Geek Squad

the_hutch

So I currently do network vulnerability management and malware forensics for the Air Force. Because of some excessive family expenses...I needed to find an additional part-time job on the side. There seems to be no such thing as a part-time job in InfoSec, so I hit up Best Buy about GeekSquad. They pretty much scheduled my interview as soon as I pulled out my resume. But I'm wondering...

Does anyone have any experience working for GeekSquad? How much can I expect to make hourly? Thanks.

Iristheangel

Probably $10-12/hr depending on location. It's pretty sparse. You could always try consulting or contracting. There's a lot of "part time" opportunities out there like that. I would even hit up the local temp agencies for 1-3 month contracts with limited hours over working at Best Buy

Ismaeljrp

Expect to feel like you are wasting your time as a Professional. If you are desperate for cash, oh well, but really any teenager with A+ skills can do GS. So don't expect much.

CSCOnoob

Probably around $10-20/hr. As Iris mentioned, it would depend on your location.

the_hutch

Iristheangel wrote: »

Probably $10-12/hr depending on location. It's pretty sparse. You could always try consulting or contracting. There's a lot of "part time" opportunities out there like that. I would even hit up the local temp agencies for 1-3 month contracts with limited hours over working at Best Buy

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll check out some temp agencies and see what I can find.

WafflesAndRootbeer

Starting pay in Geek Squad varies, but it's very rare to find an employee starting out at anything above $10.00, regardless of what you bring to the table. Most GS precincts are built around selling crap and they don't focus on actually fixing things though they will push you to sell as much as you can as far as maintenance goes. When I was with GS, we typically had a queue that was over 60+ machines at all times and we only knocked those out completely on a few occasions because we got approval for extra work or because we said "Listen you stupid *******, we can't do things your way!" and they backed off. By and large, our main focus was simply making the sales numbers look good, regardless of service, and I was the only one who felt differently. From a hiring standpoint, your resume is pretty worthless for what Best Buy has going on, though you might get lucky and score an out-of-store position with them. If you do work at Best Buy, familiarize yourself with the rules and policies via the internal documents you can access as an employee so that you know what you can and cannot and should and should not do. The reason I say that is because the company by and large does not follow it's own rules and managers will instruct you to do things that are violations of those in order to make more money or simply because they think it's best.

Paperlantern

CSCOnoob wrote: »

Probably around $10-20/hr. As Iris mentioned, it would depend on your location.

I can't imagine even management making up to $20/hr in a retail setting. I'm thinking you typod and meant to type $12, but just in case, I really think that is high. My guess would be 10 - 12 as well, tops.

thegoodbye

I'm going to reiterate what other posters have said about Geek Squad (GS) -- stay away.


I worked at GS part time while in College many moons ago. Pay then was about $ 10 - 12 an hour, though I can't imagine it's changed much. The "in home" GS tech (the one who drives the bug) made $15 - 18 an hour, typically. It's not a good place to work if you know anything about computers and you typically won't learn anything new 3 after a few months. My store had a 3/1 ratio of people were hired to sell services vs. people who knew about computers. GS's main focus is to have their "agents" sell services to customers (e.g. malware removals, a/v installs, and in-home setups).


If Best Buy still allowed for their standard employee discount (rumors were it was 5% above cost), then it'd be a decent place to work part time if you wanted cheap electronics. However, they've since gone away with this program. The max employee discount is 50% off of the retail price of a product.

CSCOnoob

WafflesAndRootbeer wrote: »

Starting pay in Geek Squad varies, but it's very rare to find an employee starting out at anything above $10.00, regardless of what you bring to the table.

They must have changed now. I made more than $10/hr back then and I didn't have any experience at all. Only AAS degree and A+.

Paperlantern wrote: »

I can't imagine even management making up to $20/hr in a retail setting. I'm thinking you typod and meant to type $12, but just in case, I really think that is high. My guess would be 10 - 12 as well, tops.

CompUSA tech guys were making $18/hr at the time. Some of the techs moved to Best Buy to make more money. $18-22/hr were some of the salary of the people who worked there as full time employee.

SteveLord

Avoid at all costs if possible. Geek Squad is more sales, less IT. I would look toward reducing family expenses before going there. I was just able to do that by switching from Cable to Direct TV, dropping paid phone service to an Obihai adapter/Google voice number and switching daycare provider.

CSCOnoob

SteveLord wrote: »

Avoid at all costs if possible. Geek Squad is more sales, less IT.

