Workplace reviews and discussion: 聲億科技股份有限公司

None at all

I lasted only three days before being defeated. Anyone considering applying should think carefully! The unit I belonged to was the branch company “Hang Jia Trading Co., Ltd.”, so the insured entity would be listed under the branch company’s name.

The position I applied for was graphic design, layout, and planning. The interviewer was Ms. A from the Product Development Department. I clearly remember asking Ms. A at the time whether the graphic designer would need to come up with the written descriptions for the product copy independently. Since I had no prior experience in planning, and my previous copywriting work had focused mainly on visual design and layout, she said that the company had planners who would provide the text. I therefore felt reassured about joining the company—an unfortunate beginning.

1. As described above, because I had never worked in planning, I was less sensitive to wording. On my third day of employment, Ms. A saw that the copy I had designed did not contain other detailed written descriptions and began questioning my previous copywriting work. I said, “In the past, the text for my copy was provided by the sales team, and I was only responsible for the visual design. Does your company not have a planner or anyone else who can help provide the written content?” She replied, “Our company doesn’t have planners. The graphic designers have always come up with the wording themselves.” —This completely contradicted what had been said to me during the interview.

2. My coworkers had no sense of propriety. They used profanity as a verbal tic all day long, which was undoubtedly a form of auditory bullying.

3. Ms. A repeatedly changed her story and contradicted herself. Anyone going for an interview should remember to bring a phone or voice recorder.

4. The insured salary was far too low—about NT$4,000 less than the salary discussed during the interview. I suspect that the actual salary may differ from the salary discussed, or that the company may report a lower salary for insurance purposes. As the salary details were not listed in the onboarding notice, there was no way to know the actual salary.

5. The workload was extremely heavy. There was at least a three-month gap between the previous graphic designer’s departure and my joining the company, which meant that in my three days I was loaded with three months’ worth of work. My coworkers said the workload had always been very high, yet they kept assigning me more projects. How absurd is that?

6. The company had only one graphic designer—me—and there was no senior employee to train me or hand over the work. The only thing available on the computer was an insignificant Word file labeled “handover.” Perhaps some people would see this as an opportunity for growth and learning, but if something goes wrong while a newcomer is figuring things out, must the newcomer bear the responsibility? In theory, the company has an obligation to provide training for new employees. The only result of saving that expense is being unable to find talent.

7. Their attitude toward newcomers was dismissive, and their tone was blunt and obnoxious. Even when there was still room for communication, the end result was that you had to continue swallowing it.

8. Most importantly: When Ms. A and other sales staff asked the graphic designer to help create copy and banners, they provided only brief information, such as the product name, specifications, and style, without any other written information about the product’s features or details. Ms. A would only send links to products on Alibaba and ask the graphic designer to source the images and write the copy independently. Sometimes the Alibaba product copy contained only a brief written description; if the graphic designer simply used Alibaba’s description, Ms. A would consider that the graphic designer did not know how to do the job. (Please refer back to point 1.)

* I will add more if there are any new developments.

* Everything described above is completely true! If you can endure and shoulder these responsibilities, congratulations.

* My biggest mistake was not thoroughly asking about and understanding the role when I saw that the position combined graphic design and planning. I was truly foolish and naïve. In the end, I still wanted to believe that graphic design was graphic design, and planning was planning.