How are the career development opportunities at Guitar Center?

Overall the company seems to be headed in the right direction

Bad benefits, lack of career advancement opportunities, constant layoffs and reorganization by executives

Every day is a different challenge. I get the beauty of working in a music store with the opportunity to help a team of passionate musicians build a niche skill of driving a business. The company is going down a more structured training route to prevent what has happened in the past of "just throwing you in." There are great career advancement opportunities and wonderful benefits.

It is very high pressure, competitive, and the entire weight of the success of the store is on the shoulders of the team running it. As a Store Manager, it is tough to feel you have gotten proper training, as your main trainer is your District Manager who runs 9-16 stores at once. You have to be creative and self motivated to be successful and sometimes it feels there is a flaw in the communication lines,

There aren't many good things to say about this company.

Guitar Center offers limited career advancement opportunities, with compensation that is below industry standards and benefits that are not competitive. Constructive feedback is often discouraged, and employees who demonstrate long-term career ambition may find themselves overlooked in the hiring and development process.

Great training, amazing people and lots of opportunities to learn and grow within your career

Nothing that comes to mind

Great environment and team at the store.

Not much room for career advancement.

There are a lot of pros - can be fun place to work and I am grateful for my talented and dedicated team and the experience getting to manage other people. - I have mixed feelings on the CEO - I agree with his vision but feel he is not being listened to by the company as it is all talk no action. He discusses adding cleaning staff but we have yet to see that implemented. - this company, if they make the changes they promise like new card and computer systems, could do better next year. I am extremely sad to leave here as I do believe in the company’s mission and some of the higher ups are actually pretty cool, I feel horrible about letting my instructors down but the company isn’t helping us with retention. Some of upper management are famous and pleasant to work with. - I have fun on our weekly calls - lots of humor and encouragement from other lessons leads -I do like the Hal Leonard books - they aren’t wonderful but they get the job done in that they make learning easy for all ages - and we always have other fun books in stock for teachers to teach with. There is rumor that they will come out with a new edition next year with newer songs and the students are excited about this idea. -management DOES listen to concerns. Doesn’t mean they’ll do much about it, but they will listen to your feedback, which is more than most corporations. - growth potential if you stay long-term - I did like the 401k, health insurance, and tuition reimbursement is legit! If you don’t mind corporate culture and have some management experience, this can be a good long-term job. - definitely opportunities for moving up in the company and career growth - but not for the best reasons - if your higher ups get tired you can easily move into their positions if vacant, one of our guys got promoted this way - I enjoy collaborating with the other managers on action plans. - I enjoy the diverse music culture we witness in our location - we get all walks of life and all genres! I really love the free mental health support - just make sure you have a good internet connection so you can make your session! - it’s fun getting on the ladder to grab guitars, that’s my favorite part of the job because you can see everything going on in the store and customers love it when you go above and beyond to help them out. Our OPs manager is incredible - very smart and organized person - although pay does not match cost of living for renting alone, it is manageable if you live with someone else! - sometimes we get free lunch and open houses can be fun - store will pay for decorations and snacks (however you’re usually expected to buy them with your own money off the clock!) - gig leave is great however not as much PTO as my last job - the parents and students and industry connections have been valuable to me - I am super grateful to have gotten the experience in a leadership position - it will help me down the line in my career! - the stable paycheck has been nice during this uncertain time! - we got to meet Rod Stewart’s road crew!

