A corporate recruiter for a major company has been soliciting and interviewing Newtown campus students for the chance to be selected for a summer internship.
Rachel Demp, a communications degree holder from Michigan and current Bucks marketing student, is recruiting for Southwestern Advantage; a company comprised of 21 sister businesses ranging in products from music production, insurance, real estate and publishing.
Southwestern was founded in 1855 and has worked with colleges for 155 years.
“Southwestern is the nation’s oldest and largest intern company,” said Demp.
But how do they select their candidates for the program and is the venture beneficial to Bucks students?
Southwestern Advantage takes 30,000 applications for their internship and only 3,000 are selected for the program. The program consists of selling SAT prep books from door to door for 12 weeks out of the summer break.
Those selected and the recruiters all caravan together down to Nashville, TN for a training course during the week after finals in the middle of May. After that they relocate to either Minnesota or Wisconsin where you stay with a host family and are expected to work around 80 hours a week, spending your 13 hour days visiting around 30-35 households a day, according to Demp.
The Southwestern recruiter mentioned her “Superstar Book” which lists the top sellers from last summer’s internship. It has pictures of students and how much money they’ve earned. The top girl made $35,000 during one summer.
“This is the farthest thing from a get rich quick scheme,” said Demp. “There are no guarantees but there are no limits.”
She added that the average student makes around $8,000 a summer from sales. For every book sold the workers makes a 40% commission. The SAT prep books sell for $150, so the salesperson would get $60 of that price.
The $8,000 does not deduct your personal expenses for the trip. Southwestern employs students as an independent contractor, so your rent, groceries and living expenses must be paid for by the individual.
And after six days of work, Sunday is the only day off.
“Everyone gets together and participates in some kind of social activity,” Demp said. “We kind of become like a hardcore unit.”
A quick Google search turned up links to pages detailing opponents of Southwestern Advantages practices. Pages titled “Southwestern Advantage complaints” and accusations that they scam workers were rife.
I found one website called www.southwesterncompanytruth.com dedicated completely to giving testimonies from previous interns, usually with negative experiences.
In another testimonial, a man named Dwayne from Colorado explains how for five days he did not have a place to stay when he was relocated by Southwestern to a different state during his time working with the program.
“We were in touch with management the whole time and they ‘encouraged’ us to just keep trying,” Dwayne’s testimonial said.
After claiming that he just wanted to leave and go home, Dwayne said only then did Southwestern happen to find a home for him to stay in.
When asked about these issues Demp responded by saying they are non-issues.
“We’ve been around since 1855 so obviously we didn’t always set things up in the olden times,” states Demp. “I personally set up everything beforehand for interns. There’s no chance that our interns won’t have a place to stay.”
While on the topic of host families, I ask Demp how Southwestern goes about recruiting the homes for students.
Demp mentioned the door-to-door solicitation the company employs is how Southwestern has operated since their inception over a century ago.
Wikipedia states that a summer can cost the intern between $1,500 and $3,000 for expenses and as a result of this, some interns return in debt without any profit.
“This wouldn’t happen,” she said. “We would send them home before they would lose money on anything.”
Demp also said that all of the students interns receive $2,500 worth of sales training and supplies for free.
“There are no starter kits to purchase,” she said.
When asked about a statistic from a website stating that nearly a third of interns leave the program before completion Demp confirmed that about 70 percent of them leave before completing the 12-week program.
“When you think about colleges we have a better rate then some college dropout rates,” she said.
Demp is adamant about her cause. She said she’s a firm believer in Southwestern’s values and is a living example of the positive outcome available, having spent five summers with the company herself.
“My goal is to have the best interest of the student at heart,” said Demp. “That’s why I’ve been doing this for 5 years.”
The company’s Wikipedia page also claims that Southwestern Advantage has been banned from soliciting at the University of Birmingham and the University of Idaho.
According to the office of Security and Safety at the Bucks Newtown campus and the school’s Student Life department, the company is not permitted to solicit at the community college.
Director of Security and Safety, Dennis Macauley, said companies and organizations are not allowed to solicit without permission at Bucks.
“If Southwestern was granted permission to survey students they would have to go through the Student Life office,” he said.
Matthew Cipriano, the director of student life, said Bucks has a policy barring solicitation on its campuses.
“There’s a no solicitation policy on campus,” said Cipriano. “Everyone has to check-in and any floaters will be removed from the campus.”
Cipriano said he had previously never heard of Southwestern Advantage and confirmed that their solicitation is in violation of Bucks rules.