Guitar Center reviews

2.8

41% would recommend to a friend

(2,733 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 2,733 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
2.0
Dec 15, 2024
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Guitar Center fosters a terrific work culture. I've met some incredibly kind, hard-working people in my position who have a profound passion for music & the instruments themselves. Everyone from the sales representatives to the store managers form an excellent team.

Cons

Corporate consistently makes our jobs harder, whether by arbitrarily changing employees' hours, dragging their feet on officially promoting employees who are already working in higher roles in order to fill a vacancy, or whittling away at commission rates. They also require the Lessons instructors to be on site while making them clock out in between lessons, which seems like a violation of labor law. Making minimum wage while having to carefully handle & pack thousands of dollars worth of merchandise on a regular basis is also pretty irritating.

4.0
Dec 10, 2024
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

At the time the bonuses were crazy because we were comping against COVID numbers. The employee discount is roughly 20% off. If you can find a full-time position at GC you should get full benefits. In my experience if you got the right store manager, and the right support, working at Guitar Center can be fun and rewarding.

Cons

The commission structure has changed (so I have heard), such that it is much much harder to make meaningful commission. Also foot traffic is down, and I don't see it getting a whole lot better until the economy comes back (thanks dems). In 2024 I tried to apply at a store in Texas and I found out that for the most part they have done away with the full-time sales associate, opting for part-timers instead. Depending on the store, and the current state of inventory across GCs, selling could be a bit of a nightmare due to lack of stock, inaccurate counts on a dated POS system (at least while I was there), and the fact that returns hurt your commission and often times the item returned is barely resell-able so you end up with a bunch of "clearance" of "scratch and dent" items that no one buys for a long time (typically). This comes from 1 year of sales associate experience at store 335, 1 year as a LCSA (Lead Customer Service Associate at store 323, though they are called something else now), almost 2 full years as Sales Manager (2nd to the Store manager) at store 333, and a full year as a regular sales associate 333 and 332.

Viewing 226 - 228 of 2,733 Reviews

Glassdoor has 2,797 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.