I was told that if I don’t get the lessons to”to 100 students” by next year then I may be on the chopping block and re-evaluated for my performance. The company refuses to recognize that we have had the tightest schedules and busiest studios by far since I began working here. Cold calls were never in my job description - I happen to have a phobia of calls I have never understood or been able to get over. I’ve gone to therapy for it, I think the main thing is that calls are becoming antiquated. I think lessons leads do better when they sell in-person but our store doesn’t even have a lessons sign outside so customers are often CONFUSED when we mention we have them. I feel strongly that millennial parents would respond better to text message marketing, which they are supposedly implementing next year - I don’t know why more people aren’t talking about this (maybe it wasn’t an issue at other stores) but I actually bought a desk because I was assigned a cabinet disguised as a desk with zero leg room (causing back issues) and the company refused to let me put it up or change it, despite the fact I was expected to sit there for 8-9 hours per day. The hour unpaid break is also non-negotiable. I very much question if they even have an advertising budget. We have a loyal following on our social media page - but lessons (for some odd reason) are not only not on there, but are forbidden to be talked about by instructors on social media. In 2025, in local studios, social media was one of the MAIN ways we got people to take lessons, and I’m forced to ask instructors not to talk about it online. If you look up lessons they haven’t posted about it since 2018 and there are lots of negative reviews and complaints. A lot of parents know this and will decide not to go there, even if our instructors are great and genuine. They expect the instructors to give “free” lessons all the time which completely undervalues the business. We’ve struggled with converting these, largely due to shortstaffing and NO card reader (like what??) and a terrible online sign up system that asks for your email twice. It takes 10 mins to sign up anyone. Other locations may be different but we regularly have drug addicts that come in all the time and there is a trailer park beginning in our parking lot - this makes it so people who would actually pay big money for guitars are not going to go here. The micromanagement is horrible. I didn’t feel comfortable here as a woman, my boss would often get in my space and hyper analyze my emails. As soon as they changed commission structure for sales staff we have had almost zero people want to work there - so lessons leads are often responsible for sales and helping to manage the store. - because of limited space in our small store I was once expected to get on a ladder with a VERY heavy guitar box and put it up and over my head. I almost fell off the ladder. - I was told that lessons lead was “traditionally a male role” and they “never used to hire women” 😳 that being said I’m grateful they gave me a chance. - there is no way to actually format the bio boards properly because our computers don’t have publisher - the SM can’t be expected to do that with everything else. Fortunately I am good with computers. The company has had a ton of people trying to impersonate them through emails and calls, basically making it so my job doesn’t mean anything because people can’t tell the difference between if it’s us or scam - this is largely due to a lack of infrastructure to ensure our marketing is high quality. - they give you 3 bullet points to pitch on the phone and these are never updated or changed - you are expected to run a recital on your day off - few resources given for students with disabilities or performance anxiety, although I have faith the company may catch onto this - I came in the store on my day off to find out the mobile order system was BROKEN so people could not pick up their online orders. Not to mention little to no shelf space in the back for organizing where these all go. The store wonders why we have shrink issues and it’s largely due to the fact that they actually have limits on how many full time sales staff are allowed on the floor at once and the long breaks we are forced to take. I often have worked over time and skipped lunch to make sure nothing gets stolen. We did much better when we had 3 talented sales people selling lessons with me on the floor at once. I mainly left because I lost my passion for practicing music and have gone on medication for my ADHD depression and anxiety. - the “spiff” for selling lessons for open houses is laughable - $10 AFTER what is it like 10 sign ups in one day?? Customers see through the open houses and don’t take it seriously - because our instructors are not properly trained on how to run a group class. I have tried to train them as I am good at it but it’s difficult with the population we have locally (many of them are severely poor and uneducated). - we have a lot of customers who are literally in there for the free stuff - I suppose this is any retail business but it’s crazy - the tariffs are threatening the life line of our store - it will likely close if we all leave because no one wants to buy anything - we are lucky if we sell 3-5 guitars in 1 day, foot traffic has steadily declined in 2025. I know some of this is outside the company’s control in that it’s stuff going on in the government but I wish the company would act faster and adapt to the rapidly changing conditions. - you could be fired at a seconds notice if you make any mistakes - I was not comfortable with this type of culture - the average tenure of lessons lead in our store is 6 months - tells you a lot

If you are a musician looking for a part-time opportunity early in your career this can be great! You’ll get a lot of experience with all kinds of people, the discount is amazing, and you’ll get access to a large library of music and other musicians. Leaves you flexible to keep gigging and working on artistry if that’s your goal.

Pay is under market value. Not enough hours to be full time.

Very responsive administrative staff, very knowledgeable colleagues. I genuinely love going to work every day because the people I work with are fantastic. You have complete freedom with regards to the curriculum you teach, so it's a great first school to work at while you figure out how you want to teach.

The pay is VERY low - GC takes about 2/3 of tuition fees and teachers only get 1/3. Additionally, schedules are not stabilized so income varies wildly, especially in the summer. Very few professional development opportunities, aside from periodic mandatory training videos that will insult your intelligence.

-Incredible people who are passionate about music -Gear discounts

-Limited growth opportunities -Clear favoritism in terms of who gets promoted, not based on performance -Lack of training in various functions of the job -Poor work-life boundaries

great employees and flexible work environment

pay and career advancement training