Interview experience sharing

Interview date: November 2018 (initial interview)

Position: English Customer Service Representative

Overall, it was a very pleasant interview experience. The HR representative was also very professional, talkative, and friendly. I have no idea what the actual work is like, but at least the interview itself was extremely comfortable.

After checking in, you are given some materials to fill out. The content is divided into two parts:

A. Two Chinese-to-English translation questions and one English-to-Chinese translation question. You are reminded that electronic devices cannot be used. The content consists of short, report-style passages, and the difficulty is not high. If you have a TOEIC score of around 700 and some regular experience reading English, and your Chinese is reasonably good, you should have no problem at all.

B. Multiple-choice questions in English describing situations encountered at the company, with colleagues, and with customers, asking you to choose how you would handle them. The main purpose is probably to understand your personal traits and how you respond to situations at work.

After submitting the materials, you wait about five minutes, and an HR representative conducts a one-on-one interview:

After coming in, they greet and communicate with you directly in English. The interviewer’s English is at a native-speaker level. They look over your information and ask you to briefly describe yourself, focusing on your work experience. I brought work samples, photos, and related materials from my previous job, so it was relatively easy to explain things. The HR representative asked questions at appropriate times and provided some feedback, making the interaction quite engaging. We also talked about some topics unrelated to work.

If you are used to communicating orally in English, this part will be very relaxed and enjoyable, because the process is more like having a conversation. For people who rely on memorized scripts, it may be a major hurdle. During the English conversation, they get to know your work background and some basic personal traits. After about 15 minutes, the interviewer says that you can switch to communicating in Chinese.

(I had previously interviewed for several overseas sales positions at traditional manufacturing companies. What they called an English interview was often the interviewer saying, “Please introduce yourself in English for five minutes,” and then simply watching you give a speech without offering much response. I am not the type to memorize scripts, and I like interactive conversations, so having to give a rigidly memorized speech was very painful.)

After switching back to Chinese, the conversation continues with topics related to your own experience, followed by explanations of the company’s work and the position. Then it is time for the applicant to ask questions. Every question I asked received a very good answer, and we also chatted about international trends and other topics along the way.

I asked several questions that job seekers are more likely to be concerned about:

1. Company/position details: The company is a financial investment consultancy and an agent company for an Australian business, with a role similar to that of a financial consultant. The sales position is purely sales-oriented: developing and maintaining clients and handling their financial investment needs. Customer service is mainly responsible for maintaining client relationships and handling customer-related issues, serving as a bridge between the sales team and customers.

2. Why is the company hiring so frequently? Because the company is currently growing in scale and still has a substantial need for sales personnel. In addition, the interviews and training screen out quite a lot of people, and sales positions inherently have a high turnover rate. These are all fairly common circumstances in sales, so they are quite understandable.

3. Why does a financial investment consultancy recruit people without a financial background? Because the company’s training is quite comprehensive. The two abilities that are relatively important to the company are English proficiency and sales ability, and people with a financial background do not necessarily possess these traits.

The front-desk staff may have seemed a little casual when greeting people at first, perhaps because they have a lot of miscellaneous tasks to handle.

Remember to bring a pen that writes smoothly. The pen I borrowed from them kept running out of ink...