Pros
Met and worked with many great, creative individuals. One of the few remaining companies that does window installations. It's a nice mix of a physical job, some computer work, and then individual and team projects. Always a full-time gig and your hours will never be cut (7am-4pm is the typical schedule). If your hours are cut, it's a really rare situation. Weekends off or team rotates on who works on Saturday. 20% discount for regular workers, 30% for managers and 4 times a year they do a week where your discount goes to 30% and 40%. Paid holidays and typically VM teams get to take those holidays off which is not common in retail. You start earning PTO right away and the rate you earn PTO increases every 5 years.
Cons
The cons list has grown over the years. - a ton of jobs have been cut over the last 6-ish years. Including VM manager jobs. Many of these roles became "combo-store" roles meaning you have to almost act like a district VM manager, but still get paid like you manage 1 store - if you're in Visual Merchandising your pigeon-holed into that role and it's really hard to branch out to other positions and positions at corporate - step program for pay caps you at a certain rate by your 3rd year - Since 2020 and cutting the "divisional regional manager" jobs, VMs have to act as them. Basically teaching department and assistant managers standards, trends, merchandising, business, etc. This can be very challenging if you don't have the support of the store manager... Also no increase in pay for more job expectations - very few assistant VM positions, so if you want to "move down the pyramid" after 3 years, you better be ready to move across the country. Same goes for a manager position. - some states ignore labor laws and you could be working 12+ hours, overnight - some stores can be very challenging as a VM to work in, if you do not have the support of a good store manager. It can easily become a blame game, "Visual told me this!" Or "Wah! Visual is making me do that." - Sometimes it can be a battle between department managers and visual merchandisers - VM tracks business too, and helps to increase sales. But very rarely gets recognized for our contribution (maybe if you have a good store manager) but never at a corporate level - HR no longer exists and it's just a chat feature or you have to call in. - Medical and dental benefits are getting more and more expensive - Paid maternity/paternity leave is only 60% pay (it's 80-100% if you are a regional manager or corporate employee) And you HAVE to apply for state benefits so that your state foots the majority of that 60% you get while Nordstrom just kinda pitches in a little bit.