As the mercury rises, it means one thing: You’re hunting for a summer job. It needs to get you through the next couple of months because, let’s face it, you and that patio need some quality time and it’s going to cost you. The ideal?  A job that lasts for the entirety of your summer vacation and pays a decent amount. Or better yet, landing  a manager’s job—one where you call the shots. You’re not into the restaurant scene and you’re not sure you can handle selling clothing all day in a mall. So what do you do? When it comes down to it, you know you’re a hard worker, perhaps an entrepreneur, and you want to learn more than how to bag groceries the “right way.” Most of all, you want to make sure that the time you spend working, is worthy of putting on your resume.

Finding the right summer job can be difficult when you don’t have much experience, but companies like College Pro Painters can really help build up your resume. If you want to be more than just an office lackey, College Pro also offers manager jobs. “Instead of doing customer service or sales or general labour, the franchise manager role incorporates everything, and then some,” says James Dale, Vice President of College Pro Western Canada.  He started working with College Pro while completing a geography degree and looking for solid work experience. His experience was that College Pro was a lot like...well...college. “The General Managers have a laid out program for teaching sales, marketing, interviewing and how to paint a house,” Dale explains. So there’s in-class training that’s followed by on-field experience in addition to weekly meetings to help keep you on track. 

So what exactly can being a franchise manager job teach you?  “Two of the biggest learning and transferable skills I learned were: interviewing and selling...these skills will be very valuable in the future if I start my own business or if I work for a company. You can’t learn how to sell at school,” Dale points out.

For many students, starting your own business seems like a pipe dream, and becoming an entrepreneur seems reserved for those over a certain age and with a certain amount of work experience. Not true. While it seems like a lofty ambition that you could, as a student, learn how to start your own business, College Pro makes it a reality for many every summer.