Apple Reviews

Pros

people are awesome
products are great
the environment is like no other place in retail
the benefits are really good even por part-time

Cons

deal with some really bad customers at time, sometimes tough to grow if managers are not on your side, hard to get to corporate through here

Pros

Top-notch benefits package even for 20+ hour part time employees. Unbelievable health & dental insurance for about $120 a month, 25% discount on computers, 12% discount on stock purchase (up to 10% of salary), 50% matching 401(k) (up to 6% of salary), tuition reimbursement (up to $5000).

Cons

Very limited opportunities for advancement past the front-line technical support position. Constant focus on meeting the numbers. Limited interaction with coworkers. Limited & ineffective continuing technical training. If you aren't good at self-directed learning and troubleshooting you will not do well at this job.

The hourly pay is not commensurate with the abilities that you need to have to do the job well, and there is extremely little flexibility to reward more skilled employees with higher pay.
If you do a mediocre job then the pay is appropriate, if you do an excellent job, and have sharp technical skills, you could be making easily double or triple working as an independent consultant.

Advice to Senior Management

More competitive pay-rates. More opportunity for carrer advancement without having to 'pay your dues' by putting in the requisite number of years before moving up to Tier 2 and beyond. Much, Much more effective technical training for the Advisors who are less skilled, so that those of us who are more skilled don't have to clean up the problems they caused when customers call back.

Pros

Benefits, great people , discounts, job security

Cons

Limited growth once you've reach Genius, creative, or expert

Advice to Senior Management

Stop micro managing

Pros

- Great benefits
- Decent pay
- Access to your own computer with little site blocking (although you're technically not supposed to do it while on a call)
- Fairly easy work to learn and master

Cons

- Unreasonable customer expectations (e.g. customers feeling like they deserve a new iPhone because they have AppleCare, which is a warranty not insurance, after the phone is dropped)
- Very high goal targets (90% customer satisfaction) where irrelevant/incorrect (e.g. for another adviser) or really bad customer expectations are not weeded out

Advice to Senior Management

Don't just consider the numbers or goal target not met. Also look at how hard a person is working, especially when management can't figure out what's going wrong and thus can't give feedback on what needs correcting.

Pros

friendly and innovative environment to work for

Cons

stressful workload especially on service side

Advice to Senior Management

keep innovating atmosphere

Pros

The best reasons to work at Apple, aside from the employee discount, are the people that Apple considers employees. They are some of the most talented individuals I have ever met.

Cons

The only thing I didn't like was the hours I had to work; however, this falls more on a personal responsibility than a company's.

Advice to Senior Management

You guys were great mentors and I can only hope that our roads cross again in the future! You are the best management.

Pros

Work with stellar and deadly dedicated people on amazing products.
Learn what it is that makes Apple different.
Frequent opportunities to move to the project you like.
Receive broad and career changing visibility if you are able to do something great.
Forget longish and back breaking analysis work. It is acting by the seat of your pants that gets the job done in time and if you've really got the vibes, Apple is the place to be.
Enjoy good food and cool beer bashes.

Cons

With too many superstar, it's difficult to shine and sparkle. Everyone strives to get a rare chunk of management's attention, always. Coworkers are wisely behaving nice as only teamwork keeps you in the loop, which is so essential for survival at Apple. But don't be foolish. Everyone has her secret personal agenda.
Your boss will most likely be an accidentially promoted engineer, not a manager.
Good ideas are always welcome, but don't act surprised when yours are put down at first and later get presented by somebody else than you, in a meeting where you are not invited.
Be prepared to fight for your family life and against burn out, everyday.
Expectations and pressure can be almost unbearably high.
On a day where you decide to not work at night, everybody else on your team will and you will learn next morning that you have been blocking at least half of them.

Advice to Senior Management

Even though I feel that Apple is going to kill me in the long term, it's the greatest work place I've ever been part of. But there is tendencies towards too many keypoint slides and operatinal planning meetings. Don't lose your think different!

Pros

Benefits, third party discounts, professional training, looks good on a resume, good customer service training, management backs you up and doesn't step on your feet during customer interactions

Cons

in-store discount could be way better, "fearless feedback" from people on the same level as you who don't have the necessary experience to correct you

Advice to Senior Management

Opportunities for a bonus

Pros

Over, working at Apple Retail is an awesome experience. The training is fantastic and really thorough, the management are supportive and provide feedback constantly, and the people you work with are (for the most part) fun and easy-going. It can get crazy in the store at times because it's usually super packed with customers, but the facilities and processes that Apple has in place make it easy to get things done faster, simpler, and more efficient.

Cons

Growth is definitely there but you're constrained to the roles in a retail environment so eventually it seems there would be no were else to "grow".

Pros

Organized structure for retail environment
Great Discounts
Free software
Fun co-workers
Flexible schedule

Cons

Pay
Customers are very ill informed and rude often giving up at NOTHING in getting what they want
Most stores have 6+ managers, not all take leadership responsibilities the same
Hour unpaid lunch
retail = working till 10pm, holidays and weekends

Advice to Senior Management

Recognize top performers and redesign attendance policies