response. The call went to his voicemail and i left a message. I called him 5mins after and same thing happened. Called him the next day and same thing happened.</p>
<p>I didnt even make it that far in the process to even consider the internship to be a waste of time. It seems like they have poor management and was pretty cruel. I can expect cruelty due to the fact that it is very competitive to get in. But the fact that they did not follow through with the plan of having me to call at the specific time was a fail. Even though if they had changed their mind about me being a candidate, they could have picked up the phone and said “sorry, you are no longer qualified”.</p>
<p>Definitely wouldnt do this intern if i had a second chance.</p>
<p>I have gone through a similar experience with Vector Enterprises. I got a call for an interview in this shady office with high school basketball trophies displayed on used, second-hand furniture and was immediately offered a job. It wasn’t until afterward when I had gone home and done some research did I realize what a scam it was.</p>
<p>A few weeks ago, a few representatives came into my Econ and History classes asking for the students to fill out a simple questionnaire if we were interested in a summer internship that would “earn us on average $6000”. It seemed to good to be true and once I looked it up online, I realized it was a similar scan to Vector. </p>
<p>That was all 3 or 4 weeks ago, one of their representatives called me yesterday for an “interview”, knowing she was full of s**t, I gave very sarcastic and short answers hoping that she would realize that I wasn’t buying any of what she was trying to sell me. But lucky for me “I was specially selected for an interview”. It’s scheduled for tomorrow and I have been reminded not to be late as to not waste her time. Even though I know it’s a scam, I plan to go anyway to throw a scene and uncover all the complaints and problems with their program. If it’s a group interview as I assume it will be based on all previous posts, I hope that my sass will prevent my peers from falling into this scam.</p>
<p>If you are considering doing this internship, and you are a highly motivated individual, then this is a great opportunity to get some real world business experience. </p>
<p>I am an Operations Management Major at OSU and did the program last year as a sophomore. Yes it was a ton of work that had me stressed out some weeks. Yes there were some bumps in the road. Yes they do recruit in an odd way, but lets be honest, no one would come to the info session if they knew it was about a painting business. Everyone qualifies for the info session interview, but as it moves on, it is quite selective. </p>
<p>Through all the phases, my DM was there to help. I talked to him on the phone last year more than I did with my girl friend. Maybe not all the divisions are so great. I can’t really speak for them. But Ohio cares about their employees. I was struggling with my profit margins last year late in the summer and my DM came and helped paint with me so I could make some money back. He was already guaranteed his proportion of pay, but he helped me out anyway. They do everything with you the first time (except going door to door [although mine did help out my first weekend]), But he made the first calls to set up a few estimates. he came out with me my first weekend of doing estimates to show me how its done. He was there on the very first day of painting to help me set up and train my first crew. He had done the program last year as a freshman and was now my boss and motivator. </p>
<p>And as for the overhead they take out, they are very upfront about it. When you realize how much the company does for you, that 40% is totally fair. The division head who was interviewing me showed me the breakdown of each job. He said he will take 7% off each job, the DM gets 4% and the CEO’s take 1%. The rest of the 40% went towards marketing, and training, and the office people in headquarters. They take care of processing payroll, insurance, all the fryers, yard signs, training, all the support and tools you could need. They even have a guy who is known as the “paint Guru.” he is a retired painter who has been in the business for like 40 years. For any paint tech question that was beyond my DM’s knowledge, I would just call him. Oh, and They front you all the painting supplies to get started. You have to pay it back, but not until you start collecting checks. Thats why you if you only produce 25000, you might not make very much because your crew kit is expensive. But the more you produce, the more you will make. Guys who don’t track what they buy at sherwin williams kill there profit margins. you have 60% of revenue for each job to pay for your labor, your materials, and yourself. </p>
