<p>Immediately figured out that it was a scam after reading the flyer the interviewer gave us. Success stories, expert reviews, “we only recruit the top students” etc… I just played along. I think her name was Remle Deinla from UCSD. What a waste of time, better sell Tupperware or life insurance.</p>
<p>I saw a craigslist ad for an internship and replied. Within the next day, I received a call the next night around 7pm. I didn’t pick up and there was no voicemail left. I decided to call back and I end up speaking with a young woman. She did not give me her name or affiliations when I said she had just called me, instead she wanted to make sure she knew who I was. Fine, whatever… people get unprepared for such calls, I understand. Then she mentions her name and the business very fast, to the point where I knew I was talking about the internship but I had no idea for what company (I thought I heard CalWorks at first. Maybe College Works, I thought). She started asking me questions and immediately I felt uneasy and like this was all unprofessional. Either way, I answered honestly and she thought I was perfect for the “reverse interview” meeting with the VP and set an appointment for the next day.</p>
<p>I went to the meeting and was instantly shocked by how young the man I was talking to was. He claimed he was in his mid-twenties, but I could have sworn he was younger. Nonetheless, I asked my questions and he seemed pretty upfront with his answers (you make roughly 1k a month, everything that is left over is yours, management experience, sales, etc). After talking over everything, he told me to call people on a phone list after the interview. I did and I can honestly say, most of the responses seemed genuine, but everyone said basically the same thing. I spoke with the woman I originally spoke with and she told me to call this one guy on the list (he was available to talk right then and there) I couldn’t talk at that point and she told me to text this guy and let him know I couldn’t call him just yet (even though he apparently wouldn’t have known I was calling anyway?)… as weird as that was, I texted him and ended up talking to him a few hours later. He was cocky, told me how much “bank” he had and how nice that was, and asked me to tell whomever I was getting back to know that I spoke with him (because each person gets credit for speaking with a prospective intern apparently). What I took from that is that these aren’t just past interns, these are people selling you on the idea of College Works.</p>
<p>That worried me, but I called the young man I had interviewed with (as requested) and he asked me what I thought. I told him I was excited for the opportunity and would like to better myself. He set me up with an appointment with the general manager for later this week and said I should write a one page essay about my own struggle with perseverance. I spoke with the young woman again and it seemed like I was talking to an old friend with her and she said just to be myself during the interview.</p>
<p>So here I am now, reading all these post and trying to make out whether or not I should make the 45 minute drive later this week to even meet with that GM. I don’t know what the companies agenda is, but I’d have to say, this is a business and they’re going to swindle people just as much as any other company. I think it could offer great skills to those whom need them most, but I think it’s a matter of determining if the skills you learn are worth your time (and expenses of gas, etc). I also think it’s pivotal to follow your gut feeling.</p>
<p>The “internship” that is “to good to be true” is not a scam. You don’t actually paint. You learn how to start up, manage, and run your own branch of a business. Don’t think you sound smart by saying that this is a scam or that you paint. The company hires great kids to do hard work. Why is that a scam? getting people out into the real world, giving college students the opportunity to do something that not many people can say they did does not make it a scam. This internship doesn’t cost any money to do it and it is one hell of a learning experience. I’ve done it. It is hard,things don’t always go your way, and sometimes you feel like it isn’t worth doing it. BUT when you finish it out and look back and see that you just ran your own branch of a business (regardless of the size) in college. THAT is something to be proud of, and THAT is life changing.</p>
<p>I don’t get how it be a scam when there are so many students who have done well or even average. It is selling to homeowners and managing people plain and simple.
uhhh where is the scam in that? sounds like other local painters trying to slam a business that undercuts them.<br>
A scam to me is where you take the money and run.This company operates a lot of states, not sure of the number but coming from students who think that everything should be spoonfed is just ridiculous. Some have said they book $10k in business but only see $20k and all it wrong.
