Pros
You make it your own Your team is your family Your consumers are your friends The power of Nike gives great discounts & benefits With Nike's all over the world, relocating is a strong initial selling point however despite the numbers the odds are low as intercompany relations on a store level have a history of being unsuccessful. IF by some miracle you land a relocation, the Nike relocation package is fairly generous. Quite a bit of room for pay negotiation within reason (aim high but not too high) "Fun" store atmosphere with fairly up to date music Casual dress Generous payroll (at least until they finally figure out the Workforce Manager program) Brace yourselves. Cut backs are coming. Nike is a publicly "Liberal" company, very open cultural mindset with the product collections to boot. Fun destinations for company meetings. (Most of the time is spent partying- don't get too hopeful though. Cut backs are coming to these too) I enjoyed my time with the company, despite the constant dissapointment.
Cons
Small company so despite the giant powerhouse that is Nike, there is minimum room for exponential growth beyond your store unless you can keep up with the office politics. Otherwise, they'll dangle that carrot for years. Avg 5+yrs amongst ASM's for a LOW volume starter store at best. Nepotism is highly visible. Almost every district has at least 2 Store Managers from Express. Every District Manager, except 3, are from Express. Very few of the Express people as a whole are more successful than the pre-existing Converse teams yet just like mold they keep growing in numbers. It's baffling, really. Most locations are factory settings, it is what it is with product. Don't rely on communicated challenges or concerns for resolutions. HQ isn't receptive or efficient as attention to detail is often overlooked leaving your team to guess in order to move forward. You'll need to cater to a lot of fragile egos to get anything resolved. The 10 or so locations out of the 100+ that aren't factory are the geese that lay the golden eggs. These locations only make up to 10mil annually per their highly visible locations yet they rarely profit after allocations like rent etc are paid out, meanwhile everyone else struggles to stay afloat simply due to lack of support. Competencies work against you. Being competent equals an increase in workload and lacks organic feedback. Instead feedback will be given in your absence which you'll inevitably recieve via the 3rd party snowball effect. In the rare instance that direct feedback is given it is very rarely transparent or constructive.