Company: Apple
Date: 2020-02-16
Overall rating: 3/5
Employment status: current
Experience level: Junior

At the end of the day it is a sales job.
Pros: Great on-boarding process, even for part time season workers. Lots of classic Apple, feel good, cult vibe. Company mission is lofty. Relatively flat managerial hierarchy means you can approach anyone on the floor for help without getting an "That's not my job" or "I'm too important to ask" attitude. The majority of my co-workers were friendly and helpful. Again, very little attitude towards new people. Met some interesting and friendly folks.

25% discount for you. 10% discount for friends and family.

People team kept things interesting with fun and weekly events.

$19 hr decent rate for retail.

Upfront about seasonal work opportunities to stay and general attitude towards workers.
Cons: If you ever buy anything at Apple and get a survey PLEASE FILL IT OUT. You have no idea how much it means to the person who sold you your device. Fill out the whole thing!

After all the rah rah APPLE IS GREAT dies down it is a sales job. For the most part Apple products sell themselves. Most people tend to know what they want. They come to the store for the Apple experience. After that you're being judged on stuff like adding AppleCare+, Apple Business introductions and other metrics. 

Training feels rushed. 3 weeks of partial drilling of sales highlights. Too much to know for the incredibly complicated world of products, cell phone plans, AppleCare+ and Genius Bar. Basically they pound you full of the overview and you'll pick up the rest on the floor. 

Seasonal workers are exposed to the benefits and perks of the full time employees but can't participate. Feels bad. You get some of the benefits but not others and it is often not clear.

Had more experienced staff snipe business referrals from customers I was working with.

I had one interaction with my team leader in 4 months. Nice guy but felt very uninterested in our team growth.  I'd be curious to see what the retention was per team related to the team leaders.

Had coworkers tell me they avoided taking customers who appeared to be from abroad due to the likelihood that they wouldn't be able to attach AppleCare+ to a sale and drive down their numbers. Managers seem to be oblivious to that fact.

Constant drumbeat for retail employees to care and give back to the community with employee donations and volunteering. Asking people making  $25k a year to donate and volunteer for things felt weird. While they are all very earnest and good causes, they should be teaching financial planning seminars more often. The amount of coworkers spending their paychecks back into Apple was astounding.

Seasonal workers are expected to put in time on their own development despite not having access to the tools the full time staff have. It is unclear when you're supposed to put in this time as your work week if fully scheduled.