Well, at a wall street investment firm, real estate brokerage, you think you will get 50% or 80% on sold business as an intern? or even at Disney, Google, C’mon guys, grow up. want some real m as an intern become a software developer at $60k/yr but lets look at CollegeWorks again. $20k in 3 months is $6,700 (more than software developer interns).
Look at what you can gain instead of how young this speaker is, how they show just success stories, and so on. Well , no duh. It is a sales management position, you think any sales company that is training you wants to show the people that failed in training. C’mon people.</p>
<p>Believing College Works is a scam is like believing college itself is a scam. Most of the reasons people put on here follow along the same lines as college itself. You pay something like $30,000/year for college and your not even guaranteed a job after. You’re “brainwashed” into believing that you’ll make so much money with a bachelor’s degree. It’s all your teachers (DM’s) fault for your bad grades and you ***** and moan about how you worked so hard and didn’t get a job after college, when in reality you didn’t do *<strong><em>. Bottom line is that college works is for those who actually work hard, are organized, and have a good personality, just like succeeding in college. I have 5 friends that I trust with my life that did this program, they said it was hard as hell, but worth the experience. Oh and have fun being someone’s </em></strong> during your “real” internship and end up working for someone that went through college works 10 years from now.</p>
<p>Students, do other companies come into your classes during class time to try to recruit you for internships? </p>
<p>As a parent footing the bill for college, I have several concerns, one of which is that class time is being used to give a company like this a venue for recruiting; another concern is that students are being asked for personal information, with no real information as to who they are giving it to.</p>
<p>Im sick and tired of hearing people bash this internship or the paint jobs done by College Works painters. Im sorry if you had a bad experience in this internship, but that was probably your fault. Nine times out of ten, if you failed in this internship, it is YOUR FAULT and no one elses, so dont you blame CollegeWorks or the hardworking individuals behind this unique program.</p>
<p>I feel like with most businesses, people neglect to comment when they are pleased or satisfied, but when something goes wrong and people get mad, they instantly search for a means to vent their frustration. Rating sites such as this I feel are often the most common medium for angry customers to vent. Its high time someone who had a damn good experience wrote a review.
This is that review.</p>
<p>Im sorry if as a customer, you are displeased with your paint job and paint service from College Works Painting. I dont hold the opinion that that is a common occurrence. It wasnt an occurrence at all in my painting business. I had 100% satisfaction, all 27 of my clients were pleased with my performance, minus a few hiccups which I diligently worked to overcome.</p>
<p>I began this internship in January of 2011 during my freshman year of college and finished in August of 2011, days before I had to return to my college town for the fall semester. Below I will summarize my experience as a College Works Painting intern. First I would like to give a little bit of background information.
College Works Painting is a business-oriented internship that by design is intended to be challenging, enlightening, and fun. I know of no other program that will better cultivate hardworking individuals into leaders ready to take on the difficult challenges of our time. If you want to be an entrepreneur, if you want to own and operate your own business one day, there is no better program you could enroll in. Students who enroll will be given the chance to take on more personal responsibility than they have ever been required to before in their lives (It’s almost a certainty if you’re under 21 years of age). College Works Painting is the real deal. Its real world experience in starting up your own business and taking control of your life, your time, and your finances. If this program doesnt teach you to appreciate free markets, competition, and the hard work and effort that goes into starting and operating a small for-profit entity, I dont know what will. I love free markets. I love capitalism. I love freedom, and dammit you should too. If you dont, youre an idiot. (Or simply uneducated/naïve.) Small business owners are the heroes of American society and they deserve to be respected, admired, and looked up to. I wish all Americans wanted to live the American Dream like so many hardworking small business owners strive to. With that being said, I will summarize my experience.</p>
<p>I first learned about the internship at an information session held near my college, Texas A&M University. In a nutshell, I was told that it would be an entrepreneurial type experience and that I would be given the chance to run my own painting company for a summer. It sounded neat, so I signed up to go to the first round of interviews. During what I considered to be a somewhat strenuous interview process I learned more and more about the program and in time I decided it was something I wanted to do. By the time an intern position was offered me, I thought thank God.
