Pros
I've worked at 3 different Michaels in the past 4.5 years (I move a lot, clearly), and every store is different. The Pro is that if you are willing to work hard and well at this job, you can get a decent amount of hours for a part time employee. Because Michaels has a high employee turn-over rate, they do look for their best workers and they do like to keep them as long as possible. A lot of people enter this job expecting it to be a breeze for some unknown reason, but it really isn't. Especially if you're on the Replenishment team. There's also a yearly review in which you can receive up to a 3% raise (roughly .30, depending where you live). I know it's not much, but it's something. They also have part time benefits available now. OH, and the overall best pro is the 30% employee discount. If you shop there often enough and pay attention to the sales, it's a pretty nice discount. Oh, another pro is you can easily transfer to a different Michaels. Whether because you move or because you want to or because there's a different position you got.
Cons
The biggest con is honestly, hours. Even though you can get good hours, during the non-busy season (March-July), you can seriously be looking at only 5-10 hrs a week for cashiers and replenishment. Management is also an issue. Somehow, the District Managers actually hire people with zero experience for large stores like Michaels and it completely backfires. A bad store manager puts way more work on everyone else and nothing can really be kept up with. But a new store manager will eventually be hired and things will pick up. In the 3 stores I've worked for, I've had over 5 different Store Managers. The raise. While it's something, it's so small it'll upset you when suddenly the state wage increases and you're suddenly making only .15 cents more after a year, compared to the person they just hired yesterday. You'll eventually feel like you're really not getting as much as you deserve if you've been there for years and are one of the good, loyal employees. They seem to hire, anyone. Well, you have to take a little personality test during the application process, and if you pass, I swear, it seems like you'll automatically be hired. I think they realize with their really low pay, they can't really be picky or something. But they can be. Because they hire people who are just really horrible at working at a place like Michaels, all the time, and it affects the rest of the crew. I give all newbies a benefit of the doubt because even I was horrible when I first started, but if you're still horrible after a month or two, it's a drag. And most quit by then anyway, hence, the hire turn over rate. Almost no room for advancement. The only way up from cashiering or replenishment is to Support, then the only way up from those three is to a customer experience manager, framing manager, or replenishment manager. Then from there you can be Assistant Manager. Replenishment Manager position rarely opens up and if it does, you have be good at it to get the promotion and beat out transferring RMs. CEM does open up every once in a while, if that's the kind of thing you want to do. Customers. Not all, but some, are truly rude and impatient. But this applies to anywhere retail. I've never met someone happy to be working at Michaels. Ever. Most people that stay for years and eventually quit, practically throw a party over leaving. Just kind of shows how Corporate could do some things to make it worth it more to many of us that stick around.