Best Buy wages

How much do installers make at Best Buy???  The minimum and maximum??  The reason I'm asking is a Best Buy is opening in my town.

I got lucky and went to my Best Buy when they were really really desperate for people to work back in the install bay.  So even though I had no professional experience (and only maybe 5-10 personal installs) they still hired me.  They trained me a little bit but I just kinda learned as I went along; I believe a lot of the stores will give you real training though.  It really depends on where the store is and how much competition your shop will have with other local places.  Around here we've got dozens and dozens of competitors (every circuit city location, plus a whole bunch of local shops). But I've talked to a couple of people on this site whose stores are huge and some of them have very little competition at all.  Things seem to run more smoothly at those larger, more dominant stores and usually they have the best installers.

It is an extremely challenging work environment because unlike a lot of local shops around here, at best buy they expect the installers to also be the secretaries basically, and you have to answer the phones, make appointments, deal with angry customers, ring people up for the installs, and so much more; and all of this while you're working IN a car!!!  Some of the shops have headset phones that all the installers get to wear and I really wish our shop had them because when you're stuck in the trunk of a car trying to screw in a cd changer to the rear deck and the darn phone rings it'd be nice to be able to answer it without having to stop working!!!!

It can get really stressful and definitely you need to be able to keep your cool and have patience, or else you won't last very long there.  Without a doubt I'd say the Christmas season is the worst time and you'll hate the job then.  Leading up to christmas it's busy as hell but not a whole lot of people get stuff installed;  they made us installers go up on the floor to help sell stuff though and let me tell you all of us hated that b/c we're just not really salespeople.

But starting the day after christmas it is HELL!! Everyone and their mother wants their stereo installed and they want it installed right then and there.  Your waiting room will be packed full of people just waiting to be helped out.  Luckily during these few days all the vehicles are dropoffs so you don't have to stress majorly about working real fast, though the better and faster you work the more hours you get.  You have to be able to juggle like 5 different cars at once and to help 10 people at the same time.

Just to give you an idea of the hours during the first 3 or 4 days after christmas...I had to be there at 6:30 in the morning and  I worked until 7 or 8 at night.

around here starting pay is $8.50 but I think it goes up to $11 once you get your basic MECP certification.  And during the christmas season you'll get a lot of overtime pay (the managers won't give you crap that time of the year for working extra, but they will any other time of the year).

Another thing to remember is that not all employees there are full time ones.  In other words, if you need benefits like health insurance,  you need to make that really clear to your supervisor and also the better of a job you do the more likely they will be to get you into the system as full time.  Also you still have to work 60 days as full time before you can do the benefits.  In general at least for the Best Buys around here, it all comes down to MONEY.  Whoever can do the most cars in a certain amount of time is just gonna get more hours.  To your supervisor and managers it's all about productivity because the more productive you are the more money they make.  In my opinion when you rush you screw things up and then the customer has to return sometime in the future and that's definitely worse than just taking a lil extra time to do it right the first time.

Overall though it is a LOT of fun working back in the install bay.  At ours we have our own bathroom, water cooler, fridge, microwave, and parking lot, and it's just a whole different environment out there. Although we do have to deal with some angry customers, it's a totally different focus back there because our job is to INSTALL stuff, not to sell it.  It's a lot more casual and you can talk to your buddies while you're working on stuff.  Also if you like to curse or find that you curse a lot when you're frustrated you can pretty much do it as much as you want back there, unlike inside the store.

Pretty much everyone who works there is in love with cars and stereos and you'll always have someone to talk to about that stuff

yea we've had some people come from the local shops and they can't stand all the paperwork and crap we have to do.  Admittedly it';s all really dumb and there are way too many stupid rules that can really make the job a lot more difficult than it needs to be.

Also they cut back on everyone's hours this year because of the economy or whatever and it was definitely some crap.  If you are a really good installer though and can put up with the frustrations it can be a pretty secure job.

I never worked for Best Buy but i did work for Future Shop for a year... it was a nightmare.   I don't think there was ever a paycheck i didn;t have to have fixed. Any way they can find to screw you they will......   Advise: buy a palm pilot and track your hours cause they WILL rip you. And the best part?  you have to wait 2 weeks before it is adjusted on your next pay...   Best Buy and Futureshop are crooks. bottom line.  Employment there is a last resort.... but it may be enjoyable if you like to install decks repetitively in the same vehicles day in day out. grin....