So I was going to get to run my own painting company. I thought it rather exciting. Early in the Spring semester my training began. But before I get into that I need to describe the CollegeWorks hierarchy and position of district manager.</p>
<p>After being hired, I and the other interns from my home town were assigned to a district manager, which is basically a fancy term for Someone who has completed this internship in the past and now wants to help other young people run their own business too. To further summarize, the district manager is like a mentor, a friend, who is assigned to you (based on your geographic location within the state of Texas) and whose advice should be treated as if it were an order. (If you want to do well in the internship and make money.) My mentor was kind and supportive from the getgo, and he literally walked me through my entrepreneurial experience every step of the way.
Now let me be very clear
I did all of the work to make my business succeed. If you do this internship, YOU will have to do all of the work and your success or failure will be a reflection of the time, effort, and dedication that you put in. Your district manager doesnt want to create and run your painting business for you and trust me they wont- because they cant. They dont have the time. Theyre EVEN MORE busy than you are, helping several individuals (interns) like you to run their own painting businesses at the same time. However, the district manager will try to teach you everything you need to know to succeed. The district manager will be there to answer any questions you may have. The district manager will be supportive and will try to encourage you when you are feeling discouraged. Your district manager will advise you on a course of action when you freak out because youve made some rookie mistake and you think its the end of the world (its gonna happen.) Ultimately, the intern will make the decisions using the input from the district manager. The district managers will coach the interns with the help of the Vice President who could be considered the mentor of the multiple district managers across the state of Texas. At one point the Vice President of College Works Painting was really the district manager of a few interns who decided to return to College Works Painting a second year for the much more difficult, second level internship that is being a district manager under the Vice President of CWP Texas. Second level interns dont run their own painting business, they manage and mentor several other individuals running their own painting businesses. Personally I think its incredible. It is truly a neat experience to see so many young people leading other young people to success. I hope this has helped to explain the hierarchy of College Works Painting. </p>
<p>The district manager exists to enable YOU, the intern, so YOU, the intern must enable the district manager by
- Maintaining a positive attitude. ALWAYS. No one likes an unappreciative whiney little ****.
- Being coachable. Keep an open mind- be open to suggestions. All the good advice in the world means nothing if you choose to ignore it or tune out your district manager. Sometimes they will advise something that you reeeeeallly dont feel like doing at that particular moment. Well, those are the moments that will define whether you succeed or fail. Listen to your district manager.
- Not giving up. Do. Not. Quit. Ever. Seriously.</p>
<p>The training for College Works painting is extensive. My fellow interns and I underwent hours of powerpoints and lectures by the Vice President and District Managers of CWP Texas on numerous topics, the simplest of which being the ins and outs of the painting industry. We learned how to paint. (Obviously . But I still felt the need to say it.) We learned the necessary steps to prepare for painting. We learned to powerwash surfaces to be painted to remove dust, we learned to sand peeling paint, to caulk cracks, to move and transport ladders safely. We learned roof safety and the proper use of a safety harness. We learned an efficient order to paint a house, doing prep work and other tasks in a manner that would not require moving the ladder more than necessary or having to retrace steps. We learned how to use brushes, rollers, sanders, wood putty, paint sprayers, pressure washers and more. We learned what not to do. Dont throw the caulk gun. Dont move a ladder with a bucket of paint on top. Dont paint a surface without a drop cloth underneath it. Dont paint a wall when its wet. Dont get on the roof without attaching a safety harness. Place the ladder at a safe angle and dig the ladder feet into the ground before climbing up it From common sense, to the most tiny detail even professional painters never think of, CWP leadership attempted to instruct us on what was and what was not a good idea to do when painting a home.</p>
<p>We learned an estimating process, with formula sheets to help us determine the price of painting a potential customers home. We learned to measure the surface area to be painted, we learned to bid in more paint and material costs if the wall was particularly thick, perhaps stucco, and would soak up the paint. We learned that when a spot to paint is high up off the ground- it takes longer to paint- more ladder moving, more updownupdown- which costs more $ in labor. That had to be factored in to our estimates. We learned to bid in time for prep in the morning and cleanup at the end of each day. We learned how long it would take to set up a safety harness, we learned how much paint is needed for a smooth 500 sq. feet section of wall. We learned how to calculate how much paint we would need for a job and learned to calculate the cost of that paint. I could go on and on and on with details. We learned an estimation process, and whats more we learned how to write up our estimation into a formal, neat-looking contract that would be presented to our potential clients. We were taught to forecast, manage and control costs so that we would be profitable and wouldnt lose money.
