Pros
Good Pay I personally was promoted several times in a relatively short period. Benefits were good, 401k matching up to 7%
Cons
Unrealistic expectations of sales goals. They set sales goals based on pervious year's numbers and expect you to make the same numbers, if you do you're good if not, you're fired. They fire good people over hourly sales goals which are stupid, because some people can only work during evenings, some only during mornings, some people have certain days they cannot work. Not all hours of the day, nor is every day as productive as others. For example, a part time person who works 10am-5pm every day during the week is expected to make the same number of sales as a person who works 12-close on weekends. Obviously in a mall, you are going to sell more on Friday and Saturday evenings than you are duing say a Monday or Tuesday morning, especially in certain departments such as Men's and Shoes. On top of that, a person that works in the Polo area and a person who works in the Roundtree area (their own name brand, generally older people buy) may have the same or similar hourly sales goals. by comparison an area that makes as a nice round number say $5,000 on a Friday versus under $1,000 in sales the same day. Plus on top of making sales, they require you to constantly reset the floor, folding, straightening, sizing, colorizing and forever changing floor setups. They need to have a stocking crew and a sales crew, because they expect the same position to do both jobs. You cannot make sales when you're in the back corner of the floor moving racks around and folding clothes. They count sales as who rings up a purchase. Okay, well some people just stand around registers waiting on people to walk up - while other people are on the floor doing floor sets and straightening, they don't get the sale. They want you to personally shop with each customer - and it puts the customer in a awkward position to have to pay at each department. If you run in for a pair of ladies shoes and men's khakis, you'll be torn between sales people and be forced to make separate purchases. They will own you - if you are management. You're told your salary is based off a minimum of 40 hours per week. HA good luck with that. More like 60-70 hours. You'll work double time every time a "visit" happens which often gets called and no one ever shows, I think they do it just to make people work harder and stay later, you're also forced to work on your days off during visits even planning for visits and on holidays forget it. If you're any good in management, they'll move you around all over the country. You cannot have a home, or a spouse. It's impossible. If you aren't at least an assistant manger you'll have to pay your own way to move. My last position I was moved to a store to clean up the mess someone else left behind. A huge department that wasn't properly kept. My cost of living would have gone up more than $1,000 a month due to cost of living there versus where I was living, and they were going to offer me $2,000 more per year before taxes! All they paid for was a hotel room for 2 weeks, everything else I had to pay for. However, Assistant and Store managers get uhaul trucks, a meal allowance and an apartment paid for about 3 months plus a huge raise. Assitant Mangers and Store Managers make crazy salaries, far higher than Dept. Managers who they work like a dog. The sales person constantly gets fired for missing sales goals, leaving the Dept. Manager to pick up the slack, they slave drive Dept. Manager.