<p>Even if you suck at managing and you don’t hire good painters, or maybe your DM is overwhelmed and doesn’t help you as much as you think he should, you will get an incredible experience. The payroll Fridays are real fun too. in the summer, every two weeks is a training session where we learn about best practices and what is working for some people, and what not to do based on people’s fails lol. After the training, we go out and have fun. We went cannoning (some opted for cabrewing), paintballing and to kings island to name a few. More important than the friends made and good-times had (because that is not at all why I did the program) is the amount of material you will have on your resume. I had a mediocre business. only $45,000. but to a recruiter, they are very impressed. 18% profit margin, 19 job sites, 10 employees, EPA compliance. I recently had two interviews and they both went really well. nearly all the behavior based questions I was asked I could relate it back to an experience with college works painting. I talked about how I struggled the very first day and wanted to quit. It was sleeting and we were getting no leads. But I had to remain positive and keep my highschool marketers motivated to come back tomorrow. soon we began to improve our skills, and started getting leads and booking work.</p>
<p>I think over 80 interns were hired last year. Only 40-something made it to the end of summer. Some guys had to commute 2 or 3 hours every weekend to get to their territory. Mine was just 20 minutes from campus in my home town. The program is not for everyone. From my experience though, the DMs and the Division head, and even the CEOs are all genuine people. They were all interns like us when they started. College Works took a risk in hiring me. I had no extra-curriculars, or leadership experience but I was a business major and just needed someone to take a chance on me. The internships I am going for this year, I would not qualify for if I did not do CWP.</p>
<p>I saw several of my friends at San Diego State get sucked into this terrible scam. I myself was involved in the internship until they finally ask you for “$400” to get your business started which scared me off. The “mentors” are trained to keep you guessing, they keep you excited by throwing big numbers at you, and ultimately keep you on their line by withholding information from you and telling you things like “tomorrow I will call you at 6:30 AM sharp… we are having a phone conference with a ‘big time’ CEO”. They are annoying as hell, they call you all the time at really early and late hours and talk your ear off!!</p>
<p>If you decide to do this internship you are basically selling your life away to this “internship” to make this company allot of money. My friend made $6500 profit with his painting company over a 3 month summer, but when you averaged out the $ per hour… he was making only a few dollars per hour.</p>
<p>Only do this internship if you are absolutely desperate and need money. They say you wont paint… b.s. if you want to make money, you will be painting, you save a whole days salary that way. </p>
<p>When you hire painters… It is a joke as well. They basically round up a bunch of brown people and march them in like cattle, cutting them left and right with almost malicious intent with no regard to their feelings.</p>
<p>If your a a cut throat, broke, hungry student, who is not scared to get his hands dirty and do a little manual labor then this might be for you. </p>
<p>You also do not know where your territory is going to be. You could get assigned to a territory that is 2 hours away! And guess what? you cant back out now because they make you throw in that 400 bucks to get you stuck in it! It sucks…</p>
<p>Id personally rather get a boring internship at a bank or real estate company rather than driving around painting in the hot sun all summer and not really knowing if your going to get paid or not…</p>
<p>Oh yea… You are selling a painting service “DOOR TO DOOR”! Yea its tough. You better be a hustler with a good attitude.</p>
<p>There are multiple companies that run similar programs to College Works Painting. There is College Painters, Student Painters, and College Pro to name a few. Some of them work like franchises that you have to front money, or pay back loans or be subject to debt. </p>
<p>College Works Painting has no start-up costs. You are responsible for your cell phone bill (you will use it a ton so make sure you have enough minutes in your plan) and you will probably use a lot of gas. </p>
<p>Be wary of people who are posting on here that only had friends in the program, or never started becasue they assumed it to be a scam, or quit because they couldn’t handle the workload. If you do this program for the money, you probably won’t be very happy. It can pay really well if you produce a lot of work. If you run an average sized business, it pays probably min wage when you realize how many hours you put in total. The Idea is not to be a painter. The Idea is to learn how to manage a business. You will probably end up doing some painting, but if you are good at managing your employees and resources, you won’t have to. </p>
<p>I needed an internship that would offer me solid, real-world, challenging work experience, and I got that from CWP. I have so much legitimate material for job interviews and it’s all becasue of CWP.</p>
<p>My son was so proud of himself for finding his own summer employment in a town without many prospects. He was hired as a painter by College Works. There was no training, and the company worked my son like a dog. He drove his own car loaded with equipment sometimes 1-2 hours to a job site. He felt terrible that he had not been professionally trained as a painter, and how the jobs were organized. Conservatively, he worked 60 hours a week for the company. His manager had little to no experience painting or managing a business, and it was not uncommon for the materials to be inadequate for the job. If you can convince your son or daughter out of doing this work, do so. In the end, he made less than minimum wage for 5 weeks before finally quitting. My son experienced the school of hard knocks in a big way. The worst part is how much of his trust and enthusiasm for business this company stole from him. If I could get my hands on the “executives”??, they would never hear the end of it. Every opportunity I get, I will be warning everyone away from College Works and all the other names they call themselves to get unsuspecting students to work for them.</p>
