Working at GameStop....

[Chickenlittle]

I'll say it once and I'll say it again.

INTERNSHIPS! INTERNSHIPS! INTERNSHIPS!
You are never too young to volunteer or establish yourself in the career you want by either voluntering or doing internships. There are pleanty of paid internships and even if you do not know what you want to do in your life an internship is SO much better than working a part time job.

Unless you want to work as a salesman for your life retail is a STAIN on your resume. No matter how successful you are at it or how well of a story. There are no chances for any recognition from the company and really hard to get a well written letter of recommendation from your manager.

Do not make the same mistake as me and get a part-time job over an internship. There are plenty of paid internships as well if you look hard enough. Once you are out of college like me it is everyman for himself and the one thing that seperates you from the pack is how much related internships, volunteer work, and club activity(leading not membership) you do.

Here is your answer.

I really do not recommend working at GS or EBG.

 

[Rednog]

If you're going to work at a gamestop find out that is either near a college of some sort (usually better treatment because a handful of college kids have or will work there at some point for pay and they're afraid of word of mouth if they treat their employees badly.) Or find a gamestop that is community starved. Example, one I used to work was in an open mall, but it was no mall that anyone under the age of 30 would be at. Had a huge Korean Grocery Store, an Orthopedic place, dentist place, Home Depot, no clothing stores etc. And thus the flow of customers was extremely slim and they really loved employees who were charismatic and knew alot about games to rope in the few people who came. Other than that I'd advise you to work in a place like Best Buy if any retail at all. I generally found the work to be fair and while most gamestops only have like 2-3 people (if that many at all) on staff at one time it can get annoying if you don't like the one or two other people working with you, a bigger retail store you usually can find a handful of people you like to help you pass the drudgery of work.

 

[black lincon]

It's more of a moot point as you cannot work for GameStop until you're 18. Trust me, I tried, several times.

I'm betting you live in a state that has a law about it, in my state the only thing that might stop people was a store policy, and even then my bro got a job at 16 at EB even though they only hire 18-year-olds. Although in all honesty he was good friends with the manager and the manager was possibly the nicest person ever and promised almost ever potential employee a job despite never hiring half of them.

I intend on getting a job at my local gamestop this summer when I'm 16. I'm lucky enough to live by one of those odd gamestops that have good employee's that actually know about games.

 

[Samurai Goomba]

http://www.dailymotion.com/related/x6wx7h_zero-originality-episode-2/video/x6wy69_zero-originality-episode-3-part-1_videogames

This has really colored my opinion of GameStop.

Me too. Amazon and Steam from here on out.

Gamefly for me, thank you!

I'm been going the Half.com and Ebay route for quite some time, but I'd like to personally thank the guy who introduced me to those videos. I have a lot of reasons why I don't like GS, and it's nice to see all those reasons neatly compiled into a video or three.

 

[tiredinnuendo]

I would never work at any place that gave you a card in leiu of actual pay. Someone above me aleady linked it, but there's a whole video of really good reasons why there are so many better jobs than Gamestop.

All that said, however, I'm going to go with the guy that said internships. Whenever I have to look over resumes for potential new-hires at my company, having served an internship while in school is always a plus. The folks who worked a retail part-time gig either don't put that on there at all (these are the smart ones) or actively lose points for writing "Toys R Us" or what have you on their professional resume.

Screw Gamestop, they've already got a stack of applications a mile long anyway. Try to be successful instead.

Plus, a paid internship would pay about double what you'd make at Gamestop.

- J

 

[VoleurdeThym]

I work at Game Stop... We're supposed to hire kids 17 and up.
But we never do.
Corporate is too worried about some under aged employee getting their hands on GTA, and their family sues or something.
On top of that, its a damn hard job to get. The groups are tight knit, and they hate to hire anyone who hasn't worked retail 5 years.

*hugs*
Aim higher, kid. The job sucks, anyway.

Edit- You can get direct deposit really easily. The card IS gawdawful, though.

 

[Bourne Endeavor]

This is reason enough why I refuse to ever work in retail. The people are absolute morons and I refuse to waste my time serving them or listening to the irrational whining about why their seven year old devil spawn cannot purchase a game that quite clearly states it is meant for people seventeen plus. I would last no longer then a week at best because it would take one high school drop out screaming at me in the above scenario for my retaliation to commence, where I inform him/her how much of an idiot they are.

 

[Pudgyboi]

http://www.dailymotion.com/related/x6wx7h_zero-originality-episode-2/video/x6wy69_zero-originality-episode-3-part-1_videogames

This has really colored my opinion of GameStop.

It's really hard to watch this without Yahtzee voice.. eerie.

 

[mark_n_b]

I understand that at 16, my choices for work are either fast food, department stores, or video games, and the first two are not options for me. (Btw, I'm an avid video game player)

And why are they not options for you? If you have a disability that would keep you from working at a department chain, I don't see GameStop as a viable employer for you.

Besides fast food there are many other "first job" styled positions in food services: Serving, Bussing, cleaning duties (and while "dish washer" may not be the most glamorous sounding of job titles, putting stuff into a dishwasher means you don't have to put up with ignorant customers or making mistakes, etc. it is a sweet gig), there are call centers, there are far more retail opportunities than walmart or EB, When I worked at Gap I enjoyed it much more than it seems the people who worked at GameStop have.

Work where you want, a couple of points:

1. you very well may never get the chance to work at your local GameStop, they only need a handful of people, and while turnover is high, there are a pile of resumes for the manager to choose from all of which say "avid video game player"
2. Your employee discount will not make up for the lack of fun or the lack of wages you will earn, don't expect it to be all playing on the stores systems and buying all the best games when they come out
3. I know only one or two "first time employees" that got the job they were looking for.
4. Right now it is January, retail sales will pick up in the summer for break time, in the autumn for school time (also a high game release period) and in christmas. About two and a half weeks before those periods is the best time to drop a resume off.

Good luck