Spring break rolled around and we interns were given an opportunity to show off our knowledge. In a volunteer project set up by the College Works VP, we painted a home for the sake of getting to practice what wed learned. We the interns got to try out all the equipment and iron out the kinks in our understanding of how to paint a home. Awesomeness.</p>
<p>Its great to know how to paint, but that alone is not enough to run a painting business. </p>
<p>We learned marketing techniques to find clients who wanted/needed painting, we learned sales techniques, we learned the need-satisfacton selling cycle, which is a sales technique based on pointing out to potential clients when they have a need for painting and then telling them how we can help and what a new paint job can do for their home. Through College Works Painting we the interns were provided our own business cards, lawn signs, car magnets, fliers, and a million other resources to help us get our marketing endeavors underway. </p>
<p>My district manager drove out to meet and help me when I tried marketing for the first time. My district manager performed my first 3 estimates with me to help me get a better feel how it was done. ( He did the first two and observed/critiqued me on the third.) My district manager was always a phone call away when I needed advice on how to make a sale or advice on what I could do to reach an agreement with an on-the-fence homeowner so theyd let me paint their home.
We were taught how to make a Summer schedule, planning the paint jobs in an order that fit both my and my clients schedules.
We were taught to go marketing for employees. We were taught to utilize social media, Facebook, word of mouth, Craigslist, signs in public places. We were taught to write up clever ads that would attract attention and interest people. We were taught to start collecting a list of names and phone numbers whom we could call and sift through to find hirees to do the house painting on the jobs we set up. We were taught what questions would be beneficial to ask potential hirees. Can you work full time? Have you ever painted before? Do you have any painting equipment of your own? Why should I choose you over someone else for this painting position? etc. We were taught to conduct phone interviews in a formal sincere manner. We were taught to set up in-person interviews- I did mine at Starbucks and had two people come by every half hour. We were taught to over-hire and have replacements ready if need be. (People get sick, people go on vacation, people quit, people decide they dont feel like working on a given day, whatever.) We were taught to find quality trustworthy individuals of character and admirable work ethic to hire as our painters.
