Pareto Reviews 348

Highly professional throughout. Very personable staff that did a fantastic job of making me feel prepared for my upcoming interview. Both Toby and Barbara went above and beyond to make me feel relaxed and fully prepared for the interview process.
Would highly recommend working alongside Pareto if you're looking to start a career in sales.

Wouldn't recommend. Acted friendly, but if you don't get the job they'll cut you off completely. They promise feedback but you won't hear from them again. Plus, the interview took 8 hours for them to decide which people they wanted, not a good experience.
Used the same interview methods every time, which made it unfair since some people had gone to more than 3.

Like most people here, I was successful on the assessment day. On the days following the assessment, I was inundated with Pareto recruiters putting me forward for multiple interviews.

I attended 3 interviews, all of which I felt went pretty well. I cannot find any faults with those interviews.

However, since doing those interviews it has been silence! Nothing at all. Just ghost.

I have called all the recruiters who called me, but nothing! I have emailed, yet again nothing!

What a complete waste of time. The online assessment was about 5 hours most of which was spent waiting. I wish I had read the reviews on Pareto beforehand so I would not have wasted my time.

Note for Pareto- please don't reply to this review with 'We are sorry to hear you had this experience using our services. Please can you contact (email address) so we can resolve this for you.' This is just a method you use to take it offline and not deal with the complaint.

Expensive waste of time- don't bother wasting your money. We used them to recruit sales staff and they promise the earth, charge you a big up-front fee (which you have to pay in 14 days) and then put a total of four candidates forward. Two that were totally in the wrong area for commuting, and then try and get you to take on a candidate (the only one left) that is no good. After 5 months we have wasted £6k and had to use an alternative agency.

The other thing is that they sell you the fact that you will get great sales people that have been through Pareto's amazing assessment days and have a full years training program. The reality is that candidates attend a Zoom session where they have to chose a celebrity and then have to justify why they as that celebrity should stay on a boat that has to reduce it's numbers. Great assessment for sales!

I recently attended an assessment day for a sales role with Pareto, and my overall experience was nothing short of frustrating and disheartening.

The communication from the beginning was misleading. I was asked to arrive at 12:30 for a 13:00 start time, only to find myself waiting for an hour in a room with 40 other applicants before the session finally commenced. The introduction and pitch session allowed a mere 30 seconds per person.

While the assessment itself was okay, it lacked any personal touch. Following the group activities, I endured a two-hour wait without any indication of when I would be needed, and no refreshments were offered during this time. The subsequent one-on-one interview lasted only three minutes, and it was evident that the interviewer was fatigued from a day's worth of interviews.

The promised feedback within 48 hours never materialised. I waited for three days before reaching out to Pareto via email, only to be met with complete silence. Despite sending a total of four emails, my attempts to seek feedback or clarification were blatantly ignored.

In essence, it became apparent that Pareto does not take the time to thoroughly review CVs and lacks genuine concern for the candidates' experiences. The graduate manager's initial description of the assessment day was misleading, causing me to lose an entire day and incur unnecessary travel expenses.

Feeling scammed, I found the staff to be unapproachable and distant. One employee even displayed rudeness when a fellow candidate inquired about the duration of the process.

In conclusion, my experience with Pareto Recruitment was highly unsatisfactory. I would strongly advise others to steer clear of this company, as there are undoubtedly better recruitment firms that value their candidates and uphold transparent communication practices.

I recently had a phone interview and I was left feeling quite confused and disappointed by the interaction. During the call, I expressed my interest in Human Resources roles, specifically in recruitment or consultancy. However, the interviewer informed me that their company does not handle HR, only recruitment. This was perplexing to me as recruitment is a fundamental aspect of HR.

When I sought clarification on their definition of recruitment and what exactly they were looking for, the interviewer did not provide any further information. Instead, she replied ‘thank you for the call, we do not do HR’. The entire conversation lasted barely 3 minutes.

The interviewer, demonstrated poor communication skills and a negative attitude. I believe it’s important to allow candidates to fully express themselves and ask questions during an interview. This experience has highlighted the need for better communication training for your staff, particularly in patience and active listening.

Thank you.

I am very concerned about the conduct of a male member of staff during a very long assessment day conducted by Pareto - intimidating and bullying behaviour and an arbitrary selection procedure. He is a small man who wore red shoes on this occasion. I am also surprised that you box young men and women into a room for six hours without refreshments of any kind. It became clear in a follow-up phone call that the person calling from Pareto was unable to explain why, despite high scores, an applicant had been rejected. The Pareto rep also agreed that she knew of several outstanding complaints against the same male member of staff. Why is he still working there? Does the parent company realize what a poor reputation Pareto has among graduates who have used its application portal?

I strongly discourage engaging with this recruitment agency due to concerning issues related to racial bias and unprofessionalism. My experience with them was quite disheartening. Initially, I had reservations when they scheduled an assessment day from 12:15 until 5:30, which seemed excessively long for an evaluation. Nevertheless, I decided to attend, and I deeply regret that decision.

Upon arriving, I found the venue to be overcrowded, with around 29 candidates packed into a space lacking proper ventilation or open windows and doors, causing discomfort due to the smell and sweat. The facilitator's behavior was shockingly unprofessional. During our introductions, she asked us to share our most significant non-academic achievements, only to respond with laughter and cheesy jokes and comments about our accomplishments.

