account manager

program manager

travel consultant

security officer

sales representative

WorldStrides

I worked for this company for 14 years- that was 10 years ago. I worked in the Orlando office location as an account manager overseeing trips coming for science focus.The company sells and organizes extended day field trips for teachers and their students. I came to the jpb with a good bit of experience so I feel the training I received was adequate. We had an amazing team of managers and some of the best general managers you could ask for. The Orlando office was a fun, exciting culture. The main offices are located in Charlottesville, VA so we were pretty removed from any home office shenannigans. After a period of acquisitions of other smaller student travel companies, the home office management was a nightmare. The Orlando office managed to move through the changes, but we all noticed the micromanagement that was happening. The company was trying to grow too quick, which isn't a bad thing until you start making changes that affect the very people who brought this company along. I and about 4 others were laid off, with the explanation that all trip logistics would be handled from VA, not the local FL office- only to learn that really the office wasn't closing, they just moved some of the job duties. The marketing guy I trained who had expressed interest in being an account manager, ended up taking over all my accounts, while working from home in TN. The sales and marketing upper management of this company were feckless. All upper management became focused on nothing but being THE only student travel company out there and they didn't care who got in the way. At the time I worked there, you were assigned 75-80 accounts to manage. I had over 90 accounts where it was my responsibility to work with the teacher planner at the different schools, handling all aspects of their travel and local needs and then rebooking them either before they took the current trip or ASAP upon returning from their trip. I met and exceeded my quota the entire time I worked there except in 2002, after 9/11 where my quota came in at 80% attained. If you work in sales, you are expected to make a certain amount of outgoing calls per day. This number was so ridiculous, the company contracted with a call center. Bottom line, if you work for this company as an account manager or in sales, you better bring your A++++ game. You might enjoy working there if you enjoy the aspect of assisting teachers with a wonderful learning experience for their students. Focus on just that and you will enjoy this. If you're looking for just a paycheck or may not have been as truthful on your resume with regards to sales experience, you will struggle. I endured a lot of changes with this company, which is made up of many other acquired student travel companies. I was part of the rollout and new company name process which was very fun and gave me a sense of ownership with the company. It was disappointing to be laid off over the phone and under a lie, while recovering at home from emergency surgery, especially since I was among a group of people who were very good at generating revenue. I don't know how management there is nowadays, but that for me is this company's biggest downfall. I loved the work I did and seeing the groups while on their trips. I believed in the programs this company offers and to this day I would recommend teachers to travel with them because I know this end of the business and the company will always take care of the group, no matter what. But you will be micromanaged daily.

I had a decent run with Worldstrides.  The day to day part of the job was fairly easy and I wasn't micro managed by my superiors.  For the most part, I got to contribute to doing some good in the world while getting compensated.

The pandemic sped up some of the obvious things that were going to happen long term (downsizing, change of roles, outsourcing to Mexico), but it really is unfortunate they don't have many competent people in management to keep the product running long term. 

Getting properly paid at the company takes some work. Like everywhere, paying your dues and showing your value will come in handy, but only if you ever find another job and put in your two weeks notice. I had to do that a few times, but they were always fair with me with counter offers that kept me there longer than I probably should have stayed.

I do not think they do a very good job of promoting within.  The title you start with will be how they always view you.  I kind of assumed the generous counter offers I received were for future promotions (and was implied to think that), but I got looked over for an obvious promotion and that kind of made it clear where I really stood within the company.  They like to hire people with titles and degrees that sound prestigious, but they always got the very worst person who qualified with those things due to poor salary offers.  Most people with the skills they were searching for wouldn't accept their offers and if they did they would only stay short term until they found something better. 

The culture changed a lot over my tenure there.  It went from a positive place to work to a negative place in the last year or so.  That being said, this review will be somewhat irrelevant for those scoping out this company due to such high turnover if they bounce back from COVID issues.  

I enjoyed the traveling and contributing to a product I believed in.  I really have no ill thoughts about my time there. I just wish I moved on sooner when my potential to advance there started to stall. 