Now it is. It used to be not like that. A lot of the CompUSA tech guys moved to GS/BBY

kanecain

Former employee/manager here: If you apply for a Geek Squad precinct, do not expect to work on computers all day or drive the car. You will start out diagnosing machines on the front counter, and bringing them in for the actual tenured GS agents. Attempting to repair anything on this counter will likely result (depending on the manager) with a reprimand. You will quite frequently be asked to sell computers on the sales floor too, and will be expected to offer and attach all of the services and products that are available for the product. Only after you've shown the GS manager that you can accurately and quickly fix computers will you work on the actual machines.

As for pay, I based pay entirely on previous experience with computer repair and customer service skills. Most of my agents would start at the $11.00 mark for full-time and $10.00 for part-time. This will of course depend on your location and physical size of the Best Buy store. Smaller stores have smaller repair queues, and less agents to pay which equals less starting pay. GS managers (Deputy of Counter Intelligence) are some of the highest payed Best Buy employees. When I left, I made over $20 a hour. That of course is due to having multiple positions in Geek Squad before I took that role.

GS isn't perfect, but is was a great place to get experience. It launched my IT career, and I was grateful that it put food on the table. This all may have changed with Best Buy's recent restructuring...

WiseWun

GS is a joke, it all depends on your financial situation. Start your own SOHO consulting business and sign up for one of those online sites for gigs(forgot the name but Iristheangel knows what I'm talking about.)

zrockstar

Don't listen to what other people say; if you need the money for your family, take the job. You obviously already have a good career with benefits and potential, if all you need is extra cash, flip burgers if you have to. I wonder if people even read your post or just saw "geek squad" and figured they would fire off whatever they knew.

GPIT

zrockstar wrote: »

Don't listen to what other people say; if you need the money for your family, take the job. You obviously already have a good career with benefits and potential, if all you need is extra cash, flip burgers if you have to. I wonder if people even read your post or just saw "geek squad" and figured they would fire off whatever they knew.

Agreed. Money is money. A job is a job. Just understand that your expectations of the job may not coincide with what actually takes place on the job.

WiseWun

GPIT wrote: »

Agreed. Money is money. A job is a job. Just understand that your expectations of the job may not coincide with what actually takes place on the job.

OP needs to ask himself if it's worth his time and would he be happy working at Geek Squad. Keep in mind that there is something called "bad" money!

GPIT

WiseWun wrote: »

OP needs to ask himself if it's worth his time and would he be happy working at Geek Squad. Keep in mind that there is something called "bad" money!

I don't know about "bad money"... I have heard of "dirty money"...

WiseWun

Yah I heard of that too. Bad money is not good for your health...watch out now!

CSCOnoob

If you can get another IT job part time that isn't GS then do it. But if you need money and no part time IT job that is better than GS then take the GS job even if they changed the technical requirements for it. You gotta do what you gotta do.

SteveLord

I would find ways to reduce expenses before going to GS and burdening myself with 2 jobs, with 1 being military. Even the OP himself called them "excessive", but that could mean many things. I suppose even llost income from a spouse.

The OP hasn't responded since Tuesday, so we'll have to wait and see.

Paperlantern

WiseWun wrote: »

GS is a joke, it all depends on your financial situation. Start your own SOHO consulting business and sign up for one of those online sites for gigs(forgot the name but Iristheangel knows what I'm talking about.)

I wouldnt go so far as to call it a JOKE. Kanecain seems to have had a relatively okay time there. As far as the technical expertise with the folks that do work there, they arent the highest in my mind. I do a lot of side work for people, well maybe not alot, but 25 or 30 repairs a year, and almost half of them say they went to geek squad first.

As an example the most recent one that followed this trend was a woman that brought me her laptop inquiring if I can resolder a power connector. I told her I can as long as the connector isnt damaged. It would be a little more if I had to track down the connector. I asked her why she thought her connector needed resoldered. She said Geek Squad told her it was broken and the system needed a new motherboard to be repaired. They quoted her some ungodly amount of money (i think $400), she refused and brought it to me hoping i could repair the problem and not just replace the entire board.

It took me exactly 15 seconds to not only diagnose that the board and connector was fine, but that she simply needed a new power adapter. Using one I had on hand the computer fired up perfectly fine, charged the battery, and remained on while the battery was removed and the power cord was jostled and moved. I wont even mention the fact that this particular model had a separate daughter board for the power connector and it wasnt even on the mainboard at all. Okay i will mention it.

This type of thing happens to me with a very large percentage of the repairs brought to me, much much higher than it should be, it CANNOT be coincidence. These folks are form all over the city where multiple stores are in play. It really just leaves me speechless, but Ive gotten used to it, sometimes i even finish thier sentences for them when I ask where they went before, or who told them that, we say "Geek Squad" simultaneously.

