Before I post about my personal experience of the Pareto process, I'd like to point out that I am not being bribed by Pareto, or even asked to fill out this review. An ex-housemate of mine asked about my Pareto experience and I told them what I'm about to tell you all below. My friend mentioned this thread had put him off applying, and after reading the entire thing, I have decided to give my perspective on things.
I had been applying for graduate jobs throughout my final year at the University of York, and had mixed success. I had applied to countless graduate schemes, getting rejections before even the telephone interview stage. With other companies I had good success - I was offered a Marketing role on Vodafone's grad scheme with a starting wage of £25k and the role looked really good. However, the role was based down in Newbury and I wanted to stay up in York so I declined the job offer.
I moved back home to Peterborough and started to apply to countless jobs online. One day, I received a call from someone at Pareto mentioning that they were phoning about a job I had applied to. I have to admit, I didn't realise that I would be called by a recruitment agency and was a little cold and guarded with the person from Pareto. I told them that I was not looking for a job in sales and they asked why. After I gave my reasons, they spoke frankly and honestly with me, giving genuine advice about job roles and careers. I was genuinely impressed with their professionalism and told them that if I changed my mind, I'd get back in touch. A couple of days later, after no more job success, I called the person from Pareto again. The guy I had been speaking to was Ben from the Leeds office, and as I have already mentioned, Ben was very easy to talk to and listened to what I had to say, as opposed to ramming a speech down my throat.
After a telephone interview, I was invited to an assessment day. I had been to three graduate assessment days prior to this, and to be honest, they were all very similar. I have read about people complaining about the lack of food etc, but my experience at Vodafone was identical. The Vodafone assessment day started at 8.15am and ended at 1.30pm, with no food provided. I understand people's gripes with Pareto not providing much food/refreshments, but people believe this an issue unique to Pareto (as it may be their first exposure to an assessment day) - it quite simply isn't. After completing the assessment day, I was told that I'd be contacted shortly afterwards.
Ben got in touch the next day about an excellent job in York. He briefed me about the company, the industry, the role, the area etc and gave me all the support I could ask for. I would often get helpful emails from Ben whenever I got in touch with him - whenever I needed to lean on his expertise or ask his advice, Ben was there to offer help and guidance. I interviewed for the role a week later and Ben provided really useful feedback on how I had got on. Another week went by and Ben called me to let me know I had been offered the job. The salary and OTE was generous, and as I have found out over the last 9 months, there has been opportunities to progress within the business.
About 3 months after I was in the role, Ben got in touch with me simply to ask how I was getting on and if he could help in any way. After having worked in a customer-facing role, I can now see how valuable it was to have someone of Ben's calibre helping me get placed in my first graduate job. I know that other people have had different experiences, or less diligent people helping them in the process, but I have nothing but praise for the way I was looked after by Ben throughout the entire process.
To sum it up, the worst thing that can happen if you apply is that you get rejected. I was rejected for dozen of roles before I finally got my job and this is just a part of life. You can absolutely learn something positive from a negative experience, and the only way to decide if Pareto is right for you is to try it for yourself.