Company: Apple
Date: 2012-06-09
Overall rating: 3/5
Employment status: current
Experience level: Junior

Great Retail job. Not so great career.
Pros: - Working with amazing, brilliant, intelligent and funny people. Apple can afford to be extremely selective in the hiring process, and it shows in the caliber of the people they employ.
- The pay is far above average for retail.
- Part time employees are eligible for benefits.
- Great discounts on Apple products as well as some third party products and services.
- Good environment for learning technical skills and troubleshooting
- Apple looks great on your resume.
Cons: - Like any retail environment, your mileage will vary based on location and management. Culture can be very different from store to store.
- The vast, vast majority of hiring for full time, career level positions is done externally, despite the kool-aid about development and opportunities that is poured down your throat during training. No matter how good you are at your job, there's politics and favoritism when it comes to who gets promoted.
- As a Specialist, you will deal with hundreds of angry people with broken devices that you can't fix and the next genius bar appointment may not be for hours- or the next day. A lot of stress and rage will be thrown in your direction for things that are not your fault and that you can't change.
- Scheduling is terrible and inconsistent, making it hard to maintain a work/life balance, but again, I don't fault Apple for this necessarily as it is standard for retail.