DSW reviews

3.4

50% would recommend to a friend

(4,075 total reviews)

Doug Howe

58% approve of CEO

34% positive business outlook

DSW has an employee rating of 3.4 out of 5 stars, based on 4,075 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The DSW employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Retail & Wholesale industry (3.5 stars).

Reviews by job title

4K reviews
4.0
Sep 20, 2010
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

DSW has decent hourly wages for sales associates, a nice environment, and encouraging management.

Cons

Not a lot of opportunity to advance, getting enough hours is tough because of the amount of employees on staff, and management basically forces employees to follow customers around and bother them in attempts to make sales.

3.0
Sep 3, 2010
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Excellent discounts if you love shoes and great benefits package. Good work-life balance. Some of the best managers have worked at DSW. Great place to develop your business IQ.

Cons

DSW was a great place to work at one time. However a lot has changed. More often than not, depending on the store, you can get overwhelmed with the amount of work/tasks that needs to be completed (especially freight/shipment and merchandising). There's little reward if any for all the hard work. I hear more complaints from managers than I hear about enjoyment of the job on a weekly basis. I have also never heard the words "I enjoy coming to work at DSW" and I get the feeling people have grown comfortable and learn to deal with the issues in their own way. There's a revolving door of managers about every two or so years (both upper management and store level). Due to the lack of managers in the stores, when one person decides to leave for whatever reason, there is not an effective succession plan in place to replace managers. It's like a never ending issue that will never be resolved. In fact some managers leave after a month or decide to go on leave and never come back. Upper management says there's enough managers, but being in the trenches of a store on a daily basis gives you a completely different perspective, especially when you have a bare minimum management staff. Expect overtime and frequent schedule changes which can ruin your weekend plans or appointments. Plus, some management members have been in their positions for 4-7 years without any potential for growth opportunities. The biggest take-a-way from a manager's perspective is that it is hard to find people you can trust in DSW (from store management to upper management).

4.0
Aug 14, 2010
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

starting wage is $8, thats pretty good for a job like this. most mall sales jobs start at min wage. most of the customers dont need alot of attention, they know what theyre looking for. eye candy, theres plenty of cute girls working there.

Cons

its retail, so theres no weekends off. youre still dealing with the public, so theres going to be the occasional stuck up person who needs too much attention. if you want more than 20 hours a week, then this is not the place for you

Viewing 4057 - 4059 of 4,075 Reviews

Glassdoor has 4,152 DSW reviews submitted anonymously by DSW employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if DSW is right for you.