Working at Target — Reviews by Employees

Pay- The input of effort is definately not reflected in the amount paid. Meaning you work hard for minimum wage. Because we're a new store the salesfloor team was hired more or less around the same time. Whether you've had 20yrs of retail work experience or you're a part time 16yr old just legal to have a job- everyone was started out with the same- minimum wage. What makes it worse is that your not working in just one department. You are expected to have knowledge of the backroom, check lanes, signing, other departments, flo, etc.... You typically end up getting delegated the manager's job while they walk around avoiding work. The more you know, the more your "expected" to do. So i suggest not being inquisitive or you'll have more responsibilities without the pay increase.

Respect- There is respect. Very rarely do your fellow team members disrespect you. I have never experienced it. Naturally, the higher up the chain, the more respect they demand.

Benefits- 10% discount is a joke. Seeing as once you work there that becomes the employees main store to shop at corporate could help us out a little.

Job security- You show up on time, do your job well- you have your job.

Work/Life Balance- They work well with my schedule which has been very helpful as a college student.

Career Potential/ Growth- This May I will graduate with a B.S in Biology. I do not forsee a "promotion" even though I am very much qualified to be a "ETL" or zone manager as other places refer to it. If your hardworking, more than likely you do everything they do minus the "official" stuff. Like answering call ins, opening and closing the store etc. Ha. It's who you know in this company.

Location- More than 1700 stores and counting. If there's not a store by you, there will be.

Co-worker competence- Like I said earlier the more you know, the more responsibility you have. Some people have got this figured out and thus act incompetent so they do not have to work. The majority don't want to work and just clock in to get paid. But the 10% who do their job well is enough to hold the store together.

This is an excellent guest environment to work in, and people who truly enjoy helping guests, and can tolerate the diffcult guests (after all, they pay the bills) should benefit well. But do not expect a career here. Do not expect respect from the team, here. Do not expect any increase in hours or pay, especially if you are an older person.

If you can look past that, and still keep your lights and heat on, then the position is OK. The guests will appreciate you. That's the saving grace of the job. If it comes from the heart, it will reach the heart. And the more the guests appreciate you, the more jealous your "team members" will become. But that's part of the business.

I'm a 16-year-old girl working hardlines.

Pay - I'm a part-time minor so $8 an hour is okay for me, even if there's not much for raises.

Respect - I had a week during the holidays where I was sick, overloaded with hours (about 27) plus I was having problems at school with extracurriculars - it was a bad week. Unfortunately a team lead noticed and one day said "Hey, you okay?" I thought "Wow, she actually cares!" So I told her what was wrong. She then said "Well, you need to get working on that pull, the line is backed up." Wow. Okay. Then, two days later, she asked again. I told her, and she said "Yeah, well, you said that the other day." Seriously? After that she told the other team leads and they've all babysat me while I worked. I cannot walk past any LOD or team lead without them saying "Hey, whatcha workin on?"

Benefits - Don't get any.

Job security - I haven't had any problems.

Work/Life Balance - Target tried to make me work the night of homecoming, two different percormance dates for a show, and a few different time on sundays (which I set as off-limits a long time ago). They are not understanding.

Growth - Hah! Yeah, right.

Location - Target's everywhere, meaning I can transfer once I go to college.

Competence - 20% of the employees do 80% of the work.

Environment - It's usually cold, noisy, children screaming, people asking stupid questions, etc.

This job takes pretty much no intelligence. When I don't have to think about what I'm doing I get bored, and when I'm bored I'm tired.

Hey, at least I'm not a cashier.

I started out working in Target a a sessional hardiness member and they decided to keep me. Let me say my pay is better then most at 8$ an hour but with only working 5 HOURS A WEEK. its almost nothing. Now i am a minor so I cant work till close. Still they offer there favorite employes the most hours, not even the hardest working ones, there favorites. The LODs are completely impossible to be around ALL OF THEM. They walk around the store like they own it, and treat the rest of us like scum, not to mention I never see them actually helping a customer or even lifting everything.

Because the management dislikes me so much they always make me work in furniture, which would be fine except for a seventeen year old girl lifting desks get kinda hard. When I call for a team lift, noone bothers to answer. Not to mention when there are backup cashiers needed the LODs and ETLs are yelling at us to get up there, not like they could jump on , or even some soft line team members?

They thing that bothers me the most besides the LODS has to be the amount of days you can get off.
I missed a couple of days due to my grandmothers funeral and my wisdom teeth extraction, but when I called to get one more day off due to a gum infection my LOD called me a liar. She refused to let me off and now the infection is sever ,this whole store system sucks. The only good thing is the pay and the area.

