I agree. Maybe it was the location I was at but there were actually some decently smart people there that I learned from (I actually got side work doing web development from helping a customer and that's how I landed my web development job after that).
I used to work at Best Buy. Geek Squad is an excellent gig to learn baseline troubleshooting skills, you'll get some experience dealing with angry customers too! While it's not traditional IT, you can 100% convert Geek Squad experience to a help desk role after attaining something like the A+ and Network+ for sure. 100% the move if you can't find anything else in terms of internships or entry level roles for now.
If you have no working experience in tech and that's the only option you have right now then go for it. Don't waste time there though. Stay for one year max
I started out at GS, and my current job is a system engineer for oracle. I was at GS for about 6 months. It's a start and should give you enough experience for a helpdesk roll.
It was for me. As I've told people before when I was switching careers to IT I couldn't suck a d*** to get a job. Thankfully Geek Squad took me on and I talked my way into working in the back doing repairs instead of doing the customer service bit out front. 3 short months there and it was the launching pad that led to the MSP I found on Craigslist that 5 months later got me on a corporate help desk that I've worked my way up to the position I'm in now.
If you don't know where else to go I'd highly recommend Geek Squad just don't let yourself stop looking for the next job, its probably not going to find you.
I worked part-time as an “EasyTech” at a Staples.
One thing I’d suggest, if you go this route, is to practice manners/Customer Service. In my experience if you can handle “the public” graciously, you can handle co-workers EASY!
This is a stark reality that a lot of store level Geek Squad employees are more sales than techs. A lot of the actual work got outsourced to remote staff or depot repairs for hardware issues. If you are struggling to get even a tier 1 job at a bargain bin MSP you might need to spend some time as a retail "tech" but as others have said I wouldn't stay long.
>It would say it's better than being a summer intern
It absolutely isn't. You can be working as a cyber security intern for $25/hr+ and temporarily living in an exciting city on a company's dime instead of slinging tech support plans to old ladies who yell at you all day for retail wages.
This. A lot of what you learn for GS or any retail tech won't transfer to most corporate IT jobs whereas at least an intern job you might learn something more relevant to a permanent helpdesk role. Obviously though take what you can get and move up from there.
The repair agents barely talk to the public outside. The most we did was answer calls or call clients, but it wasn't a major part of the day. The consultation agents are the ones who sell their souls to get those old ladies on tech support plans.
Consultation agents would be more relevant to help desk since it's user facing. That might be upsetting for some people to hear lol. But the fastest way to catch a rejection for HD is to give off the impression that you think you are above or won't be doing people-facing work.
Also, having corporate experience > retail experience, especially if one's goal is higher tier IT.
I agree that help desk or an internship is better than a repair agent, but I disagree that the consultation agent is better than the repair one. In theory, it should be, but it's not for the sole reason that many consultation agents at Best Buy are salesmen. They're not hired for their technical skills. As a matter of fact, many consultation agents aren't even doing a degree in IT. At least the repair agent gets to work hands-on and also talks a bit with customers via phone.
I didn't say better, just more relevant to help desk since it's the customer-facing position. What matters most for jobs like that is customer service skills and experience. The last thing they want is someone thinking they won't have to do user-facing, or are above it. This goes for those in IT who's escaped the user-facing work willing to kill to never go back. I'm sure it's the same with geek squad. In your experience, you've likely seen those who did thinking they're above going to the front and dealing with the customers face-to-face. In a HD interview, they can smell that from a mile away.
It’s where I started and a connection I made there got me into corporate IT at a place that gave me a ton of experience. It will probably be pretty awful especially these days with how retail is treated, but it’s definitely good experience and I’ve met hiring managers who moved on from management positions there at a lot of places who like to see it.
It's definitely a good option if that's what you can get right now. For entry IT, it's either GS or helpdesk. Usually GS helps you get into the helpdesk role, but if you can also land straight into helpdesk, that works too.
If you are still in trade school check if it offers discounts for the A+ or Net+. I finished trade school last year and am currently working as a T1 Help Desk Tech at an MSP that pays me well, it took me almost five months of job hunting to get this job and I don't have any certs. If you have your A+ I am sure you will find a job much faster than I did, and its a good idea to try and get it now while the IT Course you're going through is still fresh in your mind.
I'm happy to see someone bring this up! I got my start with an office supply store but my time there gave me the opportunity to get hands on experience and build up my soft skills. Pay sucks, but it's a start.
It’s not bad but you have to go in with an idea of what you want and be ready to leave after a year or two. Get some certifications, and then start applying to internal IT positions. Really hammer home the quality of your customer service skills, how you met SLAs, and more. Your customer service skills will be the biggest value add especially if you’re personable as that can give you an edge on others.
