Pros
Gear discounts and gear training. Most employees are great to work with. You have access to a medical clinic with no charge (yet limited to what they can do for you). A "Perks" card for discounts around town at other businesses. Discounted concert tickets when at the Sweetwater Pavilion or The Clyde.
Cons
Come one and come all and join the magical Sweetwater because we're changing lives! Get ready to drink the Kool-Aid. 44 hours/week required for new hires, but that's a far cry from what you actually have to work to be successful here. Keep your head down and don't rock the boat and tell your friends to join us! The morning meetings can feel more like an evangelical church service than an actual worth while meeting. These are usually led by former Guitar Center Managers - most without any actual experience as a Sales Engineer. Some newer Sales Managers were recent Sales Engineers and the rest haven't been on the phones in a 10+ years and just tell stories of how hard it was when they did the job. The new "minimum standards" - while not hard to hit - have signaled a transition from a somewhat team atmosphere and autonomy to run your "business" as you see fit to just having the numbers of people to answer all of the calls. These standards include 5 1/2 hrs of phone availability per/day, attendance, tardies, clocking in/out on time, 85% incoming call answer rate, and more. They will speak to you over an over again from your start day about "having grace" for not only your customers but for each other, however this is far from the reality these days. Multiple Sales Engineers are now without a job or fighting for their job due to these standards being used with no context of why the employee may have not been able to meet them. Recently a fellow Sales Engineer got Covid and had to stay home at Sweetwater's Medical Clinic's request and he ended up going over his PDO that he had left and he now could possibly lose his job because this triggered a "minimum standard". He subsequently was written up for it and had to make the day up which always ends up being a weekend day - regardless if you've worked well over your required hours for the month. Management won't bat an eye and allow you to be the fall guy if it helps them quell a customer fire that you probably didn't start in the first place. Management acts as if they are working for you but they obviously aren't. Many feel as if we are more a number now than a colleague. Since the new minimum standards have gone into place, any actual personal relationship you may have with them as actual humans is out the door because they have to tow the line. It's hard to give any feedback that you feel won't be used against you possibly in the future. The feedback survey is actually done in-house instead of a 3rd party. They ask you if you want to give your name or employee number - really? Our systems are down nearly every day that affect our ability to do our actual work - calls, add notes, write invoices, make quotes, etc. This can also affect our stats for the minimum standards if you have to log out of your phone due to the system not running efficiently or at all. No upward movement opportunities really from sales. I see the diversity thing being brought up a lot. There's definitely been an uptick in diversity hires the last few years which is wonderful. However, the company is surely exploiting them in company ads and recruiting efforts. Also, many of the pictures used on the website that tell you to call your Sales Engineer aren't actually Sales Engineers. They're pictures of women and people of color who work in other departments and have no connection to sales outside of working for Sweetwater. Just a heads up - you cannot return any item you buy as an employee and can only sell it within Sweetwater for a year. While this makes sense 99% of the time, it sucks when you have that one cable that ended up being incorrect and you're then stuck with it and have no other use.
