Pareto Sales Development Representative Interview Questions
& Process

The interview process kicked off with an initial chat where my "graduate manager" decided I should come to Pareto's Assessment Day. It was a really long day, almost 7 hours on Zoom, with group interviews and some weird sales tasks. They made it sound like a huge deal, saying they help successful candidates find jobs afterward. But honestly, it seemed like the louder you were in the group stuff, the better. It was basically a free-for-all trying to get a word in. Near the end, I had a quick one-on-one to do an elevator pitch, just a couple minutes long. After waiting around for an hour for feedback, I found out I was successful and moved to the next stage. A graduate manager told me it was a big career step. Then, a client success manager was supposed to help me find final interviews. She emailed me, I replied fast, but then heard nothing for a month. I followed up a bunch and even messaged her on LinkedIn, still no response. Finally, she emailed again asking to chat. I responded right away with my availability, and again, nothing. It's been months now, and I've found a job somewhere else. I think Pareto just builds up a talent pool and is super unreliable and inconsiderate. Getting ghosted after putting in so much effort and succeeding on Assessment Day was rough, but I see their game now. Definitely don't waste your time.

I had a couple of straightforward calls with a graduate manager where they were just getting to know me. After those 2 calls, they invited me to an assessment day. The manager helped me get ready for it. It started at 11:30 AM and we didn't finish until 6 PM. We were on a Zoom call with about 30 other people. We began by being asked about our greatest accomplishment and to name a celebrity. We then had to use that celebrity in an exercise to try and argue why they should stay on the boat. After that, we discussed why our group made the choices it did. A recruiter was present the entire time. Even if you're confident and speak up, it doesn't really matter much. Then, we did a cold call exercise with the same group and had to present in front of the entire Zoom meeting. The whole process took ages. Then we got a break and had to wait for all 500 people in our Zoom session to be called into a breakroom one by one for a 3-minute pitch. Half of us 'weren't successful', and they always say they'll reach out but never do. Many people I thought would succeed didn't. They tell everyone the same day on the Zoom call, in front of everyone. It was a waste of time, and nothing seemed to be taken seriously.

Pareto was recruiting for a tech company looking to hire several graduates for their SDR team. I was approached and had an initial call with a graduate manager. Later that day, I had a competency-focused phone interview. After passing that, I was invited to an assessment day the following week. Around 40 of us applied for 8 open positions. My graduate manager had previously given me an overview of the assessment day and helped me practice my 3-minute pitch. The day started with introductions from the client company and Pareto, encouraging questions. We then introduced ourselves, sharing our name, best non-academic achievement, and a celebrity we admired. We then split into groups of about 9, each representing our chosen celebrity, and had to convince the others to let us survive. Even if not chosen, we were instructed to justify our survival choice when back together. Next were the pitches. We were taken into rooms with 2-3 people from the client company and 1-2 from Pareto. We discussed our motivations for sales and interest in the company. On the same day, we were informed about job offers, those who passed Pareto but weren't selected by the client, and those who didn't pass.