I was a seasonal employee at Apple at the Saddle Creek location. Before I get started with my review I want to say that my ratings is based off my job being there as seasonal and not as a full time employee. If things weren’t handled poorly like they were my review would be completely different. I hope this store actually reads this so they can make better improvement in the future. I enjoyed working there and it was a very dynamic yet fun work environment however many of us seasonals don’t appreciate how they waited last minute to let us know who can stay on permanent or who can leave. Also, when we got hired they kept putting emphasis on us being seasonal and to me it felt as if they were kinda downplaying our role there. Some of the workers there are cocky but not all. The hiring process is VERY selective and if you get in don’t mess it up for yourself, but the pay is ABOVE average than most jobs. IT IS NOT A COMMISSION BASED JOB but you can get paid between $16-$18+ depending on experience. Many people came into the store and saw how fun it seemed to us and expressed them wanting to work there. We ALWAYS had a line at the door before we opened but the customers and enviroment was fun. They made us feel like we were doing too much by grilling them for answers like our livelihoods and bills weren’t at stake and I feel as if they handled the entire process poorly. They weren’t taking it serious to me and it seemed like they didn’t care because it didn’t personally affect the
Overall, a very positive experience, but quite challenging
In my 11+ years with Apple, I had some incredible experiences. I have worked in 7 different stores (three long-term, and four short-term) and met some amazing and talented people, and also made some great friends. I learned so many valuable skills along the way (functional/technical, customer service, and interpersonal) that I truly feel have made me who I am today. I was so proud to have worked for the most valuable brand and company in the world, and it was great to stay caught up with all the latest technology. I have owned, used, and sold so many different Apple products throughout the years - computers, phones, tablets, and software - all of which have enriched my life - and the lives of those I have worked with.
The workplace culture in my store was very positive overall. I felt as though we were a very close-knit family, a very well-oiled machine. There was virtually none of the typical "gossip" you'd find at other companies, and almost everyone got along with everyone else. Store meetings were very fun and very positive, not boring.
Throughout my tenure, I have built a very impressive set of customer service and interpersonal skills - just by the very nature of the company and my job, I have worked with a multitude of different cultures, ages, skill levels, abilities, and personalities.
The most enjoyable part of my job was when I felt a true connection with someone, and I was able to provide a solution that they never imagined at first, and we both felt co
ProsA clean, fun, and up-beat working environment, an incredibly diverse and talented team, ability to learn new things every day, relaxed dress code, good benefits
ConsUnrealistic expectations from management, too much reliance on numbers, not enough trust, a lot of micromanagement, extremely difficult to advance internally
2.0
Home Solutions Advisor | California | Nov 24, 2015
Great working from home, a lot of stress...
This position for at home advisor is an apple care advisor.
My normal day as chat advisor starts with me logging in to the computer apple sent me 5 minutes before the shift so i can check email and get prepared for work.
As soon as your shift starts you will get busy. In chat we are expected to answer two chats at the same time. Each chat is expected to be resolved in 25 minutes or less. If the customer needs screen sharing we also do that.
In these 25 minutes you have to defuse the customer, assure, and provide support by troubleshooting or providing the appropriate response.
You will have to log all the interaction, case notes, followups, send emails to customers,
In this position you will not get holidays off, you will get them paid as holiday pay and overtime. So that's nice, however you can't be with your family cause it's super busy.
Schedules are according to your performance, what defines your performance is customer's feedback or surveys. Picture a very angry customer who just lost all his contacts in iCloud and you can't recover them. Or someone that purchased a stolen iPhone and can't activate it. Those customers will give you a bad survey based on their feelings about the company. This will affect your metrics and schedules.
If you're a super good advisor, you will get 1 weekend day off. They have 4days x10hrs or 5days x8hours schedules.
I started as an at home phone advisor, answered between 18-25 calls per shift. Calls can take as
ProsNot having to drive to work, saving money on lunch, 25% discount on personal purchases, paid training for two weeks, they force you to take all breaks and lunches.
ConsManagement, a lot of secrecy, schedules, always always busy, compensation.
My time at Apple (8.5 yrs) was a mix of being my best job ever to nearly killing me. When I started at Apple in AppleCare we handled one type of product. Some handled iOS products, some handled macOS products, some handled iTunes and on and on. 8 yrs later Apple has blended that support into one homogeneous mix. You are no longer an expert in one area, you are expected to be well versed in and support everything Apple releases. In addition to that , you’ll support every single country on the planet that Apple provides support to. This includes local and regional consumer law.
Apple outsources what seems to 80-90% of Apple care to other companies. Those companies are supposed to be held to the same impossibly high standards that Corporate AppleCare is. Sadly, they don’t seem to be. The transfers I got were the poorest quality customer support I’ve ever seen. There is definitely a hot potato mentality when it comes to dealing with either difficult problems or difficult customers. Get those things to someone else ASAP and let them deal with the poor customer survey.
