Company: Apple
Date: 2013-07-21
Overall rating: 3/5
Employment status: former
Experience level: Junior

It's definitely a good college job. Not sure after that.
Pros: The tuition reimbursement is excellent. 

The college program comes with a seasonal schedule (full time in summer, part time during school), with full benefits even during the part time phase.

The people are pretty cool for the most part.

There seem to be a few opportunities for advancement, at least within the AppleCare department. Not really a track toward a fulfilling career for 99% of people, but at least a chance to get promoted within the job and make a few more bucks.

Working from home can be very convenient.

The pay is decent for a college job, especially when considered alongside the tuition money.

The product discounts are pretty good for people who want to buy Apple products. There are also several other discounts that third parties offer to Apple employees.
Cons: The training is shaky at best, focusing on how to talk to people (which is obviously important) but breezing past a lot of the technical knowledge required to do the job well. During the first month or two on the phones, most advisors are like fish out of water. Nobody seemed to know how to answer most of the tech questions, whom they should contact for a given issue, or which internal procedures applied to which situations. It works itself out with time and experience, but the training should be more thorough before people are put on the phones with customers.

There's a steady stream of calls from people who are ticked off and want troubleshooting help, but don't have AppleCare coverage. You have to tell those people, as nicely as possible, to either buy AppleCare for the device, pay $19 for a single issue, or try to find their own answers on the Apple website. Then, when they decline to pay for support and subsequently aren't happy with the outcome, you receive a 'dissatisfied' survey and get to discuss it with your manager. Dumb.