Guitar Center Interview Questions
& Process

I'm really annoyed with this company. They completely wasted my time. I started this process back in April. I talked to the recruiter and then one of the hiring managers. The recruiter was going to set up a second interview with another hiring manager, but then they laid off that recruiter. I found out on LinkedIn. That recruiter was actually great. They ended up canceling the role, so I had to reapply. The new recruiter took over a month to get back to me. After we spoke in July, it took them more than a month to schedule an interview. They told me they were restructuring the department, but they didn't tell me anything about that even though I followed up three times between July and August. Now it's September, and I had another interview with a different hiring manager. The recruiter never followed up with me. I reached out, and they said they're going in a different direction. After 6 months of them ghosting me and not communicating, this is what I get! The first sign that this wasn't the right fit was when they laid off the first recruiter. I should have trusted my gut and moved on. I regret letting them waste 6 months of my time. They seriously need to improve their communication and recruitment process because this was just not okay!

So I got contacted by the recruiter after applying and we talked about the job. Then they said I would move on to talk to the hiring manager. I had to chase them up a few times to get it scheduled though. Apparently the recruiter was off sick - seriously, no one to cover? The actual chat with the hiring manager was rough. They kept cutting me off and only seemed interested in things that directly drove sales, not my other achievements. When I asked about their process, it seemed like they just wing it and test stuff without much reason. Then they ended it with a peace sign, which was pretty weird and not very professional. Never heard back after that, no rejection or anything.

We did a group interview first, where everyone got asked questions and we answered them one by one. After that, there was a callback where we had to show our musical skills. This part involved checking our understanding of basic music theory for our instrument and other things that proved we knew our music.

The whole thing took around 4 weeks. Most interviews were online, but the last two were face-to-face at the main office in Westlake Village. The interviews happened in this order: Recruiter, Recruiting Manager, Hiring Manager, a group of HRBPs, and then a group with the Hiring Manager and Director of HR. I feel bad for the recruiter, they seem swamped. My interview with them got moved 3 times because of meetings running late or double bookings. Both times they called to set up more interviews, it was after 5:30pm. That gave me a heads-up that work/life balance might be tough, but it wasn't a deal-breaker. Since I've worked in recruiting and HR and have even looked at and changed how we handle the candidate experience at my current job, I think people who make it to the final round should get a call to let them know they didn't get the job, not just some random email saying they're out. I would figure that once you're invited to the final interview, you're more than just a number or an application, especially since you're probably one of only 2 or 3 people left. This is the first time I've ever gotten a standard "we're not moving forward with you" email after getting this far. Again, the poor recruiter is clearly overloaded, but the candidate experience shouldn't suffer because of it.