Apple Reviews

Current Employee – been working at Apple

Pros – The caliber of most my co-workers is exceptional.

Cons – Not sure what to put as a negative.

Advice to Senior Management – To much internal competitiveness distracts us from competing with our real business competitors.

Current Employee – been working at Apple

Pros – good company good pay good benefit

Cons – busy company stressful working enviroment

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Apple

Pros – People seem to respect the fact that you work for Apple. Apple trains its employees how to communicate well with people. Diverse people to work with. Decent discounts, not great! Health insurance is decent. Guaranteed 15min breaks and lunches. They used to work really well with Part-time employee scheduling, but right before I left they were cracking down on wanting employees to work more without added benefits. On launch days, food and drink was provided for staff.

Cons – Even though I had a very high percentage of sales in certain areas and they gave me praise I never got promoted. One reason stated by a manager was that I was doing to well in the area that I was in so and they couldn't afford to lose me to another area of the store, ie. Genius. I then asked for a raise and only annual raises are given...A mere .45 cents. Work almost full-time hours without the full-time pay or benefits. For a company that is the most profitable in the world, you would think they would kick back a bit more for their employees.

Apple needs to figure out a better way to get the message across to customers on how the store operates. I spent so much time getting yelled at by unsatisfied customers because they didn't know they were suppose to check in or where to purchase an item. They greatly need to increase the staff for the amount of traffic each store receives on a daily basis. This understaffing lead to many unsatisfied customers taking it out on employees which in turn make for a very trying day, which turns into every work day.

Advice to Senior Management – Don't hire people off the streets when someone has been working in the store and is qualified for the position/promotion. Promote with-in when employees are performing to above satisfactory expectations. Learn how to keep the staff happy. When morale goes down people tend to hate their job and look elsewhere. Our particular store lost about 20 people in 2 weeks and 2 months later had lost aprx. 35-40 people total. That is a sign of bad management!

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Apple

Pros – Best benefits out there, the discount is pretty slick and hey, you work for Apple.

Cons – I worked retail at Best Buy and didn't feel so much as a cog as I did at Apple. In retail, you can progress quickly and do well and be recognised. At Apple Corporate, I knew people who'd been in the same middle-management job for 15 years. In a company growing at the rate of Apple, that's frightening.

Couple that with the compartmentalisation within Apple and it's hard to move around or up. People get too specialised and therefore, stuck.

Current Employee – been working at Apple

Pros – Pays enough.
Really customer oriented. I really value my time with each customer trying to help them out with their needs.

Cons – Could pay more.
Needs to be more sympathetic to full time students. They are terrible with being flexible with school schedules.
The sheer amount of employees can be overwhelming. I feel like I'm in high school again.
The type of employees Apple attracts can be annoying as well. If I wanted to go to Williamsburg to see a bunch of hipsters, I would have.

Advice to Senior Management – Pay is what any retail store in the city SHOULD be. So, the fact that Apple is doing rather well lately the pay could be higher.
If an employee shows interest in growing within the company and looks to move into corporate using his education, listen and help them out so that can happen.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Apple

Pros – Discount. The Pay is great for retail. Vacation time. Ability to try out new product before anyone else. Free software.

Cons – At first it was amazing. Now its turned into the GAP. it is retail and i understand that but make it fun again. don't concentrate on numbers give employees development help them grow ... let us wear flip flops n have a lot of earrings. bring the old apple back.

Advice to Senior Management – Forget about MobileMe one 2 one and apple care.. each of these will sell if the customer needs. make sure every employee leads. send them to apple corporate no matter the cost it is worth it to build up and give them a sense of pride. offer a proper exchange into apple corporate. Give your employees incentive to move to corporate and hire more of them. Apples stopped growing because you are taking people from microsoft and other companies that know nothing of the ideologies that once made apple amazing..

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Apple

Pros – Apple is one of the most innovative companies in the world. Being part of it is fun and interesting. Every day I learn something new and amazing about mac computers and devices. Full time benifits are great.

Cons – You have to completely buy into to the "Apple Speak" if you want to move up in the company. They say we are not a numbers driven company, but when it comes to promotions and pay raises you are partially based on those numbers. Also if you don't hit the numbers you get hassled about how you can position it better. Also to move up, they expect you to take on much more responsibility with out pay bumps or promotions. For example a sales specialist will be expected to order things for the break room. Incoming specialist get paid around $11 an hour with out commission. in a 6 month period I alone brought in $250,000 to the company. At a 1% commission that's $2,500! Plenty of people hit $1 million for the year!

Advice to Senior Management – I was up for a promotion to an FRS position, I was by far the most qualified. The manager told me that "You haven't paid the price of admission." After being with the company for a year, pulling long hours doing overnights and launches, I haven't paid the price of admission? All because I am not going to grand stand my accomplishments, and because I am not willing to sell One To One to people who don't need it. We are supposed to be thinking about our customers, but the managers at my store only have the numbers on their mind.

Current Employee – been working at Apple

Pros – I can't complain about the benifits or the pay. Also other people think it's cool. Working at home is nice. Customers are very nice compared to other call centers. Lots of perks.

Cons – It's still a phone tech support job and that is still awful even at Apple. In fact it might be worse because management does not have your back and is often reactionary to minor statistical fluctuations that don't persist over a day or so. Management often seems unfamiliar with the process of how we do our job and is a source of misinformation.

Advice to Senior Management – Here is how statistics work: If you average a 14 minute hold time over several months, one day of having a 15 minute hold time on the first of the month does not mean that you suck now. At least wait a few days to see if the trend holds up. Also do research before giving bad solutions.

Former Employee – worked at Apple

Pros – Great access to new and cool technology. Great to work with young people my age and share knowledge. Fantastic if you like helping people through problems or teaching them how to use their devices.

Cons – Horrible management structure. Some "Specialists" are not keen on the techno lingo...which creates problems for the "smart" ones in the store that end up fixing mistakes for everyone. No flexibility in management rules.

Advice to Senior Management – Be open and honest. No caddy bs. And please be on the same page. It is very annoying to play the "mom vs dad" game when trying to help out a customer.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Apple

Pros – Wonderful to be a part of growing the most fantastic retail company in the world. Good benefits, health, and discounts, and fun teamwork.

Cons – High stress, moved from store to store many many times. They would raise the bar of how much we were to do and then level off for a bit and then raise the bar again... this was repeated many times in a year. Continual change... daily change... constantly changing gears.

Advice to Senior Management – There were amazing managers there, but some were just not. The stress was overwhelming and some knew how to diffuse it and work WITH a team but others just let it fester within.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend