Has anyone here worked for Geek Squad before? If so, what do you think the pros and cons are? If you're no longer employed by them, why?
I've been with the company for quite a while now and I'm just genuinely curious how other employees feel/felt about working there.
Sincerely,
A current GS employee
do they help people build gaymen computers?
think how are you going to move up the ladder.
Easier said than done. My store's precinct is a disaster. Several people left, so they replaced them with newfags. No one knows much of anything there at this point and only two of us are reliable...
I actually just applied to my local store to be apart of Geek Squad.
Felt that if I'm going to have a computer related major, might as well compliment it by having a job such as Geek Squad.
Former CIA then ARA(??).. yes it was cool when I started but then management pressured the dept towards more sales rather than services (something that back then was the responsibility of PCHO), then they wanted most of the ARA job to be peformed by remote support rather than locally at the store: the irony was that, for some reason, the store would get 'charged' for this remote support access even if the GS did not use it so we were forced to use it to justifiy the spending.
What kind of education/certs did you have to get hired there? Was thinking of picking up a 2nd job in IT to supplement my income. I have a 2 year degree in Network Administration. A+ cert.
Been building PCs and fixing shit as side work for the last 8 years now. What does your day primarily consist of? Do you interact with the customer a lot? I fucking hate people. ESPECIALLY stupid motherfuckers.
TL,DR would I be hired? Do they base their hiring on skill? Or degree? Because fuck going back to school for a worthless degree in tech support.
Pros: It's a job.
Cons: It's a job with Geek Squad.
PacSales here.
The ones in my store are fucking retarded except for one. I was turned down due to no sales exp.
Last time I went to their area, they had the new hire take pics of computers to remember the layout.
This is part of the problem too. Back then, GS wanted people with certs to work in the precinct, you had to have at minimum an A+ cert to work there. Now, anyone with slim knowledge of computers and sales can work there.
My precinct basically was getting an agent every 2 or 3 months because the ones mgmt kept bringing were absolutely useless as techs.
>What kind of education/certs did you have to get hired there?
nothing
> What does your day primarily consist of? Do you interact with the customer a lot?
dealing with retards, customers and ur co workers.
>would I be hired? Do they base their hiring on skill? Or degree?
no, sales exp
Good place to network though
Pros: Normies will look up to you as a techie
Cons: Actual techies will look down on you like a retard
Sales experience? I'm assuming this means I'd be talking to customers. A lot. I mean I have experience from working in a Sports Authority as their on site tech. Used to sell paintball guns, snowboards, bikes, bows/arrows, etc. then use to work on them before letting them out the store.
I mean do you ever even TOUCH the PCs? Is ANYTHING fixed on site? What's the pay like?
And what about those dudes driving around in the GS Volkswagons? What are they and what do they do? Basically I'm looking for a meh IT job to toss on my resume. One that I can work monrings and weekends around my good paying (albeit blue collar) real job.
Good luck. I used to love working for GS until a couple of people shifted positions and now everything is very chaotic and a mess. My direct supervisor (DCI) is not computer-literate by any stretch of the imagination and I have to train him on what we do. Very, very frustrating.
The store I started at quit doing the CIA thing right around the time that I started at GS. But now we are actually cross training all CA's with ARA duties. I absolutely despite that my store is pushing for more sales. I struggle trying to sell $400 worth of services to people per day when everyone already has tech support with us or their problems are minor. I also, desperately hate the fact that they push us to use AJU instead of resolving issues ourselves. And yes, it is true, the store gets charged regardless of how often we use AJU's services. Makes no damn sense.
>> What does your day primarily consist of? Do you interact with the customer a lot?
>dealing with retards, customers and ur co workers.
>dealing with retards, entitled paying retards and slightly less retards
FTFY
To be fully honest, I have no real certs or technology based education behind me. I am entirely self-taught. Growing up my best friend worked for a computer repair company and we tinkered with things and that's basically how I learned most of what I know. If you got a job at Geek Squad with your A+ cert, you will more than likely be a step ahead of everyone there because at my store, I think only 2 of us have our A+ certs, and I am not one of them. I know all the stuff, just can't justify paying for the test when I'm in college for an unrelated field. My day consists of a mixture of repairing units and customer interactions. I have been deemed the NPS queen because I excel at client interactions, unlike my coworkers. I definitely get my fair share of annoying people who ask ignorant questions or redundant questions... or the ones that don't get it now matter how much of a clear cut description I give them. I hate repetition. Thankfully, I am fantastic at distracting clients away from redundant questions. I don't know what state you live in or what the competitiveness is in your state but from being there this long, I've learned that they will almost always hire within, instead of bringing in new people for Geek Squad. It's kind of bullshit. But if you have credible experience in the field, they will more than likely consider you.
They do seem to base their hiring on skill but my store apparently bases it on who kisses ass the most and lies to get their way into the position.
