Guitar Center reviews

2.8

41% would recommend to a friend

(2,729 total reviews)
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Gabe Dalporto

28% approve of CEO

24% positive business outlook

Guitar Center has an employee rating of 2.8 out of 5 stars, based on 2,729 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have an average working experience there. The Guitar Center employee rating is 21% below average for employers within the Retail & Wholesale industry (3.5 stars).

Reviews by job title

3K reviews
3.0
Jun 28, 2022
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

-pay once a SM is finally competitive -coworkers are amazing -when earn bonuses it’s worth it -employee discount -open door policy -can lead a team , inspire people

Cons

-random last minute changes (EXTREME LAST MINUTE COMMUNICATION-that always results in urgent deadlines to relay the message to your team.) -HR is not helpful -they need to be available to provide more training to SM’s -literally no autonomy. Everything has to get funneled through upper management -terrible systems (extremely outdated) -extreme lag -top bonus payouts are so hard to achieve -plannograms and displays that don’t make sense for every store since they are all different with different inventory -no consistent training for policy and procedures (each store had a different way like with repairs etc) -too many unnecessary conference calls -labor cuts fall on SM bc you’re salaried -high turnaround with lower management (especially leads bc no competitive pay) -terrible pay for operations (plus have to share hours with sales and ops resulting in not enough ops hours) -further falling on management -inconsistent pay between position to position, person to person -no merit increases except for during annual reviews (meaning, if someone severely underpaid that’s doing an excellent job asks or needs more money, we don’t even consider it bc we only can do an increase one time a year , then when they quit, the next person we hire to replace them we can pay more for what that person would have been satisfied with. So we’d basically loose a good worker, pay to train someone else (who may or may not work out tbd since they are new), background check and onboarding costs. It makes no sense you’d think it took more paperwork and costs to go that route rather than do an out of cycle pay increase for a good worker.

1.0
Jun 25, 2022
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Great industry important to the arts.

Cons

Two faced executives who enjoy firing people to save money and get the rest of their staff to worry and work harder. The pandemic helped juice their sales. Now that it's over, they are really hurting. Comps will be really down. People also keep resigning because culture is so toxic.

2.0
Dec 16, 2021
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

It's fun to be surrounded by music and gear, you learn a lot that can actually benefit you as a musician. EMPLOYEE DISCOUNT IS SO GOOD Most of my coworkers were really nice and hard-working people and I would do my best to help them go above and beyond sales goals each and every day. I loved being able to talk with musicians and set people up with something that would work for them and give them actual advice from my own experience. It feels good to help people along their journey and see their progress over time.

Cons

Low pay for the tasks I was performing after promotion to manager. Stick to just sales and you'll actually be happy with it! It's hard work but it's emotionally way more rewarding than any other retail I've done. I was sexually harassed and relentlessly bullied by my store manager, and had to contact HR. HR was prompt in addressing it, but he knew I was the one who complained and they didn't fire him even after he would actually scream at employees on the floor (amongst other terrible things), so I felt it completely hopeless and quit for my own safety.

Viewing 103 - 105 of 2,729 Reviews

Glassdoor has 2,793 Guitar Center reviews submitted anonymously by Guitar Center employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Guitar Center is right for you.