Another music industry job full of lies and false hope - Sales Associate Guitar Center Employee Review

1.0
Feb 1, 2015
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- discount is at cost prices. ( however if you are a real grownup you will never be able to make enough money to actually by anything)

Cons

The pay structure is horrible. Example: the local REI sporting goods store starting pay is $11.25/hr multiply that by 40hrs per week = $1800/month Guitar center will not give a new employee 40hrs/week that's reserved for assistant managers. They say it's because I won't hit commission goals with 40 hrs. Ok so guitar center in my area is $9/hr with commission. Commission structure in its simplest for is: your gross profit has to equal or exceed you paycheck in order to get commission. At $8,000 of profit you get $200 bonus same at $10k and 12k. So with average of 28hrs/week as a full time worker, with the 3 tiers of Comission bonuses (which is nearly impossible to obtain) my monthly paycheck would be $1,608. What I would need to do to actually hit $12,000 in profit per month: - steal fellow coworkers customers - put myself on sales tickets that I had no part of - hover by the front door and talk to customers first. - presend I'm talking to employees in other departments when my department is slow so I can try and get their customers. - whine, complain and fight my way into others sales claiming I should be on a sales ticket and make management change the ticket to give me a percentage. - issue a gift card payment to a customer I know a fellow employee was working with , then use that gift card to purchase their items so the records don't show that original employee should get any credit for sale because it was a gift card purchase associated to the purchase rather than physical items. I am personally not the above type of person so at most on a good month I can reach tier one of comission (especially on my weekly hours) which would be $1,208 per month. I would say a 40hr/week job at REI beats guitar center.

Explore other reviews about Guitar Center

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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