RIP GC 1959 to 2021 - Anonymous employee Guitar Center Employee Review

2.0
Feb 21, 2023
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

You'll make a million friends, learn tons of new gear, discounts, decent time off, chill atmosphere.

Cons

Majority of the customers left that shop here are super clueless or rude. The company 100% deserves this due to poor infrastructure and elimination of talented staff. The pay for entry level is absolutely comical, forcing stoned 19 year olds to close 5 Million Dollar stores would be defined as "pathetic" to anyone taking themselves seriously. The store manager does 5 jobs now, forcing them to dedicate time to selling picks and strings, cleaning bathrooms, and shipping warehouse items since hours are so tight. Company has 100% changed since the bankruptcy, cutting corners, laying off employees while blaming Covid as its response, regardless of having one of the best years in sales ever and applying to hit the stock market again. They recently rigged the commission structure by averaging the common sales per hour numbers, causing the majority of sales people to lose 30% to all of their commission checks, again claiming pandemic problems. Majority of talented long term employees have left in disgust, the stores are filthy, and corporate is absolutely clueless. If you're gonna work here, don't take it seriously.

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5.0
Jul 16, 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Management takes good care of you

Cons

No complaints that I can think of

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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