Vantaggi
Regardless of what position you hold in the company, you will learn a lot about sales acumen, merchandising, operations, inventory control, hiring, training, and HR. In short, you will learn a great deal about running a business. Approach any store position as an intense crash-course in retail business. You will be rewarded with great insight, a few advancement possibilities, and a new appreciation of the controlled mosh-pit that is big-box retail.
Svantaggi
First and foremost, retail is not a family friendly occupation. Many lives have been turned assunder due to retail hours. It is mostly nights, weekends, and holidays--and I mean ALL of them--ok, 98%. That leads to numerous breakups, divorces, and latch-key kids for associates. It also means upset and depressed associates. And it's even worse for managers, who sometimes (depending on the season of the year or severity of the problems at work) don't even get a day off---in their 60+ hour workweeks. If they are recruiting you for supervisory or management, they will tell you it's 50-55 hours, but most managers end up putting in an extra hour a day (off season) and an extra couple of hours a day (October through January) plus work one of their rare days off. And so, in peak Christmas retail season salaried employees can put in upwards of 70 hour weeks. Secondly, and sadly, this company is changing for the worse. Best Buy has taken the course of many other retailers and downsized key staff. They were doing it 5 years ago, and still are. Opportunities for advancement are quickly vanishing! The restructure story is always the same: Let go a few managers and supervisors per store this year, a few more per store the year after that, a few more in the third year and what do you have? A few thousand (well paying) jobs...gone. (in my store, alone, it was 15 positions in 3 1/2 years). The neat trick is that it didn't cause the company stock to plunge. And who gets to pick up the extra work? That's right, the part-time and full-time, just-above-minimum wage guys and gals. Even if they are able to do their job and the jobs of those missing people, what is their reward? Limited advancement! 60 people, working their butts off, all vying for 4 coveted in-store positions. The third downside of all this, I will keep short. Whenever a company, and there are a ton, decides to retitle your job, say from "Lead Customer Service Representative" to "Customer Satisfaction Specialist" what they are intending is a permanent pay cut (usually with a cap). This is a legal, however unethical way, around employment laws. Giving you a pay cut is cheaper than firing you. Sad.