Company: Apple
Date: 2018-04-05
Overall rating: 4/5
Employment status: former
Experience level: Junior

(Product Zone Specialist) Great team and benefits, but can get Veeerrryyyy boring
Pros: - A great team seems to be almost a universal thing! I’ve made some really great friends. It’s insane that you can work on a team of 100 or so people and like 80-odd of them. 

- Can’t argue with the benefits; gym, dental, private health care. If you go away on business, the expense allowance is insane.

- I worked here full time for a year after graduation and struggled with boredom: however, I can see this being an Amazing part time job for students, and would encourage any one looking for part time work and a little extra money to apply - pay is very fair. If you do need to stay in retail for a while after graduation, you’ll be in a much better position to progress and pick up some more exciting work if you’ve put in a few years as a student. My old store has TEs and geniuses who are 20/21 who’ve been working their since they were 17.

- progression seems to be good (at the moment - BATTERY GATE) on the genius bar! If you’d like to stay at apple for a couple of years, I think the GB is definitely the way to go. In general, the GB seems to retain more staff as well - PZ can have a bit of a high turn over.

- I did actually feel like management cared about me and my progression. I think the culture at apple, over all, is very caring. Just little things - like people being prepared to pick up stuff like coffee or pain killers for you while they’re out on break - if you go on holiday, everyone will ask you if you enjoyed yourself/where you went. And after putting in my notice, everyone was very congradulatory and supportive. 

- as you read over my cons REMEMBER: as far as customer service jobs go, this is by far and away the best one I’ve worked.
Cons: - progression (particularly on product zone) is slow slow slow - seems very “right place right time”.

- If you’re interested in a creative position, Good Luck, those very rarely come up, and positions seem to be universally taken up by people who’ve worked for the company for 5+ years

- to continue the above point, things can feel like a bit of an Old Boys Club - but steps were being made to change that.

- at the end of the day, it is a retail job so you’re still dealing with general public! I think it’s particularly bad if you’re stuck in a mall rather than a stand alone store - but we had some Weird As Heck regulars to deal with, particularly notable at our store: a young autistic man with a penchant for harrassing young female memebers of staff.

- if you get sucked into Visual Merchandising (like I did) prepare to be very frustrated! It’ll keep you busy, but honestly VM can attract some very bossy, nuerotic people. 
The vibe from management is very if something is broken “why is this broken, why aren’t you fixing it” then, if you are fixing it “why aren’t you on the shop floor”
Would I say avoid VM at all costs? No! Fab oppourtunities with new store openings and becoming a global mentor, but it might be more of a pain than it’s worth.

- it’s hard to stand out in such a big company, and hard to develop your Stock Competancies beyond “I can give extremely good customer Service.” There are very few oppourtunities for you to pick up niche little responsabilities (ie: at a previous retail job where the team was tiny, I wrote all the copy emails for our store) to keep you busy or pad out your experience beyond standard customer service.
I’ve gotten a new job in marketing, and all of my examples at interview I had to pull from working in smaller business, or side projects (and if you want to get out of retail while working at apple I’m afraid you will need side projects) 

- I really struggled with boredom on PZ during off seasons (ie: January - July), honestly I basically ended up taking over Visual Merchandising, not because I Love Fixing Display Cables but because I was so out of my mind bored. 

- I appreciated the guesture but clapouts are absolutely mortifying. This varies store to store, but I hate clapping on command (makes me feel like trained animal) and some stores have a prescribed DOUBLE CLAP! For the staff - occasionally the mentality at apple can feel a little Cult-Like and the clapping really doesn’t help.

- People from corporate and people trying to go corporate are normally kind of Awful - robotic, brushed aluminium, humourless droids.