Workplace reviews and discussion: 協榮海外商業有限公司

The woman responsible for contacting interviewees was courteous and polite. In our interactions, she came across as a professional secretary. She provided interviewees with mineral water (which appeared to be from an imported brand), which was a thoughtful touch.

After arriving and before the interview began, I was first asked to fill out a questionnaire. It mainly asked about expected compensation, views on overtime, opinions on Taiwan’s one-fixed-day-off-and-one-flexible-rest-day policy, whether I would accept having to contact vendors on holidays, whether I agreed to a responsibility-based work system, and so on. Although they emphasized that it would not affect the interview results, the man who appeared to be the boss clearly cared a great deal about it during the interview. From the conversation, it was apparent that he was a thoroughly old-school, exploitative boss. The entire interview felt like being lectured. It would have been one thing if he had not reviewed the applicant’s résumé beforehand, but he also spent the interview talking about how he had studied medicine in his early years, started a business after interrupting his studies, and so on, then went on about how he had invested in Formosa Plastics. Next, he trotted out the same old criticisms of environmental protection and Taiwan’s environment. Only after he had finished reminiscing did he take out the applicant’s résumé printed from the job bank and ask about it item by item. When he finally discussed the position—which he still had not figured out the applicant was applying for—he immediately stated that there was “no labor or health insurance.” When asked where employees were supposed to obtain coverage, he said they would refer employees to several associations from which they could choose, with the company paying the fees. He seemed quite pleased with the idea that employees might receive more than their expected salary (because he emphasized this two or three times). He then repeated some of the questions from the questionnaire, such as whether I could accept having to contact vendors on holidays and my views on a responsibility-based work system. He also said that the job would require frequent overseas business trips and asked whether that was OK.

There is very little information about this company available online. Its profile on the job bank makes it sound like a foreign company, but it is not—it simply specializes in overseas business. The business does appear to be genuinely large, but considering that the job requires frequent travel while the company is unwilling even to provide labor and health insurance under its own name (saying that it does not like having too many ties to the government), if something happened during an overseas business trip, the company probably would not have to bear much responsibility at all. It might even completely shirk responsibility. Not borrowing from banks may make the company seem well-capitalized, but it could also reduce the chances of government agencies uncovering detailed information. Even the interview location was somewhat mysterious. From beginning to end, the only things they kept asking about were whether the applicant could work overtime, accept a responsibility-based work system, and travel. They said absolutely nothing about what benefits or salary the company could offer. I did not even know what incentives the company could provide, so how could I give a specific expected-salary figure? Suppose a secretary or assistant position paid NT$40,000 a month (as implied by the claim of “excellent pay”), but required someone to be on call 24 hours a day, perhaps without even taking days off, while bearing the risks of business travel personally and not knowing what time the workday would end—would that really be worthwhile?

Those considering applying for assistant-type positions should think it over carefully.