In 2016, I applied for a management trainee position. The salary was quite good for a recent graduate.

First stage: There were about 10 interviewees, and I was the only recent graduate. We first took an intelligence test and then had individual interviews. The interviewers asked questions about my past experience. Both interviewers were very nice and gave me a lot of advice regarding my being the youngest candidate with no experience.

Second stage: There were 3 candidates left. The interviewers were the directors of business offices from three different locations. The process was mostly casual conversation, along with questions about management—for example, if you were an externally appointed supervisor, how would you gain the trust of your subordinates? By the end, the three directors were already chatting with me about which office I wanted to go to. I thought I was definitely getting the job—only a fried chicken cutlet and bubble milk tea were missing. In the end, after waiting for more than a month, I received a thank-you letter.

The wait for interview notifications was extremely long. It took about two weeks to receive the first-round results, and more than a month to receive the second-round results. In the end, I received a thank-you letter.