AppleCare hierarchy seems to be so far from touching the customer that they have no concept as to what is actually going on with the customer base. What I mean by that is everyone who comes into AppleCare wants to get promoted to manager and above so that they’ll never have contact with an actual consumer. That contact ends with senior support advisors who are abused by customers, lower level advisors and team mana
ProsGreat pay and benefits
ConsYou’ll be be reminded how lucky you are to work for this company. A sure sign you need to move on.
Contractor with with Apple as the client. Completed a 1 year contract, was offered a 3 month extension but chose to not to take it.
Standard day is just the usual cog in the wheel stuff. Badge in, sit in front of a Mac, check emails for today's project, start pulling assignments out and work on today's project until lunch, eat for 30 minutes, go back to work until 4:00 PM and then badge out and go home.
Breaks can be taken twice, 15 minutes each but never directly together and you can't use them to leave early. If you come late, you have to stay later to make up for the lost time, but you come early, you still have to leave at the proper time. You have to arrive at 7:30AM and leave at 4:00PM no exceptions unless you approved with HR prior to starting.
Management is a lax until they're not. If your team is pulled into a meeting, chances are something has gone wrong, or the team isn't working fast enough. Due to not wanting to target anyone dragging the team down in particular, everyone is reprimanded for working slow even if you're not. These meetings tend to happen 1-2 times a month regularly. Upper management wants work done faster and faster. HR is efficient at what they do, which is both good and bad. Issues are solved quickly in a timely fashion, but every now and then someone will seemingly be removed for their position without a trace and no one will tell you where that person(s) has disappeared to. If you're there as a contractor, you're extremely expendabl
ProsDecent Pay, people are mostly courteous
ConsStrict rules with NDA, No benefits, inflexible hours, expendable workforce
Great company with amazing corporate culture. Coworkers are always fun, interesting, and generally creative in some way.
Typical day is like any retail sales, but it's very low key how you interact with customers. Genuinely answer customers questions, find their needs and wants, and offer a solution. Many times it's just talking to someone about your own personal user experiences. No hard selling or trying to make quotas. If you are stumped, just be honest and find a colleague who may be able to help. Generally conversation is not very "tech" based--it's good to know what is in the machine, but most solutions will revolve around more with how it helps a user. Practically any time you want training on a product, you can ask to leave the floor and watch online videos on the clock.
You don't need to be that techie to get hired--honestly, during the group interview, the folks that seemed to only ooze tech never got hired. You don't even have to be an Apple user! Being creative in some way probably is very helpful. Once on board, there is a two-day training to solidly get you up to speed. It's focused, but pretty fun as you interact with your future team members. (Out of all the retail jobs I've had, only two of them did very concise and thorough multi-day trainings before you even step onto the sales floor--Apple Store and Whole Foods.)
Management at our store was great, but your mileage may vary. But they do seem to attract and hire some of the best retail managers over
ProsGreat culture and coworkers, extensive discount programs with partners, commute stipend, solid training.
ConsUpset customers will be more intense than usual, can get VERY busy and stores can get VERY crowded, pay better than average retail but not by much
Apple Retail has devolved into just another retail job with above average benefits
Working in one of Apple's retail venues used to be prestigious, fun, exciting, and the growth potential seemed limitless. Over the last 5 years working in a retail store has dramatically devolved (ironically senior leadership calls this evolution).
Turnover is incredibly high, they've stopped all outside professional training opting instead for non-professional training in the back storage rooms (yes, storage rooms) of the stores by 'trainers' who themselves were taught in the same environment by others trained in the same storage room and so on.
The technical training is abysmal yielding so called 'technicians' most would not trust to touch their Mac or iPhone in any repair capacity if they knew how unprepared these 'technicians' truly are. And these 'technicians' won't be around long enough to even get good at what they do by trial and error because three quarters of their time will be spent in customer queues dealing with customer emotional turmoil over the many Apple quality and appeasement programs fixing design and manufacturing issues so the poorly prepared staff will burn out and leave for another job in normally about a year or less.
Apple has accepted this sad reality by realizing they need to constantly be hiring and internally training just to keep fresh seeming people on staff.
Where early on a retail employee was seen as vital with real tangible training and authority today they have to get permission for everything and amount to not much more than a
ProsWork with great people and better than average benefits
ConsThose great people move on fast and the stress is not worth the benefits
A typical work day starts with punching into the company provided Mac and logging into the call logging software. A few years ago this role was solely tech support, the last years and a half Apple has pushed almost ALL customer service responsibility onto its technical support advisors. They still advertise this role as tech support however at least half of the work is not tech support at all.
Example: I get quite a few calls about battery refunds, product recalls, and Beats headphones. These are not related to tech support but you will be expected by Apple to handle these calls. Once you are promoted to the senior support level you are also required to take over ALL angry customer calls escalated to you regardless of the issue. Escalations related to account recovery and activation lock are sensitive by nature and a lot times Apple advisors cannot help customers on the phone by design, this will setup the advisor for a negative survey score because the advisor simply cannot resolve the issue. Apple does not take responsibility for this and the advisor will be expected to handle the interaction and receive a positive score.
Unless you are a consistent high performer you will work on the weekend. The schedules offered for bids are not typical Mon-Fri work schedules, most schedules do not have consecutive days on/off, more of a scattered arraignment.