I've been working at Target for a few months and I thought it was a good place to work because It's a nice environment to work in and most of the people are nice even though there are a few that aren't. Any new person would probably feel that way at first. Well let me share my experiences and how I feel now. I was hired on as seasonal as a hardlines team member but they decided to keep me because they said did good during the season. At orientaion Target expressed how this is supposed to be nice and friendly and how diverse it is and such, so the first day of training everyone was nice and friendly so I thought I would really enjoy this job. But one thing I started to noticed is that some people love to run their mouths about other TMs behind their backs. It was annoying. I even heard stuff about myself that I didn't know and the same people were in my face saying hey and stuff like they weren't just speaking negatively about me behind my back. For a while I thought I was at a high school and not work. Working on the sales floor can get annoying sometimes because some of the guests act like you know everything about every product and sometimes there's just too many questions at once. Target should train new TMs in the items they carry and their locations. Sometimes I feel like I wasn't taught all i need to know. Also one of our TLs is rude sometimes calls ppl slow at zoning and calfs and it's really irritating. A few weeks after working there I expressed to one of the LODs that I would be interested in electronics so I was scheduled over there. It seemed fun at first because I got to do something different but after a while ehh... Electronics wouldn't be so bad if there were more TMs over there. Target likes to put only one person working over there at a time but yet Target likes "fast service" to the guest. You have to answer phone calls, help guest in the store, and try to take your lunches and breaks. It gets boring sometimes working alone when it's not busy. Most times you have phone calls and multiple guests all at once, and you have to find ppl to watch the electronics counter while you go on break and lunch. I would be much easier with more TMs working over there. The pay is no where near being good enough for what we go through and all the bad takes away from the fun parts of working there. You really get tired of it.

When I first started everything seemed fine. I was hired in July as a full time softlines team member. My store hired around 80 new team members telling many, like myself, that it would be no problem to get full time hours. However, in the past few weeks everyone except for ETLs and TLs have had their hours cut to almost nothing, like 40 hours to 15 a week. I overheard a conversation between team leads that the huge cut in hours was meant to get rid of all the extra team members because they had hired too many. There is also one TL who goes out of her way to make everyone miserable. She once yelled at me for assisting a guest in sporting goods which is right beside my department. Once there was an issue with a guest where she had just put up a clearance 50% off sign above some shoes but put it on the wrong section. She refused to give the price to the guest and told the guest if she didn't like it she could "get the hell out of her store". Im softlines brand meaning I set tables, take care of our jewelry and accessories dept., and do research and outs. You can never do it fast enough to make her shut up. I know of several people who have worked for the company for 20 years and never get promotions even though they are excellent TMs. Others who get promotions are extremely incompetent. It can be a very hostile work environment. There are some good people there but there are also many who are horrible employees.

Pay is ok if you dont really need much money. However if you are 50+ like this old man named Bobby who still workers there, then you need a new job!!!

Respect is ok some days and other days not. Like some days my TL tells me I do a good job and the next he is cracking jokes on me during huddle. As a matter a fact just the other day this new guy recognized the TL during huddle for doing a good job and the TL straight up told him "Ok now, wipe your nose!!" I was like WTF. In case you dont know why this is insulting its because he basicly told him he was kissing ass and therefore needed to clean his nose for any shit left on his nose.

Benifits- could care less for them and 10% is garbage

Job Security- just basicly work hard untill you meet your 90 day review and then after that only work hard when you feel the TL is watching you

Work/Life Balance- Ok for me since its my only job and im also doing part time in college

Career P/Growth- The only way to go up is to KISS ASS!!! I can not say this enough. KISS That ASS! Like I saw from a previous post, there is also an employee that has been wworking there for more then 10 years and is just a regular team member that works softlines.

Location is good since they are everywhere

Your co workers are your only friends. If you cant get along with your co workers then you will hate your job even more. My co workers are the only thing that makes target tollerable because they are the only ones that understand how much target suckes

Work E- When ever the team leads arnt telling you to hurry up,(by the way, you will never be fast enough to not be told to hurry up, trust me) its ok since you have your co workers to joke around with.

In conclusion target is a sweat shop and only work there for no more then 2-3 years, unless you can Kiss ASS really well.

