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How is being a PC Technician at Best Buy?

P

PCMarine

Diamond Member
Well it's that time of the year again... summer job search. I'm a mechanical engineering major at michigan tech, but I will have only completed my freshman year thus far and figured I could get an entry level tech job this summer (4 months).

So one of my options that I am considering is applying at bestbuy. Anyone know how this job is? Pay? Workload? Flexibility?

As a PC Technician you are responsible for the entire computer diagnosis and repair process including troubleshooting, testing, parts ordering, vendor management and customer service.

As a PC Technician you?ll generally begin your day with 12 to 15 new repair jobs to be evaluated and diagnosed. Once you?ve completed your diagnosis, you?re responsible for ordering and tracking the necessary replacement parts. Parts are delivered to the Service Center each morning. Once they?re checked-in and matched to the correct order, you can begin installation and final testing.

On an average day, a PC Technician will complete 10-12 repairs, with special attention given to any re-do requests or units that have been waiting for backorder parts.

As a PC Technician, you will impact customer loyalty on a daily basis and the service you provide will help to ensure repeat customers.
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Thanks for any help guys
 
Just rememeber to force the service plans down the customers throats.

Oh and if you know anything more about computers other than installing RAM you won't get the job.
 
are you talking about geek squad?

pay sucks. it's less than $10/hr, and they charge crazy amounts of money to do mundane repairs. Best to just post an ad on your school paper, flyers, etc. Make more underthetable money that way.
 
Very, very, VERY easy job, for the most part. Mainly involves troubleshooting simply DISGUSTING PC's that people bring in, or doing repairs on warantee'd systems.

I had someone bring in a system once. Case was supposed to be white. It was yellow. Inside had freaking TAR deposits on the components. I refused to work on it.
 
I don't work at best buy, but I do work at circuit city. I have so for quite some time now. I have been around since we started doing PC installs (from when it was a test market to now where its big).


If BB is anything like CC (which I imagine it is) you will basically do easy work on computers (generally) and be forced to break the bad news to people that it will cost them quite a bit of money to get them computer working again, or to remove viruses, or whatever. Usually easy work, but I have noticed the install guys get a lot of irate customers. But it makes sense. If a customer just spent $70 for you to tell them that their computer is fubar'd, or that it will cost another $130 to get it working again, then of course they won't be in the best of moods. Not to mention if someone messes up on a computer, or if the customer even *thinks* you did, that you will have to put up with a lot of crap.


Easy work though, if you don't mind pains in the ass.
 
Originally posted by: Horus
Very, very, VERY easy job, for the most part. Mainly involves troubleshooting simply DISGUSTING PC's that people bring in, or doing repairs on warantee'd systems.

I had someone bring in a system once. Case was supposed to be white. It was yellow. Inside had freaking TAR deposits on the components. I refused to work on it.
Click to expand...

Ive seen that before. Ive also seen some very interesting things on peoples computers. I once had a guy bring in his daughters computer. She was a college student at USF and there was a folder with her and her sorority girls in it. Suffice to say lots of people worked on that computer, lol.
 
Anyone know how the pay is? or if you need any qualifications aside from computer skills ... like certifications?
 
Doesn't BBY outsource most of the tech work? If you're a tech there I think you only do minor ram installs etc. I think every thing else is outsourced.
 
Originally posted by: Snoogums Boogums
Just rememeber to force the service plans down the customers throats.

Oh and if you know anything more about computers other than installing RAM you won't get the job.
Click to expand...

PC technician would work in a regional service center and would not sell anything, and would not do any upgrades either. Pay in the SE region is about $15+ an hour.


Originally posted by: DanTMWTMP
are you talking about geek squad?

pay sucks. it's less than $10/hr, and they charge crazy amounts of money to do mundane repairs. Best to just post an ad on your school paper, flyers, etc. Make more underthetable money that way.
Click to expand...

unless there a really dumb geeksquad agent you will not be making <$10 an hour, i make around $20


if you are applying for a PC technician job then you will be doing a regular shift like 9-5 and you will have X number of repairs to get done per day. if you are applying for an instore geeksquad agent position flexiblity and workload will depend on that store and what they are looking for.
 
I was hired on one time, but I left before I even started the job. I believe it was in the neighborhood of $8-9 / hour.
 
You're probably over-qualified. So just lie through your teeth and expect the job to be mind numbingly easy.
 
I think any "regular" member of Anandtech is definately WAAAAY over qualified for such a job. Like Sampson said, just tell them you have a little experiences working with computers. If they know you know a lot or too much, then you won't get hired.
 
I was a PC tech back in 1999 at BB.

The place made me sick in the sense of how they treated the customer as an "opportunity" to milk money out of instead of a customer who needs the best buy (irony in the name).

Anywho, it was hardly a PC tech type of job... the only thing we did was install parts. If something was too complicated, we had to send it to a BB factory and charge the customer for all of it.

I remember the manager kept pushing the number 80. Which is how much he wanted us to milk any customer that walked up to the tech desk.

"Find anything wrong with their computer, we want to be thorough."

What a dick. I saw him on numerous occassions charge people $80 for simply switching the mouse/kb plugs.

I had a real problem with all of that and fixed w/e I could on the spot for the customer (if it didn't require opening the case).


So to sum up... The job is a joke and practiced in an im-moral fashion. It's also the reason how I know about MMORPG games and uberly lame the people who play them really are in RL.


But on a good note, I didn't have to sell shatty products and I got paid more than 90% of the workers from day 1.... which is only $9.92/hour.
 
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