Pearlfisher Interview Questions
& Process

The first interview was with the in-house recruiter and it was really nice. She was great and said I fit all the requirements. It took a long time to set up the second interview. The interviewer was unfriendly and seemed to not like me from the start. She asked for more work examples that weren't in my portfolio, which I thought was odd given how much I have. I got the feeling the vibe wasn't good and I knew she didn't like me during that interview.

So, I had this appalling racist interview a couple of years back. I was headhunted by their Talent Director because they needed someone who knew the East Asian market and spoke the languages. The two interviewers on the day were okay, they asked a lot about the sector and how other companies offered similar products. Honestly, it felt like they were more interested in industry intel than getting to know me. The kicker? A few weeks later, the same Talent Director actually wrote to me saying they were impressed by multilingual people, but they wouldn't proceed because of my 'soft accent,' assuming others wouldn't like it on the phone, because they are patently racist themselves. Basically, they wanted someone of Chinese/East Asian background with solid industry experience to handle new clients there, but they discriminated against my natural accent or personal characteristics because I didn't sound 'British enough.' Yeah, you read that right. You should check their employee backgrounds to see how diverse it really is. I'd be super careful dealing with HR there if I were an employee. Hopefully, this helps anyone with a slightly non-mainstream background applying for a job there.

Found via a recruiter, I interviewed for a dream role at Pearlfisher even with another offer. Due to COVID, all chats were over Zoom. The London team was super accommodating and fast with feedback, taking only 2.5 weeks. This included three interviews and a work presentation. I met the strat director, then the strat partner, and finally the futures and insights partner. Great discussions, lovely people! I declined the offer for personal career reasons, but appreciated their respectful approach.

I had a quick Skype chat with one of their creative directors, lasting almost an hour. I started by introducing myself and talking about how I found out about the company. They asked me to talk about 3 of my projects, then later another 2. They didn't ask many other questions. The interviewer was nice and friendly. It got a little weird sometimes because it was over Skype, but it was a good experience overall.