It seems that no matter where in the U.S any former or present employee of Target has worked their experience working there was/is the same-HORRIBLE. Here is my, "Why I F***ing Hate Target" story.
I started out seasonal as a Hard-lines Team Member . After a while they decided to offer me a full time position with the company, and I took it despite everyone Else's warnings. As time past I made my way through multiple positions some of which a would do at the same time (like being in In-stocks and the Price Change Team). While at my last position I noticed things were a little funny with the workload. In the system the work would show up as being completed but only two out of the five people on my team actually worked- myself being one of these people. Since only two of us worked we would tell each other what was done versus what was left to be done. After months of whole departments being marked as done without anyone actually doing them I decided to get down to the bottom of it. I started by asking around to see if maybe anyone else may have marked the departments-negative, no one had. As time past by I started to wonder where the rest of the "Team" would go throughout the day? One day I decided to go to the bathroom while on break and what would you know there was my Team Leader (I recognized her sneakers)keying away while labels printed from her portable printer. I waited to see who would come out of the stall just to give her the benefit of the doubt, but when the door opened it was her. Her face was stunned it's a good thing she was in the bathroom because she looked like she needed to us it. After a few awkward seconds of silence she finally broke the silence by saying "Hi", I replied and kept going-I had found what I had been looking for. When The day had ended and we were waiting for the bus my team leader approached me and asked if i could please keep this between us and if I could try to play with the numbers so that we could have a green score and the LODS would be happy. I just got on the bus and left her without an answer. Over time I went from being her so called "right hand" to her biggest challenge. She treated me different without being mean about it ( of course) so that no one would know what she was doing. I decided not to tell- until I realized this could come back to all of us and bite us you know where. The worst thing I could ever have done. Although many people caught on to what my Team Leader had been doing, my LOD did not believe me. I had to go on leave for awhile but when i came back there was hell to pay. They got on my case about everything until finally one day my employment at Target was terminated. Why? If you asked me , because I knew what was really happening to the pricing in our store and I told. If you asked Target because, I left clothes that were on clearance in the risers and was trying to save it for myself - even though the total would have come out to well over $400 dollars and I didn't even get paid that. Add to that, that the clothes were in all different sizes and were all the same. I never purchased any of it either. But I guess is true what they say even if it's the right thing to do , "Snitches get Stitches or Fired if you work at HELL- Oops I meant Target." To anyone that works at Target - My condolences-Honestly!

I always had the feeling the company don't like old TMs. Few days ago the STL and the HR called me in the office to tell me my position was eliminated (cash office specialist) and that I can move to another dept. but they cannot guaranty more than 20 hrs/week. But how come new young people can get over 35 hrs/week? I call that discrimination! and like MJ said "ALL I WANT TO SAY IS THAT, THEY DON'T REALLY CARE ABOUT US" i guess the company is shaking since they're not getting the tax break for shipping out so many jobs oveseas. Thank you Mr. Obama for showing them a lesson. Sooner or later they will learn but it might be too late for fellows TMs

I was hired as a clerical team member shortly after I got my college degree (it was all that was open at the time). I was told that there would be many opportunities to be promoted after my 90 days, potential pay raises, etc.

First off, there were a lot of things that I had to do that were not in my job description. I was in charge of cleaning the team lead area and the breakroom (including dishes, scraping gum off tables, sweeping, and picking up garbage). I realize that you should always be going above and beyond what's in your job description, but I felt it was unfair that I had to clean up after team members. Second, I realized that although they had actually hired me as a clerical team member, which is a pay grade lower than HR, they had me doing HR work. After I spoke with someone, I was able to fix everything, but I honestly didn't believe that they "had no idea" that they'd put me in as clerical. I remember them specifically saying I was clerical multiple times when people asked if I should be keyed as HR.

A few months after I was hired, a team leader was hired in HR. She also had a degree, but minimal experience in the field. She was hired at a salary that was MUCH higher than the starting pay for team leads. They had her train at another store, as they had done with me, and she did not easily catch on to how things ran in our store, nor did she seem to care, resulting in numerous mistakes that the other HR team member and myself had to fix constantly.

Since we had hired a new tl, my hours were cut. On a whim, they put me as GSA (I opened after 3 days of training, closed without having any closing training shifts). I felt unprepared, as I had never even cashiered or worked in guest services, and since I hadn't had the right training, but I made the best of it, thinking it would show that I was willing to go the extra mile. When I was put into GSA, my hours also changed drastically -- I didn't have a week off over a month, although GSAs are supposed to have one weekend off per month. I also helped the store by coming in early to do sales floor work, and served as operator when a scheduling error was made, though I hadn't been trained in either.

Soon after my 90 days, I noticed a job opening for HR TL at another store, and applied. I had a market assessment interview and was quickly turned down. The biggest negative interview comment was that I was not resilient and adaptable -- I really didn't understand how my going into GSA and serving as operator/sales floor tm without training didn't show that I was. They also waited until after the interview to tell me I couldn't reapply for 6 months. If I would've known that, I would've waited until I had more Target experience to apply for a team lead position.

Thankfully, I was able to get a better job with another organization shortly after the Target interview results. I believe it's a decent place to work for a high school student or a college student looking to make extra money. However, it's a tough place to work for when you have a degree unless you're hired right into a higher position. My main complaints were just that I felt I wasn't given much of a chance to be promoted, even though the team leader at my store was hired at a high pay when she had no experience, that I was the "go to" person when things needed to be covered but wasn't recognized, and that I wasn't adequately prepared for most positions. However, I did have good experiences with most team leads and ETLs on a personal level. If Target could change a few things around, I think they would have a much lower turnover rate, and happier workers in general.