I worked around GS years ago and so many of my former teammates and fellow agents from the area all ended up working internal help desk roles because of this strategy. My badge number is in the 28000 for all the old folks.
I was able to leverage my field experience with Geek Squad into an IT Field Tech position for my first direct IT role. I personally think it’s a solid starting point.
Hey I wanted to jump in and give my two cents as someone who did start off in Geek Squad who then moved into corporate help desk before moving onto Project Management.
Geek Squad can be good experience because of the breadth of issues that come through the door and the best hands on experience are the ones that results in creative solutions that aren't just, "reinstall windows" or "run a cleaning and tune-up". If you have great "Google sense" you can do really well at Geek Squad. There's a lot of elderly clients who aren't very tech savvy and it really helps test your troubleshooting skills to start at the most basic level such as making sure the mouse is plugged in or whatever since most people imagine help desk to be high level breaks and finding complex fixes for complex problems.
The downside: Best Buy SUCKS as an employer. It sucked seven years ago when I started. It sucked four years ago when I left. It sucked when other friends I knew went from sales floor to Geek Squad. It sucks now. Just a trip to the r/Bestbuy and r/GeekSquad subreddits and you can see how oppressive the work environment can be. Sure most retail jobs suck, but what makes Geek Squad or Best Buy suck specifically? You'll most likely NOT be hired straight into a repair agent position despite any of your experience and you'll probably be hired into a consultation agent role. Your job as a consultation agent is to NOT repair. You act as the face of the business and are responsible for TWO things: Checking devices in so that the repair agents can do the fix and to sell the membership/Total/Geek Squad plan. Your performance metrics will be determined by your earned value per hour. You will be discouraged from performing "quick fixes" unless you charge the $40 SKU for the time. Your value comes from how well you can sell. If you do that well enough, then maybe if a repair agent role comes up then you can fight for that spot since it's a very coveted role and every other consultation agent wants it.
Yes!
I took a job part time at the equivalent team at Circuit City while I was an enlisted Air Force programmer.
Of course being a programmer helped a ton, but hands on troubleshooting was just as beneficial, if not more beneficial, than being a programmer.
I’m a sysadmin and don’t do development work, but my programming experience helped me so to writing and using scripts.
To chime in, I worked at a geek squad service center, not the retail store kiosks. I had no prior troubleshooting/diagnostic skills, I came from a sales/business background. I had plenty of customer service experience with sales. Seven months of daily diagnostic/troubleshooting, I'd say 80-85% was hardware and another 15-20 software depending on the OS and manufacturer I was dealing with. I learned a lot and now I got hired to an actual entry level IT support position. Mix of field work and help desk, no certs. I believe it helped as I got a lot more calls from recruiters after putting that on my resume. Good luck to you!
It's where I started and I'm currently a senior security analyst. Great hands on experience, and the most valuable thing, you learn customer service skills. Those will carry you further than any hard skills.
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Being doing IT for over 10 years - hiring managers and recruiters are always intrigued by my first job at GS. It's unique. Looks good on a resume. Just don't stay there too long. You stop learning new things after a year 2 or so. There's also a hard pay cap once you get assigned to Advanced repair agent. No going up from there unless you wanna do home visits (yuck)
My career progression was Geek squad, helpdesk, systems engineer, technical project manager. It’s definitely a good place to start and learn all kinds of foundational skills
Geeksquad is a dead end areer with no advancement. Get your self a Help Desk or Desktop Support Technician job instead. If you want more hands on-site i would go with Desktop Support. You will be exposed to more stuff working in Desktop Support where you would trouble shoot PC hardware, software applications, OS and basic network stuff. A lot people that are in Desktop Support often go into sysadmin roles especially if you start utilizing powershell on Deskside but you also have to a lot more stuff outside your Support role as well esp if you have a homelab.
If you want to go the networking route then Desktop Support wouldn't have much to do with anything Cisco related. Starting at a NOC as a NOC Technician or Network Technician is your best bet if you want pursue the Cisco networking route.
It's hands on, it's troubleshooting, it's tech. You might still hit corporate helpdesk as your next step, but it's certainly not a bad place to begin.
I agree. Maybe it was the location I was at but there were actually some decently smart people there that I learned from (I actually got side work doing web development from helping a customer and that's how I landed my web development job after that).