Hopefully if you do go this route, youll bring some much needed expertise to the store you are in, because from the trends ive seen first hand, there isnt a whole lot in several of the stores around these parts. I'm not saying this is the case EVERYWHERE, or that all geek squad team members are morons. But with these things coming to me and the sotries they tell me, it REALLY makes me wonder.

kanecain

Paperlantern wrote: »

I wouldnt go so far as to call it a JOKE. Kanecain seems to have had a relatively okay time there. As far as the technical expertise with the folks that do work there, they arent the highest in my mind. I do a lot of side work for people, well maybe not alot, but 25 or 30 repairs a year, and almost half of them say they went to geek squad first....

I agree with this post 100%. As a former Geek Squad manager, I experienced this everyday. On repairs like you've mentioned, those are never done in the Best Buy stores. The store agents are not trained or expected to know how to solder. These machines are always sent to a service center, and it's the Best Buy service centers that quote those ridiculous prices. Best Buy can't purchase cheap replacement parts due to contracts with the major computer companies. The reason why she was quoted $400 for a motherboard...blame the manufacturer of her computer. If her machine was for example a HP, HP will charge full retail price for the part, and Best Buy would add around 2% to make some kind of profit. Some parts are sold to customers at a loss.

As for the service center just soldering the part back on, that is impossible due to liability issues. I've seen customers sue Best Buy for thousands of dollars because a repair didn't go as expected on their 12 year old PC. Speed of repair is also a big concern. Customers do not want to wait for a repair. The average service center receives around 3000 computers a day. Getting those machines out in a timely manner is a big priority. Customers do not want to wait for someone to open their machine, test all of the parts, or use a solder gun to re-attach a part. They wanted the machine back 2 hours after they've dropped it off. I would send machines to the service centers only for quotes. If the machine was outside of warranty, I always recommended local computer shops, or just replacing the machine due to age.

So with all of the service center problems, why use them? One word: Convenience. We are a lazy society and just dropping something off is easier than scheduling someone to come to your house on your busy schedule. I trained my guys to offer the best solution for our customers, even if it meant loss of revenue. We knew that created trust and return business.

All in all, if you have a motherboard issue, don't take it to Best Buy. Find a local repair guy.

CSCOnoob

Paperlantern wrote: »

As far as the technical expertise with the folks that do work there, they arent the highest in my mind.

I'm not saying this is the case EVERYWHERE, or that all geek squad team members are morons.

Again, things have changed. It used to be not like that. They used to have technical interviews for in-store techs and required A+ Most of the people I worked with had computer repair experience except for me and another part time employee. However, she was mostly used to go work in the register area. Yes, I am defending the people I've worked with and myself because they aren't morons and I am not a moron.

Paperlantern

CSCOnoob wrote: »

Again, things have changed. It used to be not like that. They used to have technical interviews for in-store techs and required A+ Most of the people I worked with had computer repair experience except for me and another part time employee. However, she was mostly used to go work in the register area. Yes, I am defending the people I've worked with and myself because they aren't morons and I am not a moron.

I didnt call them all morons, I'm am sure most of them are perfectly competant, yourself included. If you read, i said "I'm NOT saying this is the case EVERYWHERE, or that all geek squad team members are morons". I said i'm NOT saying that, because I'm not, I don't paint the entire Geek Squad morons, but, I am saying someone somewhere HAS to be a moron, to diagnose and quote a motherboard replacement when the problem is a $30 AC adapter. That is lost time, and lost revenue for the store, plus a lost customer that now probably IS under the impression that Geek Squad is a bunch of morons.

Its usually a select few that make a bad name for the many.

SteveLord

CSCOnoob wrote: »

Again, things have changed. It used to be not like that. They used to have technical interviews for in-store techs and required A+ Most of the people I worked with had computer repair experience except for me and another part time employee. However, she was mostly used to go work in the register area. Yes, I am defending the people I've worked with and myself because they aren't morons and I am not a moron.

You're defending the past. Of which nobody really cares about because it isn't relevant to today. Geeksquad's poor reputation spans more than a few months or a few years.

networkjutsu

Wow, so much hate going on around here. I also launched my IT career with the help of Geek Squad on my resume believe it or not. The second IT position that I applied for had two openings - one for not so much IT related and one which was IT related. My former manager hired me as opposed to the other candidate (who was eventually hired after me) and put me to the IT related position because of my GS experience.

