Workplace reviews and discussion: 華藝數位股份有限公司

HR is quite attractive

The environment is clean and tidy

The view outside the window is quite nice

Beginners may be able to gain experience related to editing

For academic publishing in the Chinese-speaking world, this may already be the best choice

Here is a direct account of the interview process.

At the beginning, I filled out the personal-background questionnaire provided by HR. After finishing it, I waited approximately 20 to 30 minutes before the supervisor (the editor-in-chief) arrived.

The editor-in-chief was approximately in her fifties or sixties. She said she had previously been a university professor and was called “Teacher” by people at the company. She had been invited by the boss to reorganize the editorial department.

According to her explanation, the editorial department’s work begins with selecting works suitable for inclusion in journals through a peer-review system involving experts and scholars. The works are then sent to the editorial department, which checks the text, images, copyrights, the accuracy of cited references, formatting, whether the sentences are fluent, whether they are comprehensible, and so on. The department also discusses revisions and returned manuscripts back and forth with the authors (professors). Once everything is confirmed to be correct, the work is sent for typesetting and proofing. After the proof is checked again, it is sent for printing and uploaded in electronic format.

Given my background, they hoped I would be responsible for medical journals, which may also be a relatively weak area for the company, since its products mainly focus on history, literature, and the arts. However, they apparently had not carefully reviewed my résumé in advance; the interviewer simply looked at the personal-background questionnaire HR had initially asked me to fill out and asked questions while reading it.

The editorial department basically cannot make a profit. “Although it can’t make money, this is a department with ideals! We hope to establish a foothold in Taiwan and make Taiwan a major center for Chinese-language academic publications,” the editor-in-chief said.

The company’s profitable areas mainly consist of academic-paper or image databases, e-books, and its online bookstore.

As for the workload, I was told there were 15 editors, with each person responsible for approximately five or six journals or publications.

“My editors never push work away. They even take the initiative to ask for more work. When someone resigns, they will voluntarily say, ‘I’ll do her work.’ You absolutely won’t see this kind of atmosphere elsewhere. I recruited all these editors myself, and everyone gets along very well,” the editor-in-chief said.

Below are excerpts from some of the editor-in-chief’s remarks. They are essentially unembellished.

“I’m a fairly direct person. Are you a shut-in or something?”

“You don’t remember the formatting you used for your thesis or the databases you used before? You’re practically a blank slate! You also don’t have relevant experience, so I can’t offer you a very high starting salary. It’s impossible for it to be the 34,000 you made before, but I’m not going to give you something in the 20-thousand range either.” (The implication was probably that it would be around 30,000 at most.)

After I asked about the actual job duties, how many editors there were, and how many publications each person was responsible for, the editor-in-chief said, “You’re asking so many questions that I feel like I’m the one applying for the job. I’m just a very direct person—I’m only saying what I feel.” After that, I didn’t really dare ask any more questions.

“You’re asking me what the job duties are, but it’s hard for me to explain clearly. Why don’t you just come in tomorrow and try working for a few days? We’ll give you a little temporary-worker pay.”

“What? You still need time to think it over? If you keep considering it, then you’ll only have Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday left to work this week, won’t you? What are your concerns? The salary? After the three-month probationary period, if you perform very well, you can get a raise in my department. When my department wants to give someone a raise, the boss approves it; raises in other departments never get approved.” (She did not say how much the raise would be. But if this is a department that does not make money, why don’t the other departments get raises while this department can give them?)

“After the probationary period, people in my department don’t clock in or out anymore.” (Isn’t that just a responsibility-based work system?)

“So what exactly are your concerns? I’ve already told you about the salary and the working hours! I’m a very decisive person; you can decide right now. I really don’t know what you’re considering. I don’t know whether your… field of study is good for finding a job, but people in history and literature are extremely grateful for opportunities like this internship of mine! I had expected you to agree right away.”

“Are you going home to discuss it with your parents? Do you need your parents’ consent? If you don’t, why do you still need to go home and think about it? Are both your parents retired? Are you the only child in your family? Or are you going to discuss it with your girlfriend? Do you have a girlfriend? Are you engaged or discussing marriage?”

“If you don’t want it, there are plenty of other people waiting. I don’t like waiting. One night is okay, so think it over and email me directly tomorrow.”

Actually, the teacher/editor-in-chief’s attitude was not bad from beginning to end. Her expression only fell slightly when I said I needed some time to think it over, and only then did she begin actively emphasizing how good the company was, and so on.

Provided as a simple reference.