If you are a parent with pre-school or elementary age children this is not the place for you. The work from home seems cool until you realize that you are trapped in your home. You are scheduled to work 8 am- 5 pm, but expected to work as early as 6:30- 7 am - until up to 8 pm!  Would be such a big deal if you were being compensated for over time, but there is non you're on salary. So 40, 50, 60 hours you're paid the same amount. It's suggested that you should start early before the teachers you're trying to reach begin teaching and after school has ended.  Not a very realistic approach to reaching a teacher since they have lives themselves and can't talk on the phone at work. Your family will have to be an after thought even on weekends because you're expected to call teachers on Sundays(at home) or leave countless messages in their voicemail boxes for Monday. 

If you take a lunch or sign off at 5 pm it's not viewed as favorable.  When you go into the office once or twice a week there is no coaching or feedback, just making 100 calls to voicemail boxes as you sit next to your manager in tiny rented office space w/o windows! And while your there, the manager expects you to work through your lunch. I recall getting crazy looks like as if she wanted to say where are you going...Also new hires get the worst accounts (schools with low income families who can't afford to travel). 

The salary is also ambiguous. Only a handful of employees ever make $60,000. The $40,000 start pay drops after a few months so if you don't have additional income you're working long hours for even less pay.... There is heavy micro-managing from a manager who speaks at you and Since Chicago is a remote office there is no HR to talk to. Worldstrides is a nice concept but the approach hasn't changed since the idea of school trip travel. And with school districts cutting back, overworked teachers and more families tightening budgets it's hard sell. You ideas are not welcome either, they invented this model and believe its fine, so keep your comments to yourself.

A typical day a the WorldStrides call center started at 7:30 am and ended at 3 pm. They also required you to make calls from home and on Sundays.  WorldStrides embraced Micro-management. They consistently pressured you to make sales calls into territory that was  recycled to try and find a new angle in.
 I learned that a little bit about selling education travel. But more than that I learned that I wouldn't be able to manage my sales territory in a way that I felt would be most effective. When I first started with WorldStrides I was a temporary hire and I was given a lot of freedom to work on a new specialized project. My sales numbers where decent enough to attract WorldStrides into offering me a full time position with their sales team. Once on the team the co-workers where very competitive and standoffish towards me because I had been hired from the special events side of the company. 
The hardest part of the job was working in the micro management model. I was shut down from the special events side of selling and had no freedom to differ from the written sales scripts. They wanted a certain number of call made each day and most of the time they were listening in to critique your phone salesmanship.  I knew I could sell what I believed in. I just wanted to have the freedom to sell in my own style. 
The most enjoyable part of working at WorldStrides was making sales. There where times when they did not pressure you as much and I could be more natural and less rote. When this happened I was able to make the most production and I did sell well. I just simply decided that I could put my ability to sell to better use for myself than for WorldStrides.

WS draws in young people by advertising on Instagram that the job is a great way to travel for free. What they don't mention is that the position is 90% mind-numbingly boring cold calling to schools and teachers who have no interest in leading these kinds of trips. It's impossible to stress enough how few teachers are actually willing to take on this immense responsibility. The IPC is expected to train a teacher to sell the WorldStrides product to their students.

Liability for the trips rests solely on the teacher and can affect their reputation to the point they may have to change schools if something goes wrong. (And things do often go wrong, paid excursions get canceled at last minute, food/hotel quality can be poor, and some activities aren't even age appropriate for high schoolers).

You can go on one of these trips if you make at least 50% of your sales goal for the season, but the experience is a working trip where you're required to stay with a group of kids and teachers the whole day, you cannot smoke or drink, and you're not allowed to sightsee on your own time. You're also limited to parts of the world based on which selling tier you have achieved. (Don't expect to go to Asia or Australia until you've got at least 5 years with the company).

The 10% of the job that isn't cold calling is the product training, which was always enjoyable and enlightening. WS seems like they've got the right products to sell, but the execution of the trips is severely lacking.

You will get your life sucked out of you. Minimum of 300 calls per week to call dead beat schools with kids who cannot afford to travel and con teachers to travel for free by hiding the cost of their trip over to the kids/parents who decide to travel. Company doesn't care about contacting schools who have put themselves on Do Not Call List or even had sought out legal action to stop contacting them. The trips are highest out of all student travel companies. It's best to cheat the system to receive your production bonus. Have friends call your extension and stay on the line to count as a call. Set up numerous Google phone numbers so you can use them to call or you call them to count as a call. Managers are prior employees from different companies with sales backgrounds but none have hardly worked the phones as a Educational Travel Associate. The company is constantly hiring because they fire as often as the sun rises. If you have lived in Charlottesville you will have worked for this sweat shop while looking for another job the entire time. They used to have free Happy Hour on the roof with beer/alcohol until one associate drank so much and got into an accident so those days are no longer since they do not want to be held liable. Only work here if you want to make more than minimum wage and not apply for welfare.

