Fast paced, often low reward. - Assistant Manager Guitar Center Employee Review

4.0
7 Mar 2012
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

If you are a musician, it will be tough to find a better place to work. The discounts are immensely helpful when it comes to gathering your gear. However, sometimes it is difficult to find a reward in the (often) large amounts of work you are asked to do. The concept is wonderful: Work in an environment where you are able to sell gear to people who need it. Commission makes sense in this workplace; sell a larger item, see a larger reward. However, this is about where the problems start.

Cons

Although as a GC employee you are working in the largest music retail supplier in the US, you are not readily equipped to sell that merchandise, which leads to the misconception that employees are ignorant. This is often not by choice. Without proper training on new items (which of course is supposed to be covered in the online certifications, but this feels more like homework than actual knowledge building), we are often left without an answer when a customer asks about a new piece of gear. This leads to wasted time using the dreadfully slow computer terminals to locate an answer. We are ill equipped, underappreciated, and under compensated.

Explore other reviews about Guitar Center

5.0
9 Jan 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Got to work with so many people

Cons

Long hours during holidays were rough

1.0
29 Jun 2026
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Employee discounts are the biggest reason why people work here, as the discount is really good.

Cons

Your experience working at Guitar Center will largely depend on which store you work at. Some stores have a good management team and employees and are fun to work at. But a lot of stores do not have a qualified management team and they have a staff that is not fun to work with. My location needed a new store manager and instead of promoting the ops manager who knew the store better than anyone else and was with the company for 15+ years working at multiple locations, corporate instead promoted a customer service lead who had been with the company less than 2 years and didn't have management experience. These are the people that corporate decides so often to run their stores.

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