Upper Management not connected to workforce - Anonymous employee Guitar Center Employee Review

3.0
Jul 15, 2015
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The people are great. I always enjoyed coming into the building everyday. The gear perks were nice even if you weren't a musician. Casual but business appropriate attire. You could wear T-shirts, but not with a print on it unless it had a music theme. Decent pay. A few decent meeting spaces.

Cons

The corporate office. Every floor creaks like you're going to fall through. Most of the office furniture is 20+ years old. Cubes are ok, but too many silos between departments. Horrible vacation policies when you start, no matching 401k, ok health benefits. Massive cost cuttings across the board is a pro and con. Lots of waste that needs to be cut in order to remain cash positive. No personal development training.

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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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