How do you get paid when you buy a share?

Does each company have a different way of paying you dividends or is there an international way to get paid after you buy a share in a company?
Weekly? Monthly? As they make money?
Thanks in advance for the help

First of all not every company pays dividends, secondly there are two ways companies issue dividends. Companies who pay residual dividends do so when they have made enough profit to share it with their investors without harming their balance sheet. Other companies that chose to pay dividends generally have a policy that dictates they pay a certain faction of their quarterly/yearly/arbitrary period of time earnings out to dividends. Many companies chose a dividend method that is a combination of the two.

If a company does not pay dividends you can only earn money from selling appreciated stock. Also it should be noted that whether or not a company issue dividends is not a good tool to measure the stocks potential to increase in value.