American Eagle Outfitters Reviews

Pros

-good management
-discount
- good atmosphere

Cons

-minimum wage
-no commission
-overnight stocking

Advice to Senior Management

good management

Pros

-Decent pay
-Flexible Hours
-Awesome co-workers (at my location)
-Laid-back work environment
-Respected brand
-Great discounts

Cons

-Senior Management = extremely pompous and arrogant. Biased towards women. Above the 'store manager' level, it's all women, with Jim sitting at the top. Good luck trying to move up if you're a guy.

-It's retail.

Advice to Senior Management

Break up the female "click."

Pros

Everyone is friendly, and there is room to be promoted.

Cons

Overnight floor sets. Having to work on Black Friday.

Advice to Senior Management

Make sure you are respectful but still aware of everything going on.

Pros

GREAT discount, good benefits, easy to move up in the company, great attitude, loyal company, great coworkers and management, fast paced and fun

Cons

schedule is a little wacky, not a guarantee on the number of hours you'll work each week, not a lot of praise

Pros

Given coupons to purchase American Eagle clothing without the pressure or dress codes that other companies such as Hollister that force you to wear their clothing and fit a certain mold. Also the atmosphere was bright and upbeat versus dark, scented, and stand off attitude.

Cons

Management did not take the time to work with new employees and basically let them stand around without direct. They needed to be more hands on.

Advice to Senior Management

Check in on your management and talk to entry level employees, they are the ones that have the freshest ideas and are not just trying to suck up to managers.

Pros

American Eagle Outfitters definitely offers a great learning environment for starting managers as well as for young adults looking for part-time work. Coaching and development happens real-time for associates, and management attempts to tailor each discussion to improving the associate's performance, not just pointing out weaknesses.
No matter what opportunities one may have coming into AEO, the company and team will do its best to develop those into core strengths.

Cons

There is a significant amount of "top-down" leadership in American Eagle Outfitters. Many policies and procedures developed in higher levels of management are focused on increasing "productivity", when in fact the actions put the store-level staff on increased time crunches, adding to a stress load that can grow exponentially without proper support.
There are inconsistencies in leadership training from store to store, which makes transferring difficult, as well as the introduction of new team members (who may not have followed a 'structured' training environment).
In short, the staff does tend to be underpaid, and unfortunately overworked severely, with increased tasks and projects given, with unrealistic time frames to complete in. The pay rates are very subjective, and can vary a significant amount from one individual to another (even for the same position).

Advice to Senior Management

Although employee fallout does happen, the individuals should not be treated as a commodity, easily replaced or 'excess' when performance lacks. Develop the team that is already in place, creating succession planning and more frequent reviews on performance. Make the criticism constructive, allowing a person to grow and develop, not negative to 'coach out' the employees.

Pros

The company has fairly flexible scheduling and gives competitive discounts to all employees. The company seems to try to build a very close team environment and you end up getting to know your coworkers really well. I ended up building some lifelong relationships with a few of my coworkers.

Cons

There was never a consistent hiring process and the quality of employees being hired varied significantly over the time I worked for the company. In such a close environment a few bad hires really ruin the workplace. While they offer flexible hours, they are very inconsistent with how many hours they give you and will use scheduling against their employees. If you ask for hours you will get them, but the second you ask for a few days off, or need a lighter week, they will begin to cut your hours and make it very difficult to get them back. In my experience, very few managers are ever properly trained on how to successfully lead a store and are very inappropriate in the workplace, unethical in their practices, and do not take their job seriously.

Advice to Senior Management

The store level employees are the people who are selling your products so pick them wisely. Stop hiring people based on availability. More importantly, hire managers who actually want to be there and are excited about the company. Never once did I have a manager (in over two years, with about eight different managers) that really seemed to care about the company.

Pros

People there are cool to work with.
Laid back place.
Good discounts.
Extra discounts on new season's line.

Cons

Shifts are too short.
Can become boring.

Pros

- Great discounts on clothing line
- Friendly environment
- Always busy, and always ways to find work during the day.

Cons

- Pay not very good.
- Management is very frustrating in that they rarely promote from within the store or even company.

Advice to Senior Management

I'd just inform them that in order for positive results, they must be willing to work as a team with the entry-level associates.

Pros

Most of the employees are friendly and work well with each other. There was never much animosity towards each other.

Cons

Very tough to move up and scheduling was all over the place. It was rarely consistent Definitely overrun with corporate policies.