>I'm assuming this means I'd be talking to customers. A lot
yes, lots of dumb motherfuckers.
>Used to sell paintball guns, snowboards, bikes, bows/arrows, etc.
you sell services
>I mean do you ever even TOUCH the PCs?
you get to carry it to the back to have the other niggas fix it
>What's the pay like?
depends on position, CIA, ARA, Installers
I had no sales experience and they hired me but I had roughly 10 years of computer repair/client education backing me up for the position.
>I also, desperately hate the fact that they push us to use AJU instead of resolving issues ourselves. And yes, it is true, the store gets charged regardless of how often we use AJU's services. Makes no damn sense.
Holy shit, I had forgotten how this was called, Agent Johnny Utah lol. Yes, I believe it is because it is cheaper for them to use these guys, usually located in India/Phillipines than the store agents. Mgmt wants the store agents on the floor pushing sales and services than actually performing repairs.
I moved out of that about 5 years ago, got sick of the entitlement of the target retarded clientele that BBY brings and expects shits to be done for free/cheap because they are friends with the store manager.
They don't require certs at all anymore, sadly. I wish they did. Same issue you stated, they keep hiring people who are useless. Someone got hired because he indicated he KNOWS HOW TO USE LINUX. We can't even legally work on Linux units. What in the fuck does that have to do with what we do? Whooptyfuckingdo.
Depending on the position you are hired for, but even the people on the front desk so have to have some experience/ideas of how computers should work so they can help educate the client on what could potentially be the problem. Sometimes shit is easy and can be resolved quickly on the counter.
Pay, the lowest they can pay you is $10.51 per hour. The highest they will pay you (if you work as a consultant agent) is like $16.33 per hour. You'd probably start at the lowest point.
In order to get a GS Volkswagen, which I believe they switched all of them over to hybrids now by the way... You'd probably have to be with the company for a while. They don't work at my actual store, so I've never talked to any of the drivers before. They go to homes/companies and do in-home repairs instead of repairs in our store.
Most broken hardware is repaired outside of the precinct, sent to a location in a completely different state. We mostly troubleshoot software related issues and even that seems to be primarily automated at this point.
My precinct is good about working around my schedule but not everyone will be cool with that.
I call it agent johnny useless, lol.
Mgmt keeps bitching that our sales our low but our biggest issue is that everyone has tech support that has been coming through our store so we can't really get much from anyone anymore. I can sell a few data backups, but even that is a fucking ripoff. $80-100 bucks to just copy data from one device to another, it's stupid... And my store definitely has issues with favoritism. Our store manager is prone to going out to eat/drink with some of the people in my store. If you aren't part of the in-crowd with him, good luck moving up.
>They do seem to base their hiring on skill but my store apparently bases it on who kisses ass the most and lies to get their way into the position.
This is because you are partially exempt from the 'individual' goals and you are subject to department goals when it comes to performance. In other words, GS agents are more flexible when it comes to revenue per transaction and credit card applications (you really do not have to get applications at all, unlike the sales floor where they are required to get 3 a week), so the position is easier to perform and pays more (as you know, BBY sales does not work on commission)
fuck me. Seems like there are no decent openings for my needs in the IT field. Most of the positions I see open are 40 hour a week jobs. I'm only looking to get 15-20.
I move boxes around in a warehouse for a major car manufacturer. $28/hr. Full benefits. Yearly bonus check. Good gig. Except the job is soul crushing and I hate working in a warehouse.
Unrelated. What's the age demographic in GS? Are you all aspiring college kids? I'm 24. So by no means am I ancient. Just don't want to be shoulder to shoulder with a bunch of 17 year olds.
We are supposed to get 1 credit card app per week but I've been there for a very long time and have only gotten 1 in the past 5 months. We are seldom in positions to ask for people to apply for them. GS is paid higher than most, which is kind of sad cause we all work hard and work as teams to help clients so we should all be paid fairly similar to each other -_-.
Each consultant agent is supposed to sell $400 per day at my store. I'm almost positive we haven't even been selling that TOTAL per day as of late. Part of it is cause everyone has tech support, the other part is that no one respects our new DCI because he doesn't know dick about computers. He makes $10 more per hour than us, why the fuck do we need to train him? He's our supervisor, a deputy of counter intelligence and he doesn't even know how to do a god damn power cycle on a unit that isn't booting up.
Sorry, pardon my jaded-ness. I once loved my job and was proud to go to work there but now i'm just fucking over it.
i've heard some downright computer-ignorant shit come out of those peoples mouths. It can't be hard to become one.
The people in my precinct are ages:
24 (myself), 25, 31, 30, 34, 27, 20, 26.
The 20 year old is one of our new hires who is the douchefuck who none of us really care for and will possibly be getting fired very soon.
Unfortunately, I do have work later today so I should probably attempt to get some sleep.
I'm on Kik if anyone wants to continue discussing/bitching about Geek Squad or if you have any general questions.
My kik is satsuki666.