Great Place to Start - Sales Associaate Guitar Center Employee Review

3.0
Nov 28, 2018
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Fun place to work when you're young and in a band. You're not going to make a ton of money, but you have access to the newest gear as well as some great connections in the local music scene. Plus you kinda feel like a rock star when you walk into a place you've never been before and are recognized as "the GC guy!"

Cons

Very different place than it used to be. Commission caps at 3% of your GS and in order to get that you need to have over $500 sales per hour, so unless you're in a high volume store or it's the holidays, good luck making any real money. You're expected to repack and resell returned items and you're encouraged to sell the store branded goods because of the huge margin. Forced to sell warranties that come stock through other companies and employees are encouraged to lie to customers about how they are used and what they cover. Management doesn't care about anything but hitting their own numbers and everything on the floor is very micromanaged. I was forced out after more than a decade because they could replace me with 3 part timers for the same amount of hours/less commission paid out than I cost.

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5.0
Jun 25, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Very flexible with hours working.

Cons

Difficult to stray away from Hal Leonard curriculum sometimes, but may be different now.

3.0
Jul 1, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Sweet deals and discounts Coworkers are very pleasant to work with Good as extra income Good for aspiring musicians to network with experts of the industry

Cons

Obsolete softwares Scheduling system software that is thenmost imperative tool as of it will be the backbone of a lesson lead for your team of instructors success it's also somewhat obsolete amd constantly crashing both IT and Upper management are aware. IT is very diligent and pleasant to work with but Upper management expects their lessons lead to work and deliver at 100% capacity while they continue to have an operating system that only works at 75% capacity, just beware of that and if you're willing to work under those conditions. With that put there go at your own discretion. Nobody gets Christmas/winter holiday vacation time off, also go at your own discretion on that one especially if you have kids and family looking for work-life-balance.

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