Do not recommend to gigging musicians or anyone, really - Sales Associate Guitar Center Employee Review

2.0
Oct 7, 2015
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Amazing discount, you get to buy stuff at cost. I got pretty lucky and my coworkers were awesome. You learn a lot about gear and talk about music all day. It really is a great place for networking, if you're friendly with the right customers you can use it to further your own career as a musician.

Cons

The company does not care for its employees and the turnover rate is unbelievably high. We lost a lot of valuable talent in the year I was working there and no efforts were made to keep these employees whatsoever. It is also pretty much a self-taught job, the "training" modules will do you no good on the sales floor, so if you are just starting out, be prepared to be lost a lot and fumble all over yourself until you get your bearings. And when they hire new people, get ready to be the one training them, which frankly takes away from time that you could be making sales. Also, their computer systems are unbelievably slow and buggy, to both employees' and customers' frustration. Considering that they haven't updated their in-store system since the 80s (c'mon it's in DOS guys), that's to be expected. And don't fool yourself, it is still a retail job at the end of it all, and you will be working nights and weekends if you leave your availability open for that. This means that you won't be able to do gigs on weekends if you close all the time, unless you constantly move around your schedule. It is very unstable in this way, so if you're looking for some sort of day job in which you can work by day and gig by night, this isn't it. Ironic right?

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5.0
May 5, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

You get a good discount

Cons

You work retail, which is difficult

3.0
Jul 1, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Sweet deals and discounts Coworkers are very pleasant to work with Good as extra income Good for aspiring musicians to network with experts of the industry

Cons

Obsolete softwares Scheduling system software that is thenmost imperative tool as of it will be the backbone of a lesson lead for your team of instructors success it's also somewhat obsolete amd constantly crashing both IT and Upper management are aware. IT is very diligent and pleasant to work with but Upper management expects their lessons lead to work and deliver at 100% capacity while they continue to have an operating system that only works at 75% capacity, just beware of that and if you're willing to work under those conditions. With that put there go at your own discretion. Nobody gets Christmas/winter holiday vacation time off, also go at your own discretion on that one especially if you have kids and family looking for work-life-balance.

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