If you Bust Your ass, You will make money - Department Manager Guitar Center Employee Review

3.0
Oct 7, 2013
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

If You've ever seen the movie "Boiler Room"-Take that in a retail structure and you have Guitar Center. If this heavy stress environment appeals to you, you will make money. However when you break it down, the amount of work per hour you do versus what you actually take home is pretty paltry. I agree with a commission structure as a mean to drive a sales force, but having to pay back minimum wage is a smack in the face.

Cons

You essentially pay guitar center to sell their gear, This is absolutely ridiculous and one of the leading causes to unionization within certain stores in the company. Additionally, with this job one of the leading reasons that I lose sales is because only certain positions allow you to broker deals, and when you get that one @sshole that want's to grind you on price and you've already wasted enough time, you have to go back and forth middlemanning between you and whatever member of upper-management is helping you broker deals.

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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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