Mixed bag but wouldn't recommend

Pareto Law- www.pareto.co.uk
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Guest's review of Pareto Law- www.pareto.co.uk

“Mixed bag but wouldn't recommend”

★★☆☆☆

written by on 12/01/2013

Ok, so there are a lot of "graduate jobs" being advertised out there. But let's make on thing clear to start with, Pareto Law for all intents & purposes does not come across as a graduate recruitment company. Like several reviewers before me, I went down a familiar route of 1) seeing a job in "business development" quite a catchy title but the actual description isn't accurate, the "job" itself is a way of encouraging would be graduates/professionals to apply but this is purely an application process to get onto Pareto's books. Ok if that's what it's set out to be, but it clearly doesn't show that in the job advertisement.
2) I was "successful" at the telephone interview, again just a bit of screening for Pareto to see if you can talk (convenient as many jobs are telephone based huh?) and was invited to an assessment centre.
3) The "Assessment Centre" was crowded, with prospective graduates queuing out of the door, but again, style over substance because once the 50+ grads had been sat down, they were told that they were invited specially in order to assess if they were ready to be part of the Pareto recruitment group, and if so, the lucky few were put into a select group who would be guaranteed excellent opportunities. However, this was surely a ruse to ensure they screened candidates correctly, and it would have been more appropriate for them to admit this at the start, rather than creating a further elaborate "ruse" for recruitment. Unfortunate certainly.
I think a major issue is that the "business development executives" (i.e. those on the end of the phone who call to make sure you arrive at the assessment centre and any subsequent interviews gained) are basically recruitment agents with pretty names.
Ok, so I passed through the assessment centre, and one good thing that came out of this was experience of handling a lot of other graduates and holding your own, yes its doable and yes you can prove yourself without shouting.
The next step was the phone calls (which you were advised would come so frequently you need your phone on all the time), that's not true, I probably had about 4-5 a week, which isn't bad, but again an issue: Pareto appear to ignore your location, constantly asking if you would relocate, for example- I'm based in the North East of England, but I would often get a call telling me about an "amazing opportunity"...in Manchester. Hmm, after the first few times of telling them based on my current situation I can't relocate, they still didn't get the message.
Granted I did get interviews, with some decent companies, albeit not matching skillset (I have a legal background & Pareto tried to put me forward for medical sales interviews- not what I would expect of a "recruitment agency..."!) Further to this, I think some firms actually realised what Pareto were doing and after interview, contacted me directly asking to meet outside of the Pareto bubble and discuss future opportunities directly.
All in I think Pareto could work for some people, but its totally style over substance, if they say they are a graduate recruitment firm fine, but saying anything else is misleading and unfair on those graduates who are desperate to succeed. I myself have been fortunate that I now work for a large organisation doing investigation work so nothing to do with sales...

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