Pros
The starting salary is considerable and will allow you to maintain a relatively well-off lifestyle with little to no practical or formal education. It also looks good on a resume to say that you worked for as high end a retailer as this company and can definitely impact the outcomes of future interviews elsewhere down your career path. In addition, your knowledge of sales promotions and your associate discount allow you to acquire excellent quality merchandise at very cheap prices.
Cons
Management on every level is generally horrible with very few exceptions on a case by case basis. The company is family owned, which is a testament to their success and American entrepreneurship, but is presently a hindrance to the success of the company. It is clear that there is a "Good 'Ole Boys" mentality with regards to management. Unethical business practices are covered up and blatantly ignored in order to maintain standing with superiors by acting as if operations are without flaw. Managers cover for each other's actions in the face of complaints lodged against them from both customers and employees alike. Management can and will choose to ignore any behavioral problems amongst themselves such as cursing at associates, berating associates in front of customers, and yelling at associates. Even when approaching the store manager directly and on multiple occasions concerning specific and erroneous issues about the behavior of immediate management, you can expect to be ignored and eventually told to stop and only concern yourself with your own actions. The works load for the job is also immense. Primary responsibilities include the merchandising of products and sales, however the only metrics which are measured and used to determine job performance, pay and raises and cuts, and job security are sales. However, you are treated as if you are responsible for many other things. The sales quotas are ridiculous and completely arbitrary without regard for associated experience or store performance overall. Rural stores have the same quotas as urban stores which have exponential levels of foot traffic by comparison. It is a very skewed and antiquated way of conducting business in retail. The amount of time allotted to actually selling makes it nearly impossible to achieve the quotas and prevent deficit because almost 80% of time spent on the floor is devoted to marking down items and rearranging displays and merchandise. In doing this, the "pushy" sales associate comes out in every employee in order to coerce customers into buying items against an ever-present time crunch. This in turn gives the appearance that Dillard's is an undesirable place to shop because of the nature of the sales associates. Dillard's facilities logistical capabilities are very dated and translate to an unsafe work environment for employees. Store still rely on dot matrix printers and computers from the late 80's for primary functions such as registries, reports, and inventory control. This makes it much harder for the company to operate and provide quality service options to it's customers. The facilities often have issues with electricity, roof leakage, and loss prevention. Wiring is left unmaintained and causes outages in parking lot lights and adds to a real threat of customers and employees walking to their cars at night. When it rains, resources such as large trash bins used for the daily disposal of packaging and miscellaneous paper waste must be diverted to water collection. Lastly, there are no modern loss prevention tools that are implemented in stores such as electronic alarm or ink tags, entry sensors, or even camera systems. Camera systems are old and give poor coverage of the store, leaving open large holes for the exploitation of criminals. Shoplifting is rampant and armed robberies have happened in stores because criminals understand the shameful lack of security at Dillard's stores.