Hot Topic Reviews

Former Employee – worked at Hot Topic

Pros – Great music, product, envioment, fantastic co workers.

Cons – Babysitting teens, maximum workload with minimal coverage, no merit increases for the last 2 years.

Advice to Senior Management – Don't forget about the store level employees and all the hard work they do.

Former Employee – worked at Hot Topic

Pros – -Great work environment
-Great music while you work (of all genres)
-Lots of communication

Cons – -Much lower pay than most ASM positions.

Advice to Senior Management – I worked at Hot Topic for about three years total and I loved every minute of it. The only reason I left was because of pay. Other than that, I was completely happy.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Hot Topic

Pros – No dress code, open environment, lots of great people, on site ATM, gym, cafe, great benefits, chiropractor, physician's assistant, etc.

Cons – Many of the management team people have been let go and replaced by new people that I'm not sure what their vision for the company is.

Advice to Senior Management – Listen to the people that have been there for a while. They have good information and are open to new ideas and feedback.

Former Employee – worked at Hot Topic

Pros – The company allowed me to develop and implement exciting projects. The company also still has the potential to become a leading specialty retailer given the products it can carry. This allows for many opportunities to work with exciting partners including music labels and movie studios. Additionally the makeup of the organization provides the opportunity to dive in and help mold the company if you are at a high enough level.

Cons – Confusing upper management organization
Constant directional changes
Lack of accountability among most of staff
Emphasis on learning different sides of the business before being promoted in the field/dept of your focus.

Advice to Senior Management – The recent changes at Hot Topic show new management has a firmer grasp on the direction they should be heading. As a reminder only, refer to those employees that shoulder most of the work when considering strategic changes. They know the business best and are closest to the action.

Current Employee – been working at Hot Topic

Pros – HT has a great environment
Friendly customers
Helpful coworkers
Friendly and honest management
Great discount (20% on electronics, 40% on all clothing and accessories)
Worlds best dress code, WHATEVER YOU WANT!
Everyone I work with is supportiveand cool with my sexuality

Cons – There are so many TWILIGHT shirts to fold lol
Closing is a little hecktic but still nice
Not being full time :)

Advice to Senior Management – I love everything about HT, the culture, the music, the enironment, the people, even the scene kids. I love working here! I often show off my name tag to my friends and they all moan in jealousy. Honestly, This could be my career for a long time...

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Hot Topic

Pros – Great discount, great people,customers and music! Liberal dress code does not force you into buying all Hot Topic clothes.

Cons – With the rate of pay being on the lower side of the retail world, it is difficult to obtain and keep talented people.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Hot Topic

Pros – You can dress however you want.
Decent discount

Cons – Hourly pay rate is insultingly low.
Supervisors are sugarcoated meanies.
Lack of hours.

Advice to Senior Management – Your supervisors need to relax a bit, you're paying us minimum wage, don't try to run the place like its more than it is - you wonder why the employee turnover rate is so alarming? Supervisors are very quick to let us know when we do something wrong, very rarely do you every hear words of encouragement or any acknowledgment, unless you are being reprimanded.

We are also forced to pretty much attack customers with "can I help you find anything?" How about we say hello and give them a little credit assuming they know how to stroll a store to find what they want? If they need assistance I'm sure they'll ask, instead we are forced to badger them until some of them get visibly annoyed.

It's just been a really bad experience for me, I'm currently looking for another job, once I'm done with my Hot Topic employment, I will never set foot in one again. This is the worst workplace I've ever worked in, the worst Supervisors I've ever worked under. Avoid this place, it's a dead end and the scenery isn't worth the trip.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Hot Topic

Pros – Very progressive, fast paced, fun company.

Cons – It's a 'lifestyle' atmosphere in the corporate office.

Advice to Senior Management – .

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Hot Topic

Pros – Discount
Pay
Benefits
Customers with similar interests
No uniform is definitely a plus
Accepting of all walks of life
District management is usually easy to work with and friendly
There's something for everyone in the stores, and with the addition to in-store online shopping, it's almost impossible to not make a sale to someone if you're competent at focused selling.

Cons – Recent changes in the company have made it very difficult to follow the "culture" that Hot Topic was once so proud of.
Poor decisions in product purchases in the last 2 years lead the company to believe that it needed to update its style to cater to "younger" kids, and then senior management up and turned around and changed its mind, completely ousting the new market they had opened
Very difficult and stressful trying to connect with customers that don't share your interests. I was always into punk rock music, and Hot Topic has severely down-played that genre in the last few years and replaced it with screamo, metalcore, and hip-hop, which I have no real frame of reference for.
Senior management constantly encourages "music knowledge" and provides very little time for employees to listen to the flavor-of-the-week music that they're trying to push, making relating with customers very difficult at times.
The merchandise related to movies and certain pop-culture trends become incredibly tedious to keep up with, and tend to sell for very brief periods of time, which leads to over-inundation of product that no one wants and still needs a space on the sales floor.
Shipment (freight, stock, etc.) can become very difficult to keep up with and house on the sales floor, especially when the company continues to cut hours from its payroll during the busiest times of the year.
Members of store management, with the exception of the Store Manager themselves, have very little power to discipline employees, and often disciplinary actions are subject to favoritism.
Promotions are often subject to favoritism, but generally, the most fit person is able to advance relatively well.
Once you reach Full-Time Assistant Manager, be prepared for a LONG wait before you're able to advance to Store Manager. There have been people waiting for upwards of 4 years in this area that still haven't gotten their own store.
Districts are constantly being re-arranged, which means that you're constantly getting new supervisors with new and different expectations, making it very difficult to keep standards up to par.
Betsy, the leader and co-founder of HT, was forced out of the company by the board of directors, which was a massive blow to the overall morale of the company.

Advice to Senior Management – Be proud of what Hot Topic is! Stop trying to change the company in order to make people come in! The general public already knows what HT is all about, so stop changing everything! It's very taxing on your employees at the store level, and it's incredibly difficult to explain to sales associates that are performing well why their hours are being cut for no reason.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Hot Topic

Pros – The employees are a great bunch of fun people who handle themselves and their goals with a professional manor. Management always seems to have your best interest at heart, right behind making the day's planned goals of course.

Cons – It is great for students and teenagers looking for the experience but not for someone who wants to make a career.

Advice to Senior Management – Remember to promote within your store.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend