-I have been wanting to write a formal review of this company for years now. Anyone who is seriously considering working for them, this will be a factual account of what it is like. I worked part-time all over Oregon and CA for five years (high school-college), and went from MIT-AM-SM in 1.5 years.
-If you are halfway intelligent, you will immediately realize it is not hard to run these stores. Everything you need is provided by a giant manual regarding policies (so no creativity allowed) for operations, and another huge binder for anything visually related. If you are "great looking" i.e. very naturally beautiful or handsome (think fashion model type of look) you will move up faster than someone who is far more qualified to run a business than you. You will be tired from standing and walking all day wearing flip flops. Tip: Wear the style of shoe they allow and place insoles in them. It will absolutely save you, and make you better able to enjoy what you're doing. You will be expected to "recruit" attractive people daily whether it be in the mall, or at a local college campus, and have interviews bi-weekly to interview people you already know youre hiring anyway. You will have DM (weekly) and RM (bi-monthly or quarterly) visits that will not want to discuss business strategy, or cost saving methods, hours, people development, or basically anything business related. As long as you have "cast of" quality employees (best looking) you can run way below sales plans and still be promoted and praised.
-There will be a lot of difficult employees to work for. Winey managers at times, winey sales staff, people not showing up for shifts (be smart, youre hiring high schoolers and college kids so expect this from time to time and be ready to set a clear expectation from the start), and stockroom kids (impact team) that steal, slack, and also do not show up. This is where you can become an excellent leader of a future company. You will learn do deal with these things, manage them, execute terminations, one-on-ones, motivate troubled employees into hard workers, etc. Many are unable to do it. Focus on your strong managers development, know which other managers can't cut it (being able to recognize who doesn't really want to be there to develop their future skills, and are just using this as "full time job with benefits" is one thing to work on), let the high turnover kids (part-timers) float in and out in their natural Crombie cycles.
-If you can be seen as a fair, friendly, cool, hip boss that can get their work done, have tough conversations, and still act like a gentleman..Your store will run itself and your staff will smile and have fun. People want to work for leaders like Ive just described.
-You will probably resent the company after some time. The miserable pay for the amount of hours and work you put in will anger you. Lack of recognition from superiors on excellent work you are proud of will upset you, when they only want to discuss recruiting beautiful faces. These are the times to manage your own stress, and learn about your own style, stresses, and how to overcome them. Holidays, thanksgiving, sales, black friday, etc will all beat you down. You will be micro managed. Learn how to manage this.
-Oh yeah, they actually do have nice benefits insurance wise. I always thought they were trying to keep turnover low with this.
-In summary for Pros: if you're in high school or college, want to have fun, work with good looking people, and have a nice way to find parties, this is great for you! Otherwise, work somewhere else. If you are able to profile people and have no problem sorting out "normal" people from "amazing" without ever feeling mean or cruel, you will do great here!