Example: Sunday, Wed-Fri 10a-9p is my current schedule. I do not work on Sat, Mon, Tues. These schedules change every 9
ProsWork from home
ConsVery little work-life balance, little opportunity for advancement, managerial favoritism is everywhere.
Innovative constantly evolving environment with constant challenges to professional development
Since that time I would say one of the greatest achievements I have reached is establishing strong trusting peer relationships. Taking the credo to heart and enriching lives, mine, my peers, who I share most of the time with, and finally our customers. Since I first started working at Apple I must have to say that my technology knowledge has exponentially grown at an incredible pace. Beyond the knowledge is the ability to communicate it to customers who at times are newcomers to Apple products. Finally and this has been a recent achievement I have been able to keep my timely assistance. I have always had trouble getting on time to places I blame it in part to my cultural heritage, but sometimes it was simply just overlooking the issue as irrelevant so long as I was within my 10 minutes. However all of that changed after sharing an experience with a friend at a trapeze lesson. I was made aware of the importance of timing. After that I have made a great effort to be on time or early. These three have also been my strongest developmental areas of growth this year.
The greatest disillusionment that I have had so far is the fact that I didnt get to carry through with the Spanish workshops for consumers. After constantly asking leaders to go through with them; getting the Spanish speaking staff on board; and even taking the initiative to make a presentation to make the case of how it is part of our credo part to enrich the lives of our costumes with our products and services I was
I worked in the Maps team as a data editor. It is a one year contractor position but they made it sound like an opportunity to get your foot in the door. It isn’t. Don’t fall for it.
The job is repetitive and requires no skill. Hours can be strange, you will need to work either Sat or Sunday. They train you pretty well so no need to worry. The contractors are generally all very nice and diverse, all eager to create a workplace bond that Apple does not encourage. Apple prefers to keep a strict divide between contractors and full time employees. You will feel it very acutely. You can eat at the cafeteria but you can’t use the gym. Don’t even think about attending regular happy hours. Full-timers generally are weary and aloof around contractors.
It’s a bit sad how people fell for the “foot in the door” tag line and found themselves in a job that often is way beneath their skillset. I’ve seen coworkers with phDs and master degrees who realized the trap they fell into after training ended. Team morale depends on your manager, some are very approachable while others are standoffish.
Upsides are cool contractor coworkers, decent pay in a nice office environment, ability to work from home during covid, and...that’s about it. Occasionally they will have free food in the parking lot that you can attend in your allotted break period. Oh they clock bathroom visits and breaks meticulously just to make sure you are not wasting their time. Nothing makes you more aware of your contractor
ProsBetter hourly pay than retail, nice office environment, plenty of parking, interesting coworkers who do the best to bond
ConsApple goes out of the way to exclude contractors and make them feel like they are super disposable, Job is repetitive and boring, No career advancement
Questions And Answers about Apple
Do you need previous job experience to work at Apple?
Asked Jun 5, 2016
No but willing to learn
Answered Jul 21, 2019
Willing to learn ,what is needed to do my job well
Answered Jun 30, 2019
How long does it take to get hired from start to finish at Apple? What are the steps along the way?
Asked Jun 19, 2016
In communication it takes zero seconds to transfer text alert with response iPhone 12 to iPhone 11
M. Gallo Carpentry Inc. operating on #1 Apple Technology
Advanced innovation and speed for production
B2b time & transit top priority
Answered Sep 25, 2021
In communication it takes zero seconds to transfer text alert with response iPhone 12 to iPhone 11
Msg Inc. operating on #1 Apple Technology
Advanced innovation and speed for production
B2b time & transit top priority
Answered Sep 25, 2021
How often do you get paid and on what day of the week? Like every Friday? Every other Friday?
Asked Sep 23, 2016
Every month
Answered Aug 29, 2020
Every 7 and 22 of the month
Answered Aug 19, 2018
How can I do work from home application for Apple?
Asked Dec 8, 2016
Several positions offer the opportunity to work from home. Stable technology allows for a positive experience and good communication with internal partners and leaders so you don’t feel cut off. Look for “At-Home” when searching Apple’s career site for available roles! Clear remote employee expectations and support. Must be self-starter and disciplined.
Answered Oct 10, 2020
You can become an AHA (At Home Advisor) but with COVID going on there will be some very rude customers. Its technically like a call center at home.
Answered Sep 15, 2020
What is the best part of working at Apple?
Asked Nov 22, 2019
Apple Inc. #1 Leader in Technology
Apple 13 Pro
Excelling speed through gb’s for business communications and management of clients, financial management and storage
100% Customer Satisfaction
Making Solid Ground Lawn Care
B2b
Fueling forward through mass transit of intel
Answered Nov 15, 2021
Apple IPhone 12 5G enhancing speed and performance for business communications
Immediate drops of texts, emails, photos
trusted in security through constant update keeping personal information secure. All notes tracked saved and logged for billing out and keeping track.
Apple is high speed performance made it durability uncountable dropping - still in tack
Verizon cellular data open at all times
Award Winning Company
M.Gallo Carpentry Inc. Coram
B2b Where Integrity meets Pride
