BEST DAYS ARE BEHIND - Anonymous employee Guitar Center Employee Review

1.0
Dec 11, 2016
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Many passionate coworkers committed to hard work. Sense of satisfaction knowing you may be contributing to helping consumers make music.

Cons

Classic big box death spiral playing out in slow motion. Sales continue to slide making coworkers anxious and territorial. Moral is gloomy with occasional glimpses of naive optimism. So much Sr level management turnover (including CEOs) have resulted in little cultural memory; lessons learned years ago have been replaced my countless strategic and tactical missteps. Almost total brain drain of competent talent. A once great company with an authentic sense of purpose has been gutted. Avoid at all costs.

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5.0
Jul 16, 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Management takes good care of you

Cons

No complaints that I can think of

1.0
Apr 21, 2026
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

- Plenty of capable individual contributors doing real work. - The brand and the business itself are legitimate — the problems are organizational.

Cons

- Senior leadership is politically driven rather than outcome-driven. Strategic initiatives stall out, and leaders spend more energy assigning or shifting blame than actually diagnosing and fixing problems. - Some parts of the org operate on deference to the top. Honest assessments get softened into whatever narrative leadership wants to hear, which makes real cross-functional work difficult. - Senior leaders do not consistently advocate for their own teams. When things get political, self-preservation takes precedence over backing the people underneath, and capable managers end up exposed.

2
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