During the three-minute pitch time, the lady on the other end (interviewer) exhibited complete disinterest, continually playing with her phone and laptop, which made me feel undermined and threw off my presentation. It was evident that she had already formed a negative opinion about me without giving me a fair chance or even listen to my pitch, and she offered no constructive feedback, questions or comments.

Towards the end of this disorganised ordeal, they informed about 80 percent of us that we were unsuitable for a sales job. This verdict appeared baseless since there were no standardized assessments conducted; instead, it felt like a group of biased individuals projecting their own insecurities and opinions onto the candidates. The entire process was a disorganized and unprofessional mess, compounded by the fact that they started at 2:00 PM instead of the scheduled 12:15 PM and concluded at 7:30 PM instead of 5:30 PM, wasting three and a half hours of our time.

What baffles me the most is that they selected only a handful of candidates, most of whom didn't even possess diplomas, while I and other highly qualified candidates with MBAs and more than five years of experience were unjustly rejected. This experience with the agency left me deeply disappointed and frustrated.

I was successful as a candidate yet I have not heard anything???

I managed to complete the process with Pareto and I have only had one interview which was organised for me on the day that I was told I was a successful candidate and that 5 interviews would be lined up for me.

I then had the interview a week later and up until today, I still have not heard back from the interviewer nor the recruiter Hannah Bancroft. I have emailed and called and left voicemails yet she has still not gotten back to me which I find quite unprofessional and to be honest, rude.

Where are the 5 interviews I was promised? Why am I being ignored by a recruitment agency?

Frankly, don’t waste your time with Pareto.

ASSESSMENT DAY.

I'm tired, I will keep this short.

20 people attended yesterday's assessment day at 42nd st Times Square. 15 boys. 5 girls. ONLY 5 were offered. ALL offers went to girls and NONE to boys.
'nuff said.

FEMALES--- ATTEND. you have a 100% chance of getting sales experience.
MALES---- Don't bother putting on a tie. These people are unethical, discriminative and management is misandrist.

After 7 years as a loyal customer of the Milton Keynes branch, in June I booked a carpet/upholstery clean for August, and emailed the day before to confirm the appointment, only to be told then that it was cancelled as there was now no trained operative to do the work. The Account Manager was completely unhelpful, defensive and incapable of recognising that her company were causing the problem. Absolutely zero customer service. I have now engaged someone else and will never use them again.

Pareto helped me transition smoothly into a new career in sales. They set you up with the best advice and guidance and provide the best chance at nailing your interviews and securing a job! Massive Thank you to Tom and Lizzie, my points of contact and excellent representatives of Pareto!

Disgusting treatment from the graduate managers at Pareto. After successfully passing their assessment day I was contacted by several graduate managers proposing job opportunities that I would be a match to. These graduate managers would then arrange interviews between myself and different companies, however it became apparent that the graduate managers would only update me on my interview process if I got through to the next stage. This led to me having to directly reach out the the people who had interviewed me in order to find out if I had gotten to the next stage and for further feedback on the interview. My emails/phonecalls to graduate managers that had put me forward to interviews were ignored, which meant that i didnt receive any feedback from some interviews as I didnt have the interviewers contact details. It is clear that the pareto representatives are solely interested in placing graduates in positions in order to reach targets, and will drop all contact with graduates that don't get offered job roles.

Pareto are a waste of your time as a candidate!
I was put forward for an assessment day and was told that it would be from 8:30am - 3:30pm. However, the day was not only badly organised but it overran by 2.5 hours, all of the candidates were left in a room not knowing what was going to happen. They said lunch would be included but there was a poor excuse for maybe 2 sandwich triangles and about 5 packs of crisps for over 35 candidates to try to get. Not only did it feel like a horrible atmosphere but the main man in charge is just so up himself. He just thought he was the best and honestly just save yourself the hours and never use Pareto. Big waste of your time as a young professional

I don't often write reviews, but I feel our experience with Pareto is worth sharing to save companies time and be fair to candidates.

I would go to great lengths not to use Pareto; their assessment day adds zero value, they don't have any interest in the CVs they share with you, and they put you under significant pressure to decide on successful candidates within hours of completing an interview.

Their process is clearly about numbers as opposed to quality which in the long term will have a significant detrimental impact on young people starting their careers, which is a great shame.

The result ended with us paying their retainer fees but walking away from the process without finding a new team member. This process has cost us time and money.

Having had several calls to discuss our concerns, they consistently showed no interest in finding a solution.

Fantastic journey at Pareto with Sasha and Beth. They were super helpful and kind. Were always there to support throughout my journey, in what can be quite a daunting and nerve racking process.
Assessment day was great, with friendly faces that make the day easier.
Resulted in some amazing opportunities with some excellent and established companies. With support for any interviews, as well as always checking up.

Began my journey with Sasha who couldn't have been more friendly and helpful, and then moved onto Lauren for final stage interview process. Both were extremely professional and a pleasure to deal with, Pareto have some excellent opportunities and are well worth contacting. Couldn't recommend them more.

Portia Fletcher was fantastic. Her advice and professionalism leading up to the assessment centre was faultless and helped ease my nerves. I couldn’t have asked for a better graduate manager. Thank you so much!

Had a great experience with Pareto placing me in my dream job! Couldn’t thank Joe enough for all his help and effort.

Had a great experience with Pareto. My graduate manager Sasha Blackshaw made the process from start to finish very simple and stress free. Would suggest Pareto to anyone, especially graduates wanting to get into a sales career