Has anyone here worked for petsmart or petco?

Question

im thinking about working there and i plan on going in to talk to a manager but i was looking for some outside opinions.

How is the pay?

Are they typically good to employees?

How are the benefits as far as coverage and cost?

Can you move up in position easily?

Are they generous with raises?

How is the training?

Thats all i can think of right now any thing anyone wants to add would be great too thanks

Answer 1

I have worked for both companies.

The first thing I will say is that if you are an animal-lover who is already experienced with animal care, DO NOT WORK THERE.

The pay is generally poor unless you get a management position or are a dog groomer. You usually start at minimum wage and work your way up. Different stores have different rates, but PetSmart and Petco are both ungenerous with money. Petco offered me better benefits and pay than PetSmart.

Are they good to their employees? It's kind of hard to say. If you are a good little drone and do what you're told, you'll probably do okay. But I'm one of those people who speaks out when I see something I don't like. I don't agree with most of the policies EITHER company has for caring for their animals and when I tried to voice my complaints, I was reprimanded, skipped over for raises, denied benefits, and eventually forced to quit. Like I said, if you are willing to sit by and watch animal abuse happen, then you'll be treated okay.

The benefits are about as good as any retail job can be expected.

Moving up is hard. When it comes to animals, the more you educate yourself, the more you come to understand how horrible pet-selling corporations are, so the more you come to hate your job and every day you have to be there. At PetSmart it took me a year to move up from a cashier, but at PetCo I was advanced once a month for three months after I started. A lot of it has to do with their personnel needs and your experience.

Raises? No. PetSmart only offers about a 25 cent raise every 6 months or longer on average. I know someone who worked there for 5 years and by the time he quit, he was only getting paid about $2 more an hour than when he started. Petco offered me better raises.

The training is absolutely c**p. A great portion of the training on small pet (fish, birds, rodents, etc) is riddled with inaccuracies and even blatantly false information designed to cover up these companies short-comings. The PetCo handbook teaches that chinchillas don't have a rib cage and should be picked up by the tail. The PetSmart training for ferrets states that the average lifespan for a ferret is 5 years. Not to mention the store policies on feeding and caring for the animals are so outdated or false that it's a miracle they survive.

Both the Ferret and Avian certifications are a joke. Try using the avian certification as a reference with any legitimate bird group anywhere. You'll get laughed at.

If you want to work around animals, look in to shelter work or a zoo or animal sanctuary near you. Or even a dog grooming salon or a pet kennel or daycare. Don't work at a pet shop. Seriously.

Edit in response to the above poster:

If you are feeding your rats the same thing as PetSmart, you aren't taking good care of your rats. PetSmart policy dictates that rats are to bed fed a combination of Kaytee lab blocks and Nutriphase rat formula, as well as a pitifully few number of veggies. That's what's in the P&Ps. Those two foods are some the absolute WORST on the market for pet rats. The dried corn in any store-bought seed mixture poses a significant cancer risk all on it's own. And we wonder why rats from mills (corporate pet stores) live an average of a year less than from most great breeders.

Most of the foods SOLD at these corporate stores for small animals are c**p, not to mention the ones actually fed to the animals.

Yes, some stores are better than others, but as a large corporation, there are some problematic things about these companies that are UNIVERSAL and independent of a particular quality of manager. For starters, both PetSmart AND Petco order their animals exclusively from large-scale animal mills. I am extremely disappointed that a supposed "breeder" can't understand what a big deal that is.

Answer 2

i work for the HQ of SuperPetz in Hatfield, PA.  

our closest store is in Bethlehem, the starting pay for non-mangers is about $7/hr, but we have good benefits, and give good raises to people who deserve them.

go fill out an application, the manager is Jeff

Answer 3

I liked petsmart. Petco sucks. Don't work there.

My ex got fired from petsmart for sexual harrasment on SEVERAL female employees. Then petco hired him immedietly after that. sounds like a GREAT company, right?

If you're not a manager, and you are not in school, the pay isn't that great. 8-9$ an hour. But i was still in high school, so it was pretty good for me.

It depends on the petsmart you work at. My first store was awesome! But after a year and a half, I moved stores, and they ended up "firing" me for not doing my job propery (I had done my job, but I had done it at 7am in the morning, and since no one else in the department did their stuff like they were suppose to throughout the day, at 8pm at night it looked like c**p, and I got blamed. Go figure) That store was HORRIBLE! Corporate was basically coming down on the managers for not doing their jobs properly, so instead of taking the blame for it, they punished the employees. Im still really good friends with other store managers. In fact my fiance is a pet care manager at another store.

Even though pay isn't great, if you can actually get on as full time, the benefits are good. I knew older women that worked there just because of the benefits. But like I said, getting on full time can be tricky sometimes.

Moving up is a bit harder, but it all comes from experience. If you know animals and you are a hard worker and you tell your managers you want to move up to lead, then possibly managment, it's usually not that hard. My fiance worked their for 6 months, then they made him lead. After another 6 months, they made him manager. After another 6 months, they gave him pet care manager, one of the hardest managment positions in the store.

Raises, again, it depends on your store manager and how well you do your job. I've seen some people get a lot of raises, some people hardly get any. Thats also one of those things that you have to be vocal about

Training is decent, depending on the department. If you're a cashier, they just give you a simple training. If you're pet care, it's a LOT harder to learn because their is so much, but they make you get avian certified and take courses and watch movies and fill out booklets, so you learn a lot.

Like I said before, that is all info from me working at PetSmart. Petco sucks. Try to avoid it at all costs.

EDIT: In line with what the poster below said, it REALLY depends on the store! My first store was AMAZING! The managment was awesome, we cared for our animals properly. But I also had awesome managment. My pet care manage had a degree in biology and herpetology, as well. It really just depends on the store. Some stores are great, some are not

As far as the feeding guides for the animals, I see no problems in what they feed their animals! So I dont know what that is about.

I feed my rats the same thing petsmart does, and I've been breeding rats long before I worked there. The fish all got nutritionally correct foods/veggies, and so did the small animals and birds. They got nutritionaly correct pellets/seeds, as well as fresh fruits and veggies EVERY DAY.

Answer 4

I was just about to ask this question. Also do you think they would pay $9.00 if I applied and asked for it.