Racist Company + Low Pay - Marketing Director Guitar Center Employee Review

1.0
2 Feb 2022
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The only pros - discount on music gear

Cons

This company is filled with white employees, mainly from Westlake Village/Thousand Oaks/Simi Valley, with absolutely zero diversity. The director above is all white, no Black, Latinx, or Asian employees. Industry pay is the lowest across all roles and service lines. Leadership leads with fear ONLY. Most of the time, people in the leading positions don't have the education and right background to manage their departments—no growth and learning opportunities. If you want to switch departments, you must deal with internal politics. Compensation package and health insurance are the worst possible. Every year regular layoffs since 2015. HR is useless because if you report discrimination of any kind; they brush it off, ignore you and wait for the next round of layoffs to get rid of you. GC leadership doesn't know what Work/Life balance means. You are supposed to engage in Friday evening text messaging regularly past 9 pm to work on projects because directors of other departments are lazy to respond during the week work hours. If you work overtime, then you are considered a good employee. This company is doing everything backward.

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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