Cult-Like, Sometimes Fun, Underpaid - Department Manager Guitar Center Employee Review

2.0
Jun 25, 2010
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Fun environment. Lots of Gear. Co-workers generally awesome. Do what you love. Rare opportunity to put knowledge about gear to good use while honing sales skills.

Cons

Very low pay to performance ratio. Non-existant management track. Cold calling. Used car sales lot environment. Cult-like slogans and reluctance to question policies. Unnecessarily competitive. 1.5% of gross and 10% of gp (gross profit) usually=peanuts. You must "fade" past $6 and hour salary, meaning the percentages apply to your salary first. Turnover is high enough that there is no incentive to change these policies. I went in thinking this would be something akin to the management training track my mom went into at Federated Department Stores after college. I was wrong.

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5.0
Jan 9, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Got to work with so many people

Cons

Long hours during holidays were rough

1.0
Jun 29, 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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