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I'm getting ready to graduate (YES!) and take my A+ exam. I want to get a job before going to college and thought about geek squad. I want to be a programmer but I'm also a good troubleshooter as I do a co-op with my school right now. I have heard that it pays pretty good and was wondering how it would look on a resume.

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7 Answers 7

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One of my first jobs in support was working for CompUSA as a bench tech. I can say that it will give you a healthy respect for other retail employees and ensure that you will never want to work retail again.

As for a resume, make sure you pay attention to the metrics that they use and how you preform in them. When you want to put this experience on a resume, you will want to put how well you preformed not just what you did.

Example:

  • Achieved 94% on Customer Satisfaction Index for Four consecutive months.

This kind of accomplishment will show a potential employer several important things. First that you understand that doing a job well has much more impact than just doing the job at minimum levels. Second it will show that you understand these kind of metrics are put in place for reasons, even if they are never explained to people being measured. Third it shows that you can set a goal and work to achieve it. If you do put this kind of Accomplishment on your resume you should be ready to talk about how you did it during the interview.

Also remember that every customer in the store is a potential employer. I got out of CompUSA because I went out for an on site warranty repair. The company getting the repair was so impressed with me (their words, not mine) that they called me up asked me to come in for an interview.

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All appropriate experience is good; it shows a passion for the industry and commitment to your career. Good luck!

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  • Thanks!!!!!!!!!! (Had to get past those 15 char's, Oh wait the explanation would have done that) ;-)
    – Kredns
    May 7, 2009 at 2:02
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Geek Squad wouldn't do too much for me on a resume. They don't actually do much fixing, that I can tell -- mostly pushing costly services on people who don't know that they don't need it. You might want to see if you can get a job at the college help desk. Assuming that you end up going soon, they might hire you over the summer. My son -- ChemE major -- has been working at the help desk at his school since before his freshman year. I was able to get him an interview, but frankly they love to hire engineers. I know that I would look a lot more favorably on an IT job that wasn't really part of a retail sales organization.

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I'd do that before college, and it will look good on the resume, but once you are in college I'd look for work placements through the college for work during the holidays with an employer who will take you on at the end of your course in your preferred field. I wish I'd done this at the time!

(P.S. I'm in the UK, things may work differently wherever you are, which I sense is the US).

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If the end-result is to someday apply for a programmer position (as you mentioned as wanting to become), the geek squad position will be irrelevant unless you end-up NOT doing retail. I'm not a programmer, but my feeling is interviewers are not going fill a programmer position based on the applicant's elite customer support skills.

Having said that, a job is a job!.. if it's a tech job, then even better! Have fun, work hard, study, take the money and move on to better things that will look better on a resume based on the kind of job you're applying for.

Good luck!

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You'd be better off getting a sales job where you can make better money and learn how to talk to people.

You'll get a marginal level of technical experience working in a retail repair shop. If its anything like CompUSA used to be back in the 90's, the techs spent more time on the phone with vendors waiting for warranty parts than anything else.

Working a retail sales job is one of the best jobs you can have as a college kid if you take it seriously. Being able to engage in a reasonably intelligent conversation with 100 people a day with no idea about what people will ask, need or want while selling stuff is a valuable experience.

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any tech job that pays well will be very useful. like the other answers state all experience counts. but on the other hand just the fact that you are on this site means that you are better than a tech support job. use it as a very small stepping stone only would be my advise. hope that helps

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