Apple Reviews in Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN Area

Pros

atmosphere, talented people and lost of new technologies to work on.

Cons

nothing much. Things have been good

Advice to Senior Management

keep up the good job and try and diversify more.

Pros

Its definitely an exciting field to work in with a wide range of people to interact with. But, at the end of the day, its still retail. Great benefits, occasional opportunities for overtime, and no job there is really all that difficult, other than giving bad news about someone's computer.

Cons

There is really only so far you can go without moving to California. Anything past a middling level, in-store position will have such a high volume of competition that its very discouraging, and Apple appears to prefer outside hire's rather than promoting from within.

Pros

Excellent Benefits Package
Decent wage
QPromo, EPP, ESPP, Friends and family discounts
Inside technical information, software and hardware to play with
Great co-workers
Street cred

Cons

Customers (complaints)
NetPromoter
Points system (call in sick, 1 point, more than 6 minutes late, 1 point. Accumulate too many points during a quarter and you're fired)
Butt-kissing gets you promoted faster than doing actual work
"GAPple" management
Non-apple new-hires that don't get any training
Lack of space

Advice to Senior Management

Value your long-term employees. Compensate them fairly, give them the credit they deserve to do their jobs well and provide excellent service. Value your customer, without them we are nothing. Train your employees. Listen to your employee feedback and act upon it. Get rid of the "points" system. Be available and on the floor - not in the office with the door closed. Be an example, motivate your employees instead of always telling them what they are doing wrong or could do better, celebrate what they do RIGHT. Give more positive feedback. Reward great work. Don't turn Apple Retail into Circuit City.

Pros

Better than average pay, excellent benefits for full time employees, including stock options. Above average training for skill positions, opportunities to grow if you are the right "type". Access to internal knowledge of products. Excellent corporate support for employees. Often get a "bonus" at end of year - usually an iPod. Somewhat "glamourous" I guess, you may impress your friends if you work there. Excellent discounts (25% off one full system per year, 15% off other systems, 10-15% off product including 3rd party product, lots of partnership discounts and offers.) T-Shirts provided.

Cons

In Retail - management. They hired people with no knowledge and gave them no training. Communication was next to nothing. Netpromoter feedback was only communicated it it was negative. Incompetent people were promoted. Policies were continually ignored, broken or sometimes outright imagined. Employee feedback was ignored, and if recognized, it was shot down or patronized. More attention was paid to sales numbers than customer satisfaction. Training provided was to "increase the sale" rather than find the best solution for the customer. Lack of inter-store communication left our market in the dark and the customer experience scattered and varied.

Advice to Senior Management

Start focusing on the customer again. Be more selective in who you hire. Train the ones you do hire. Give more credit to the staff members who have worked there since the beginning. Grow slowly. Don't penalize good employees for the mistakes of incompetent ones. The time clock should not be a terminable offense. Stop over-promising to customers on goods and services we don't have the space or time to deliver. Defend your Geniuses. Honor your Creatives. Train and manage and observe your Specialists and Concierge. You can't manage the floor staff if you're never on the floor.

Pros

Apple is one of the best companies to work for because they genuinely care about their employees, the opportunities for learning are endless and you are constantly getting enriched. Another good reason to work for Apple is that you get to enrich your customer's lives each and every day in everything you do. Working in Apple Retail is so much fun, I go to work and I have nothing to complain about, it's just so much fun to educate people about the Mac, iPhone, iPod and Apple TV. There is always something going on at Apple and it shows when you come in. Between One to One, Workshops and the Genius Bar, we have it down to a science.

Cons

The downsides of working at Apple are that you are tight-lipped about just about everything. That's not the worst part. As a Mac Specialist, I looked for either a promotion to Full Time or Genius, and after being there for over one year, got looked over. I think it's more of a popularity contest than anything. Management doesn't look for who can complete the job well in terms of technical abilities, but who can make it look the best. The thing is that the qualifications don't mean anything to management and I hope that they see that it is a problem and fix it before they lose valuable candidates for certain positions.

Advice to Senior Management

I would look at Sr. Management, and tell them that while numbers are good, they aren't everything. The whole point of Apple Retail is not to sell the customer everything under the sun to make revenue. We initially were told to probe and find out what the customer could really use and explain the benefits of those products. Another is the path for career advancement, it is not supposed to be popularity-based, it is meant to be something that is a good fit for certain individuals with the qualifications to do the job.