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So much for working at an apple store :-(

LucasLand

LucasLand

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Mar 6, 2002
759
93
New England
After years of applying, I finally got invited to a hiring seminar at an apple store. I really felt like i had a good chance, since I've been using apple products for years, love their products and couldn't wait to share info about them with customers.

I even dressed business casual, like they requested in email. Some people looked like they just rolled out of bed.

I follow all the latest tech news and keep up to date with anything apple related. I currently own 5 apple products, 4 of them bought within the past year. i also just upgraded to Lion.

After job interview, I had to answer like 30 questions about mac products. I know i aced the questions, including ones that ask what part of OSX helps people with disabilities.

2 days later I get an email that says I didn't get job cause I'm not a candidate that "meets the needs of today".

What a joke?

Anyone else have similar experience?
 
I will get thumps down for this... But Apple store employees are a joke, most of them. I have numerous friends from high school theatre that went to work for Apple stores all over the state, they where all the emo/odd ball kids.
 
StvenH90 said:
I will get thumps down for this... But Apple store employees are a joke, most of them. I have numerous friends from high school theatre that went to work for Apple stores all over the state, they where all the emo/odd ball kids.
Click to expand...

No thumps - just a mild disagreement. :D

Maybe I've just been lucky, but my experience in a number of visits to my local Apple Store have all been positive. :D

I don't care if folks are "emo/odd", as long as they are reasonably polite and helpful. That has been my experience. I'm sure much of one's experience depends upon the particular store which you frequent.

To foofan -- Sorry that you didn't get the gig. :( Try not to get too discouraged. It's a bummer to get turned down, but s*** happens, and, unfortunately, it will happen again during your lifespan. Hang tough...:cool:
 
Don't get me wrong OP, you seem like a nice guy.

But judging from your post it seems like you think you should get a job at an Apple Store by knowledge alone... and from what I've seen, people like that never get the job at an Apple Store. That's only judging by the OP.
 
Apple routinely hires people with zero apple knowledge. It's a certain type of person that they are looking for to be representatives in their store. They more likely judged you based of observing your social interactions. And as in any job interview, maybe the person in charge just didn't care for you.
 
You'd know the difference between a mac mini and a mac pro, and know that photoshop will run just as well on either.

Apple wants someone who doesn't know what is gigahertz, and will only know that you need a "pro" computer to run a "pro" application. Hence the "genius" I saw a while back telling an elderly couple who was upgrading from a G4, that they needed at least an iMac to run photoshop, no a mini wouldn't be able to handle it.
 
Apple aims to recuit a type of person, rather than someone who is just knowledgeable about their products. It seems to be that you have all the knowledge, but maybe your personality doesn't suit what Apple was looking for.

This doesn't just apply to Apple but companies in general. You can train someone to have the knowledge, but you can't try and give someone a personality.
 
Not only knowledge but they look how you communicate with others, examining technical subjects in normal language so the non techies can keep up.
 
Why do people want to work at the Apple store so bad? It is a constantly busy, intense retail sales environment.
 
well i wasn't so impressed with the 5 apple reps that split the group up and interviewed about 4-5 people at once. When they were talking to everyone who showed up, they kept on mentioning how they like "creative" people.

I've talked to a few people since i got turned down. I've been told Apple likes the young hip crowd. I've also been told that "creative" is slang for artistic types to the Gay crowd.

I will admit i'm more in to the tech crowd. If customers came in i would enjoy talking about the products and what they can do. I don't consider myself an artist, which is where I may have cost myself a job.

I should have been like some of the other guys in my small group. One white guy in a tie who claimed he was a hip-hop artist, 2nd guy who can play 18 instruments and tries to model his life after Sting from the police. Or the dude who says he is making his own MMORPG.

Maybe the guy who graduated with a computer science degree, but has spent the last 7 years working at walmart got the job.

Maybe I'm better off.
 
In my experience with Apple Store employees, they seem to want to hire people who will just repeat what they've been told about a particular product without questioning it too much. I haven't met anyone outside of a Genius Bar that could answer a question past "How much does this cost?" and even then they usually can't.

