1. There is a 14-month year-end bonus. Although it is a small or medium-sized company, the income feels stable.

2. It is a branch of the Industrial Technology Research Institute, so there may truly be opportunities to work on good projects and gain project experience.

1. There is no specific compensation standard.

I interviewed for a project engineer position. I have one year of software PM experience, have been unemployed for a year, and am currently looking for a job while working as an administrative assistant.

They asked me about my administrative assistant salary. I already felt it was a stretch to provide the salary I received when I worked as a PM in the past, so the fact that they wanted to determine my compensation based on my administrative assistant salary made me feel extremely disrespected.

01. There was no need to provide my past salary.

02. Small companies have no standards; everyone does it this way: I could reluctantly accept that, but I have one year of software PM experience and had already provided my previous software PM salary.

2. The junior manager failed to answer the questions asked, and neither the senior nor junior manager could clearly explain the job responsibilities.

3. The junior manager only asked what student clubs I had participated in at school (and this was the first question in the interview). They did not ask about any of my past project experience. This seems like an attitude appropriate for interviewing a new graduate, not a job seeker with work experience. It made me feel that their professionalism was seriously lacking.

4. The senior manager was somewhat perceptive and asked how I had communicated on past projects—these were questions that should be asked, and I answered them all. However, I do not know why I got the impression that his purpose was more like obtaining useful information to apply at their company than recruiting people. Still, since these were questions that should be asked, it is not that clear-cut. I really would like to know how to judge, when a manager asks questions in situations like this, whether they have the ability to lead subordinates in solving the problem in question, or whether they themselves do not know how to solve it and are trying to obtain and learn from another job candidate’s experience for free through the interview. If it is the latter, it seems impossible not to answer, because it is an interview and these are questions that should be asked. It is just really uncomfortable knowing that the other party is getting all this information for free.