NetworkingStudent

the_hutch wrote: »

So I currently do network vulnerability management and malware forensics for the Air Force. Because of some excessive family expenses...I needed to find an additional part-time job on the side. There seems to be no such thing as a part-time job in InfoSec, so I hit up Best Buy about GeekSquad. They pretty much scheduled my interview as soon as I pulled out my resume. But I'm wondering...

Does anyone have any experience working for GeekSquad? How much can I expect to make hourly? Thanks.

I suggest the following websites for part time work:

https://www.workmarket.com/

https://www.fieldnation.com/

OnForce - Your Partner In Service

These websites are free to join, and they will route jobs to you. You can up load your certs and choose to take jobs based on your schedule.

Beyond these websites you could search local computer repair shops looking for a part time help. Sometimes you will find these jobs on Craigs List. Real computer shops, not Geek Squad or Staples!!! Additionally, you could start your own computer repair business/IT consulting business.
Real computer repair shops actually fix the problem; they don’t sell the customers garbage they don’t want or need.

A short blurb on Geek Squad:


5 Geek Squad Mistakes

Good luck, I hope this helps.

W Stewart

kanecain wrote: »

I agree with this post 100%. As a former Geek Squad manager, I experienced this everyday. On repairs like you've mentioned, those are never done in the Best Buy stores. The store agents are not trained or expected to know how to solder. These machines are always sent to a service center, and it's the Best Buy service centers that quote those ridiculous prices. Best Buy can't purchase cheap replacement parts due to contracts with the major computer companies. The reason why she was quoted $400 for a motherboard...blame the manufacturer of her computer. If her machine was for example a HP, HP will charge full retail price for the part, and Best Buy would add around 2% to make some kind of profit. Some parts are sold to customers at a loss.

As for the service center just soldering the part back on, that is impossible due to liability issues. I've seen customers sue Best Buy for thousands of dollars because a repair didn't go as expected on their 12 year old PC. Speed of repair is also a big concern. Customers do not want to wait for a repair. The average service center receives around 3000 computers a day. Getting those machines out in a timely manner is a big priority. Customers do not want to wait for someone to open their machine, test all of the parts, or use a solder gun to re-attach a part. They wanted the machine back 2 hours after they've dropped it off. I would send machines to the service centers only for quotes. If the machine was outside of warranty, I always recommended local computer shops, or just replacing the machine due to age.

So with all of the service center problems, why use them? One word: Convenience. We are a lazy society and just dropping something off is easier than scheduling someone to come to your house on your busy schedule. I trained my guys to offer the best solution for our customers, even if it meant loss of revenue. We knew that created trust and return business.

All in all, if you have a motherboard issue, don't take it to Best Buy. Find a local repair guy.

The problem is not that geeksquad couldn't solder the part onto the motherboard or even that they quoted such a high price for the motherboard. The problem is that the motherboard wasn't the issue in the first place. It was a bad power supply and that's something that geek squad should have been able to troubleshoot before quoting you $400 for a new motherboard. The power supply should have been one of the first things they looked at and one of the first things any competent technician would look at when a laptop is not powering up.

W Stewart

I should also mention that geeksquad also quoted my mom for a new hard drive when her laptop hard drive was in perfectly good health and the operating system just needed to be reinstalled. It's still running fine to this day without any issues. I'm not sure how geeksquad is supposed to handle OS issue and I know back when I used to work at Dell we were supposed to recommend a reinstall rather than actually troubleshoot OS issues beyond a few recovery commands but one thing we did was make sure the hardware was actually bad before dispatching parts or quoting prices. Maybe it's not due to incompetence. Maybe technicians these days are pressured into trying to get a sale wherever they can and as a result, purposefully misdiagnose something as a hardware issue or a more expensive hardware issue if they can get away with it.

SephStorm

I am not a fan of GS, Overpriced, underskilled, and they wouldn't hire me. I had more knowledge then anyone on the team that I spoke up to.

kanecain

W Stewart wrote: »

The problem is not that geeksquad couldn't solder the part onto the motherboard or even that they quoted such a high price for the motherboard. The problem is that the motherboard wasn't the issue in the first place. It was a bad power supply and that's something that geek squad should have been able to troubleshoot before quoting you $400 for a new motherboard. The power supply should have been one of the first things they looked at and one of the first things any competent technician would look at when a laptop is not powering up.

Oh, I agree. As I said, it's the service centers (that are not Geek Squad) that makes these dumb mistakes. The in-store Geek Squad employees always fueded with the service centers. It was we who got yelled at by customers. The whole system was so broken.