That being said, it's just a retail job. Retail jobs are all the same- crappy pay, crappy hours, crappy customers. Get over it and find something else. When you're looking for your first real job, you aren't going to get it/not get it because you worked/didn't work at an Apple Store.
 
I wonder if the girl who said when she tries to get friends and family to switch to mac from pc, she says" once you go mac, you never go back" got a job?

Apple should jump on that for their next ad campaign.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_5 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8L1 Safari/6533.18.5)

Next time get some facial piercings and wad your clothes in a ball in the corner the night before. Worth a shot !!
 
Knowledge alone may not be enough to grant you a job. Personality and people-skills play a major role in this, especially for working in a retail store.
You could be the most knowledgeable person in the world, but if you don't have the communication, personality, and people skills, you won't get the job.
The store doesn't make any money by having a walking Webster - they need someone who can help customers AND sell products.

No offense to the OP, just stating my thoughts, based on previous experiences.

My suggestion is, if you really want to do it, analyze what you can change to sell yourself better, and give it another try.

Good luck.
 
I worked Apple Retail for 3 years, and it was the best retail job I had...but that was back in 2004-2007. Lately, it's been a bunch of scripted drones. When I was there, we were told to sell the experience of the Mac, the iPod, etc. Everyone in my store were enthusiasts, artists, Mac-nerds, guys who pushed the limits and tried things with our Macs, and we were so enthusiastic about what we were selling, it wasn't hard to sell the product. Nowadays, you get these Gap-style kids in there who just treat it as a job and spout the corporate script. Apple Retail isn't the same as it was from an internal perspective. I'd never go back.
 
Welcome to the "real world" and expect many more situations like that. Considering the economic situation, there are more qualified people than jobs. So companies have the pick of the litter. You may be the best candidate for the job, but having just one thing that doesn't jive with the person hiring and you're out.

Years ago when I got laid off, I couldn't get a job because I was too over qualified. I had to omit my education and job experience to get a job. Sadly, I know a lot of people who had to do the same.

The next time you go after a job, get to know the current employees and see what they are like and model yourself after them if you really want the job. Hiring managers want people who can fit into their current environment.
 
Getting a job at Apple is harder than getting into Stanford.


Try Stanford...you will thank me in the long run when you get a kickass job out of it :).
 
Wild-Bill said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_5 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8L1 Safari/6533.18.5)

Next time get some facial piercings and wad your clothes in a ball in the corner the night before. Worth a shot !!
Click to expand...

actually i don't see anyone in my local apple store with piercings and tattoos, but i do see some that appear to be light on their loafers
 
I've been using Apple hardware since the Apple // and I didn't get a job at the Tampa store because I wasn't qualified. Yet I walked in to an Apple store and asked them how to enable file sharing between OS X and Windows 7 and they didn't know how.
 
They're looking for people who can sell an experience without coming across as salespeople and who treat everyone equally with respect and enthusiasm. The tech stuff is reserved for the back end of things.
 
If you were running the store, imagine what you would want from staff. Be realistic, it's not going to be people with product knowledge per se. It's going to be people who can make a sale and make your store money. That's how the success of the store (and therefore the managers success) will be judged.

The whole culture that Apple build up is around selling, and they want people who fit that image because they find it improves sales. It sounds like you don't really fit that mould. They will pick someone who does over you.

Every company has this view of what an employee should be, and how that fits with their company culture. Assuming you have all the necessary experience and qualifications for the roles you are applying for, you need to find somewhere that you fit in to.

You will find that this works both ways and you will enjoy working somewhere with a culture more suited to you.

Of course, it could just be that you lack the qualifications and experience. You don't really say what experience you have. You may find you need to take some jobs that don't suit you quite so well to get a foot in the door.
 
If I don't have any retail experience before working for Apple, do I have any chance of getting the job? The employees there know me(I'm there for every product launch), and have asked me if I wanted a job there when I get older.

Also, to get to these seminars, do you just fill out the web form? Or is there another way?
 
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