<p>Hi I saw your post about college works and although it was a couple of years ago I was wondering how it ended up going for you. Did you have a negative experience like most have said or did it end up being positive for you? I’d really like to hear your story on this subject. </p>
<p>Thanks,
Zak</p>
<p>My parents raised me with the whole “if it’s too good to be true - then it probably is” mentality. But receiving an offer for summer internships in my classes, i didn’t think twice about it being a scam or not (I had the same experience of a guy coming in and handing out small pieces of paper for you to fill out.)</p>
<p>So when I received a call last night asking me if I’d like to come learn more about getting an internship through that program it seemed like a no-brainer. My meeting was set up for 9 am this morning. At first, it seemed like a pretty legitimate thing where you could tell the lady doing the interview was interested in who was serious, and would make a good applicant.</p>
<p>But around half way through, when they handed out a pamphlet that mentioned painting, i was basically like “***”. Not to mention she wouldn’t even let you keep the 5 page pamphlet, because they like to “recycle them.”</p>
<p>I then came to a realization that this was probably some bogus thing, and research online has lead me to this conclusion too. Obvious pyramid scam.</p>
<p>I won’t be showing up to that reverse-interview tomorrow.</p>
<p>[Is</a> College Works Painting A Scam? | College Works Painting](<a href=“http://www.collegeworks.com/frequently-asked-questions/is-college-works-painting-a-scam/]Is”>http://www.collegeworks.com/frequently-asked-questions/is-college-works-painting-a-scam/)</p>
<p>On their webstite they actually try and say that this business is not a pyramid scheme or a scam. In my opinion, any legitimate business out there does not have to put that on their website. Having that there pretty much SCREAMS scam.</p>
<p>This business is very shady and misleading. I filled out an internship paper in my psych class expecting to be called about an internship related to my field of study. Instead I get a call at 10pm a week later (unprofessional to call so late at night) and get hounded by interview questions randomly. Wasnt expecting it at all. She tells me Im “lucky” to be brought in for a second interview the next morning.</p>
<p>For the next interview I am interviewed with 4 other people and for the first 30 min the person STILL doesnt tell us what the internship is. Very shady. And the whole time he is acting very superior to us and saying “I dont know if you guys would be good for this internship”, yada yada yada trying to make us feel so lucky we are even being considered. Of course it is normal for compaines to try and pick out the best candidates and make sure u would be right for the position but they were doing some weird mind f*** where they kept telling u that they dont know if ur good enough but also telling u that ur very lucky to even be considered. Not normal.</p>
<p>And then when he FINALLY tells us that the internship has to do with painting he is still VERY vague about what we would even do, only saying that if we pass the next few interviews we will be told more. What the f***? No companies do that. That is WRONG!</p>
<p>After an hr he excuses two people and tells them to call him later that day if they are interested. The 3 rest of us are told we were much more desirable but he’s still not sure if we’re good enough to get the next interview. (The first 2 people let go are probably used as back ups if he doesnt get us 3 to agee to do the intenship). As he does one on one interviews with us, the other girl Im left alone with tells me she thinks it’s a scam too and even tells him when it’s her turn to be interviewed that she thinks its unprofessional to be called so late at night and that they are rushing the interviews without even telling us in detail anything about what we would be doing. He was NOT happy but still set her up for another meeting for the “next step” because he prob NEEDS to scam someone.</p>
<p>Im finally last for the one on one interview and before he even starts I just tell him Im not interested and leave quickly. He still even tries to convince me to think about it. Lol if he wasn’t so sure we were good enough for the business then why are u still begging me to think about it?</p>
<p>All in all, I decided not to do the “internship” just because the whole thing from the very beginning sounded shady to me and very unprofessional. I cant say 100% for sure if it really is a scam, but everything that I read about it online and experienced from the interviews was very different and strange from any other normal interview for a company that a person would go through. No legitimate company is going to call u at 10pm to bomb u with a random interview without even telling u what it is for. In the end I am very dissaointed in UCSD for letting people like that distribute flyers in classes to students.</p>