Company: Apple
Date: 2016-05-11
Overall rating: 3/5
Employment status: former
Experience level: Junior

A double-edged sword
Pros: * Pay rate was fantastic! Apple is hard to beat when it comes to them treating employees well from the pay rate and benefits included. Various perks for healthcare, 401K plans and other stock options, and other perks such as free software were really nice and helped employees feel more valued as opposed to just feeling like a number.

* Discounts on Apple products and services (consisting of various set percentage discounts and one-time per 3 year discounts to get an even larger discount; really helps a lot when you want something new and shiny :) ).

* Hours for work were almost always readily available - there are practically a near endless amount of overtime hour options available, and especially so during the holiday seasons or peak times such as a new product or major software update launch.

* Being able to work from home is a huge perk! You never have to worry about any kind of dress code or commuting costs. In addition, Apple will reimburse you for your phone and internet bills monthly! 

* Apple regularly sends little freebie gifts to employees every few months or so. It's a really good feeling to open your mailbox and randomly receive a free gift such as a t-shirt, coffee mug, or jacket.

* While you may not have a guaranteed job, as employees are regularly reviewed yearly on performance metrics, if you are able to meet these jobs there are certainly opportunities available for you. Those opportunities may manifest themselves as either job extensions in your current position, a pay raise, or perhaps a promotion to an entirely new role. One thing that I am happy to see Apple do is promote existing employees within their company rather than just look outward to find a candidate.

* In a given work day as an employee, you usually learn something new. Even if you don't expect yourself to learn something a new, a new situation or customer type might throw your brain for a loop. I consider this element of uncertainty a positive, as I like taking on challenges and learning new things in the process.
Cons: * Metrics performance goals are *FAR* too highly focused on and too micromanaged - you can be a fantastic employee at Apple, but if your metric numbers even look a little bit off in one area, expect to receive lengthy coaching from your manager. Management needs to realize that these numbers are largely out of control of the advisor, as the customer is the person with the ultimate say and can issue a rating that may or may not be appropriate for any or no given reason. In addition, metrics performance became practically impossible to achieve once management started issuing additional roles for the existing employees. For example - initially our team started off as T1 iOS advisors, where we would solely troubleshoot and help issues related to iOS-based products for the most part. However, over time once promotions came down the line, at the T2 level you are expected to act as a 'final point of contact' for customers regardless of their issue in the majority of situations. In addition, you take on additional products and services that you must be familiar with, and internal information is constantly being changed and updated which may lead to a different protocol for approaching certain issues. Not only that, but over time they expected all iOS advisors to be cross trained for Mac computer products as well - guess what that ended up doing? It ended up making every advisor be expected to know literally *everything* about practically every product and service, while drastically increasing the workload in any given day to the point where you never had a chance to take a breather. The T2 advisors were also being forwarded blind calls from T1 advisors, so these last two points significantly added onto the burden of the employee to the point where it becomes too much to handle.

* Forget about having any kind of work/life balance. At Apple, your primary focus is always expected to be about the job and nothing else. Expect emails from management or pressure from your team manager to take on additional hours. While management will sometimes issue contests based on employees who take on additional hours, they are completely random as you would expect (given that there are thousands of employees on shift at any given time). In addition, your work schedule typically changes every 3 months in the role. Every 3 months, you will have to submit a new shift bid and *hopefully* get the appropriate days and times you're looking for.

* At the T2 level especially, customers often tended to be rude. At the T1 level when I initially started off this issue was negated somewhat due to the larger influx of calls, but rude customers are to be expected in a customer service/technical support based role. To be fair, quite a few customers are also enjoyable to speak with. :)

* This last point may or may not be an issue for employees, depending on the team that you are randomly placed into - during complex or difficult situations during a call, you may or may not be able to rely on support from your fellow team members/manager. Again, this point can be either a pro or con depending on the situation for the employee (I had both variants happen throughout my tenure at Apple).