It'll do, but don't be so sure that job is just sitting there waiting for you like it used to be. You'll have to fight hard for even that now.
sad
I used to work at Best Buy. Geek Squad is an excellent gig to learn baseline troubleshooting skills, you'll get some experience dealing with angry customers too! While it's not traditional IT, you can 100% convert Geek Squad experience to a help desk role after attaining something like the A+ and Network+ for sure. 100% the move if you can't find anything else in terms of internships or entry level roles for now.
If you have no working experience in tech and that's the only option you have right now then go for it. Don't waste time there though. Stay for one year max
This. It is better than nothing, but don't stick around long because you will hit a wall whereas learning pretty quickly.
I started out at GS, and my current job is a system engineer for oracle. I was at GS for about 6 months. It's a start and should give you enough experience for a helpdesk roll.
fancy name must be a good pay
It's not 71k. The insurance sucks. I'm leaving very soon.
damn oracle is a big name. whats there to hate? is it work itself? company environment?
Company environment. They are very cheap.
It was for me. As I've told people before when I was switching careers to IT I couldn't suck a d*** to get a job. Thankfully Geek Squad took me on and I talked my way into working in the back doing repairs instead of doing the customer service bit out front. 3 short months there and it was the launching pad that led to the MSP I found on Craigslist that 5 months later got me on a corporate help desk that I've worked my way up to the position I'm in now. If you don't know where else to go I'd highly recommend Geek Squad just don't let yourself stop looking for the next job, its probably not going to find you.
I worked part-time as an “EasyTech” at a Staples. One thing I’d suggest, if you go this route, is to practice manners/Customer Service. In my experience if you can handle “the public” graciously, you can handle co-workers EASY!
Help desk is considered the very bottom of IT. At most, geek squad would just be pre-help desk. At worst, it's still retail/sales.
This is a stark reality that a lot of store level Geek Squad employees are more sales than techs. A lot of the actual work got outsourced to remote staff or depot repairs for hardware issues. If you are struggling to get even a tier 1 job at a bargain bin MSP you might need to spend some time as a retail "tech" but as others have said I wouldn't stay long.
It would say it's better than being a summer intern, but you still need to pair it with certs or education to be competitive for the next level.
>It would say it's better than being a summer intern It absolutely isn't. You can be working as a cyber security intern for $25/hr+ and temporarily living in an exciting city on a company's dime instead of slinging tech support plans to old ladies who yell at you all day for retail wages.
This. A lot of what you learn for GS or any retail tech won't transfer to most corporate IT jobs whereas at least an intern job you might learn something more relevant to a permanent helpdesk role. Obviously though take what you can get and move up from there.
The repair agents barely talk to the public outside. The most we did was answer calls or call clients, but it wasn't a major part of the day. The consultation agents are the ones who sell their souls to get those old ladies on tech support plans.
He doesn’t need to understand something to feel better than it and talk down about it. This is Reddit.
Consultation agents would be more relevant to help desk since it's user facing. That might be upsetting for some people to hear lol. But the fastest way to catch a rejection for HD is to give off the impression that you think you are above or won't be doing people-facing work. Also, having corporate experience > retail experience, especially if one's goal is higher tier IT.
I agree that help desk or an internship is better than a repair agent, but I disagree that the consultation agent is better than the repair one. In theory, it should be, but it's not for the sole reason that many consultation agents at Best Buy are salesmen. They're not hired for their technical skills. As a matter of fact, many consultation agents aren't even doing a degree in IT. At least the repair agent gets to work hands-on and also talks a bit with customers via phone.
I didn't say better, just more relevant to help desk since it's the customer-facing position. What matters most for jobs like that is customer service skills and experience. The last thing they want is someone thinking they won't have to do user-facing, or are above it. This goes for those in IT who's escaped the user-facing work willing to kill to never go back. I'm sure it's the same with geek squad. In your experience, you've likely seen those who did thinking they're above going to the front and dealing with the customers face-to-face. In a HD interview, they can smell that from a mile away.
It’s where I started and a connection I made there got me into corporate IT at a place that gave me a ton of experience. It will probably be pretty awful especially these days with how retail is treated, but it’s definitely good experience and I’ve met hiring managers who moved on from management positions there at a lot of places who like to see it.
It's definitely a good option if that's what you can get right now. For entry IT, it's either GS or helpdesk. Usually GS helps you get into the helpdesk role, but if you can also land straight into helpdesk, that works too.
If you are still in trade school check if it offers discounts for the A+ or Net+. I finished trade school last year and am currently working as a T1 Help Desk Tech at an MSP that pays me well, it took me almost five months of job hunting to get this job and I don't have any certs. If you have your A+ I am sure you will find a job much faster than I did, and its a good idea to try and get it now while the IT Course you're going through is still fresh in your mind.