We were taught to train our employees. We were taught to manage, to lead, to be respectful and to work with our painters in a manner that made the job enjoyable. I tried to be flexible with my painters schedules and give them off-days when requested. I brought in donuts sometimes or bought my employees lunch. I always had jugs of water available on-site and sometimes mixed up a big batch of Gatorade for the day. I was taught to take care of my employees as best I could so they would take care of me. I once had a painter who failed to stop at a stop sign completely on the way home from work one day, got pulled over, and had outstanding tickets hed forgotten about. He was arrested and thrown in jail. The next day I phoned his brother (who had no money at the time) to find out where he was, and when I learned where he was I went and bailed him out of jail, and then drove him to the jobsite so he could work. He repaid me the money later that week and was thankful.</p>
<p>Over the course of the Summer after college let out, I utilized near a total of 13 painters, about 9 of which were employed at any given moment, 2-5 of which would be working on any given workday(Typically 1-3 workers on one home. Sometimes we worked on 2 houses at once.) Im proud to say that I created jobs that is incredibly exciting to me. Together, my employees and I completed 27 separate painting projects for a total of just over $59,000 in sales. Compared to my other interns who stuck through the program to Summer, I was about average. My smallest job was about $1,000 and my largest was $8,000.</p>
<p>Words cannot describe the impact this internship has had on my life. I learned how to use my brain, how to think critically, how to solve problems. Thats all running a business is. Problems both self inflicted and external are thrown at you and you must find a way to solve them as quickly as possible. This internship can certainly be stressful at times. You have a lot of people that are depending on you. Homeowners expecting a paint job, employees expecting a daily schedule and a pay check, some of them using it just to put food on the table. Not to mention the district manager and VP, who willingly invest so much time, money, and effort into a bunch of college kids with little to no promise of any returns on the investment. These people dont do it for the money, I think. If I had chosen to get involved in upper level College Works, it certainly wouldnt have been for the money. </p>
<p>This was really the first experience in my life that Im proud of. This was something that I did and something I did willingly and worked hard at. It wasnt just another one of societies hoops that I was forced to stumble through like High School or College. I was and am legitimately proud of my experience and achievement and I have good reason to be. I worked 60+ hours a week for two months without seeing a dime. I created jobs and provided people a means to living. I created wealth for myself and gained invaluable experience and confidence in myself Id never known. I provided a valuable service to my community, I raised the values of homes in my hometown. I managed completion of 27 projects and had no complaints, 100% satisfaction. I made lifelong friends who care about me and have molded my life and will likely continue to mold it for years to come. I am grateful for the opportunity I received and thankful to those who believed in me before I did. All I did was ******** and fake it until I made it. But thats just what you have to do. Take a chance, step out of our comfort zone. This whole internship was outside of mine. Please do yourself a favor and do the hardworking people at CollegeWorks a favor and dont sign up for this internship until youve made the decision 100% in your mind that you will not ever quit or give up. Quitting is the only way to fail. If you try hard, be coachable, and have a good attitude, success is not a matter of if, but rather when?</p>
<p>So go on. Tell me CollegeWorks is a scam and isnt a good program to be in. Ill notice you for half a second, chuckle, and then cease to give a **** about your opinion on much of anything.</p>
<p>The thing about operations like this is that while they are technically above board and legal, that doesn’t make them good. </p>
<p>This isn’t limited to painting… there are plenty of companies set up this way - they are franchises of franchises. Each RVP has the ability to set up divisions, and each DM has the ability to hire franchisees, and each franchisee has the ability to run things as he or she pleases. Nothing is wrong with that.</p>
<p>The job itself is also just fine. You have complete control over your business and divert a percentage of your sales to your parent company to cover overhead costs. You take a little less risk so you pay a little more to help the company absorb the risks you are taking.</p>
<p>The problem with operations like these is that they are often dishonest during recruiting. They will mask themselves as “marketing” or “management” jobs, calling the jobs “internships” even though there is no difference between the “internship” and a job with the same title and responsibilities. The recruiters often try to blind motivated applicants by talking about all of the potential they have and how they can make $30,000 in a summer, free and clear. </p>
<p>Once the recruiters get done talking about all of the positive aspects of the job while masking the negative aspects as either positive or neutral, then they start putting out offers. But again, it is very common for offers to these kinds of operations to be exploding in nature. After pounding you with information, you get an offer the next day and need to respond within 24 hours - hardly enough time to consider all of the aspects of owning a franchise as a 19-year-old.</p>
<p>The end result is that you have a lot of people who are ill-prepared and, thus, set up for failure, especially since it is entirely possible for you to wind up owing your parent company money at the end of the summer.</p>
<p>A job like this is not an internship; it is a job. You can certainly learn a lot, but before getting involved, you need to understand all of the risks that present themselves as a result.</p>