There is plenty of micro management that happens if you're in the sales division especially.  Be prepared to have to do things a certain way even if it doesn't work for you.  Don't be fooled by the pay because chances are if you aren't showing results you'll be cut fairly quickly.  I wasn't given much of a chance and when my day came I was given a very cold shoulder by my director who acted like they cared prior.  Only the person that did my off boarding showed me any type of passion given my circumstances.  They put me in a HORRIBLE spot and I just don't have very much that's nice to say.  The HR people and other departments are very nice people.  Also a lot of your peers are very nice and wonderful to get along with but if you sign up for the sales division don't anticipate much from them if you start to severely struggle.  I beg anybody that sees their inside sales rep (ETS) jobs to please be weary and do not get lost in the promises because chances are unless you have the necessary luck to succeed you won't be there long enough to reap any rewards.

Never know if you have a job by end of day, no job security,constant turn over, mass firings each season for "not producing" despite only being trained by other new employees when mangers take the summer and holidays off, all of them -so they hire you leave you to fend for yourself then core you for not doing it right. 

Work 24/7 in at 7am out at 8/9pm and your phone is always forwarded and ringing with angry teachers. Ac that is not enough.  You will never see your family or friends. 

Micromanaged. Every second of every day. You will never do anything correct. Ever. It is a very emotionally  crushing job. The management that is constantly critiquing you had never actually done the job,  and are wildly underqualified to coach sales staff

Everyone gossips and talks about others,especially in management -where there are definate favorites.  You will not be successful there unless you learn to kiss butt. Everyone is always eavesdropping on conversations and then twisting it to share with others to save themselves.

Completely inappropriate atmosphere, racist "jokes", sexism, and foul language 24/7 and only encouraged my management who is sleeping worth staff.

Don't do it.

This company has a great product. Problem with selling it is the price point. Any teacher that is interested is no longer after hearing the price. 

I loved my time here, the people were amazing they staff was always finding ways to encourage you when you were down. The directors really seemed interested in you and how they can help you go further. A great starting salary. 

But then reality sets in. Its a sales job. And you are in a small market for educational travel at the moment. You have to be there early, 7:30 am, and be there late, 6-7pm, to get a hold of teachers. Calling on your personal phone after hours and on weekends. Your territory is so stretched you wont have many good schools. The good sales people who are at quota early, those are people who have been there for a while and have repeat business and no new sales. If you cant get your teachers to sign on get a deposit turned in for a trip, then more than likely you wont be there long. 

Dont let the free lunches, the contests, the encouragement ever make u feel safe. You are not. If you make your sales quota you will be fine. If you don't, start looking for a new job.

There is a drink room full of cold cans of beverages and an instant coffee machine as well as ice machine for associates to use.  That was the best part of the job was getting to drink stuff all day unlimited amounts.  

The worst part of the job was calling schools all day only to have them either not even pick up the phone, hang up on you, or transfer you to a dead end voicemail box.  The occasional teacher who wants to retaliate against another teacher or simply is interested in traveling will want to travel and suddenly they make 30-40K for one tour.  The effort to find that one teacher is limited by the hundreds of schools they send as "leads" and you are expected to hunt and find that one teacher without any support.  Many of the schools I was assigned did not even pick up the phone and asked me not to call.  The new ones I was given did the same exact thing.  The stress level means constant turn over and the people you get to know one month are gone the next month.  It's funny too because now there is a special room for the alternative lifestyle associates who earn a lot to sit in.  Quite funny actually.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Account manager 11 salaries reported	$52,364 per year
Program manager 11 salaries reported	$54,283 per year
Travel consultant 5 salaries reported	$42,200 per year
Security officer 4 salaries reported	$18.00 per hour
Sales representative 1 salary reported	$57,500 per year

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