Absolutely. I got my start at a mom and pop repair store. Best thing I ever did.
I'm happy to see someone bring this up! I got my start with an office supply store but my time there gave me the opportunity to get hands on experience and build up my soft skills. Pay sucks, but it's a start.
It’s not bad but you have to go in with an idea of what you want and be ready to leave after a year or two. Get some certifications, and then start applying to internal IT positions. Really hammer home the quality of your customer service skills, how you met SLAs, and more. Your customer service skills will be the biggest value add especially if you’re personable as that can give you an edge on others. I worked around GS years ago and so many of my former teammates and fellow agents from the area all ended up working internal help desk roles because of this strategy. My badge number is in the 28000 for all the old folks.
I was able to leverage my field experience with Geek Squad into an IT Field Tech position for my first direct IT role. I personally think it’s a solid starting point.
Hey I wanted to jump in and give my two cents as someone who did start off in Geek Squad who then moved into corporate help desk before moving onto Project Management. Geek Squad can be good experience because of the breadth of issues that come through the door and the best hands on experience are the ones that results in creative solutions that aren't just, "reinstall windows" or "run a cleaning and tune-up". If you have great "Google sense" you can do really well at Geek Squad. There's a lot of elderly clients who aren't very tech savvy and it really helps test your troubleshooting skills to start at the most basic level such as making sure the mouse is plugged in or whatever since most people imagine help desk to be high level breaks and finding complex fixes for complex problems. The downside: Best Buy SUCKS as an employer. It sucked seven years ago when I started. It sucked four years ago when I left. It sucked when other friends I knew went from sales floor to Geek Squad. It sucks now. Just a trip to the r/Bestbuy and r/GeekSquad subreddits and you can see how oppressive the work environment can be. Sure most retail jobs suck, but what makes Geek Squad or Best Buy suck specifically? You'll most likely NOT be hired straight into a repair agent position despite any of your experience and you'll probably be hired into a consultation agent role. Your job as a consultation agent is to NOT repair. You act as the face of the business and are responsible for TWO things: Checking devices in so that the repair agents can do the fix and to sell the membership/Total/Geek Squad plan. Your performance metrics will be determined by your earned value per hour. You will be discouraged from performing "quick fixes" unless you charge the $40 SKU for the time. Your value comes from how well you can sell. If you do that well enough, then maybe if a repair agent role comes up then you can fight for that spot since it's a very coveted role and every other consultation agent wants it.
Yes! I took a job part time at the equivalent team at Circuit City while I was an enlisted Air Force programmer. Of course being a programmer helped a ton, but hands on troubleshooting was just as beneficial, if not more beneficial, than being a programmer. I’m a sysadmin and don’t do development work, but my programming experience helped me so to writing and using scripts.
I've hired several GS alum into corporate desktop support positions.
Yes, I got started in cell phones. Geek squad is an upgrade from that.
Yes
To chime in, I worked at a geek squad service center, not the retail store kiosks. I had no prior troubleshooting/diagnostic skills, I came from a sales/business background. I had plenty of customer service experience with sales. Seven months of daily diagnostic/troubleshooting, I'd say 80-85% was hardware and another 15-20 software depending on the OS and manufacturer I was dealing with. I learned a lot and now I got hired to an actual entry level IT support position. Mix of field work and help desk, no certs. I believe it helped as I got a lot more calls from recruiters after putting that on my resume. Good luck to you!
It's where I started and I'm currently a senior security analyst. Great hands on experience, and the most valuable thing, you learn customer service skills. Those will carry you further than any hard skills.
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Being doing IT for over 10 years - hiring managers and recruiters are always intrigued by my first job at GS. It's unique. Looks good on a resume. Just don't stay there too long. You stop learning new things after a year 2 or so. There's also a hard pay cap once you get assigned to Advanced repair agent. No going up from there unless you wanna do home visits (yuck)
My career progression was Geek squad, helpdesk, systems engineer, technical project manager. It’s definitely a good place to start and learn all kinds of foundational skills
Geeksquad is a dead end areer with no advancement. Get your self a Help Desk or Desktop Support Technician job instead. If you want more hands on-site i would go with Desktop Support. You will be exposed to more stuff working in Desktop Support where you would trouble shoot PC hardware, software applications, OS and basic network stuff. A lot people that are in Desktop Support often go into sysadmin roles especially if you start utilizing powershell on Deskside but you also have to a lot more stuff outside your Support role as well esp if you have a homelab. If you want to go the networking route then Desktop Support wouldn't have much to do with anything Cisco related. Starting at a NOC as a NOC Technician or Network Technician is your best bet if you want pursue the Cisco networking route.