Workplace reviews and discussion: 美周報iBEAUTYREPORT_美淂行銷顧問有限公司

The colleagues are very nice, and there are free drinks.

The employee turnover is extremely high; no one has stayed for more than two years.

That alone shows how problematic this company is. It was established five years ago, yet the longest-serving employee is the accountant (a year and a half). Among the other editors and sales staff, the longest anyone stayed was two months. I was stunned when I joined—turns out everyone except me was also new! Of course, no one teaches you anything after you join; you’re simply expected to know everything already ^_^

The boss values experience over ability.

The editor-in-chief worked at a major media company for nine years, so the boss idolizes them as if they can do no wrong. Whatever the editor-in-chief says goes. The editor-in-chief doesn’t even need to come to the office; all communication is online. Don’t expect to learn anything from them here, because there’s really nothing to learn. The editor-in-chief doesn’t understand the company’s operational direction or what the fans like, and edits articles entirely according to personal preferences. They even add extremely offensive descriptions of celebrities—so offensive that if I were that celebrity, I’d want to sue. Seeing my articles casually changed like that by the editor-in-chief left me speechless.

The boss has absolutely no respect for professional expertise.

The boss will say things directly in front of the editors such as, “I don’t think you can write articles about fashion like this,” and “I can find someone to replace you at any time.” Not only is the boss unwilling to train employees, but they even seem to think employees are incapable. The boss also asks designers to make storefront logos for friends, then says to just do it casually because it’s very easy. That’s right—you may be asked to do work that isn’t part of your job description ^_^

The workload is absurdly heavy.

You have to write eight articles a day, each around 800 Chinese characters, with at least five images per article (the images are collages, so you actually need to find more than ten images). For context, I already had four to five years of industry experience, and no company I had worked for before had a workload this heavy. The boss kept saying that writing articles was easy and that they could write one in 20 minutes. The boss also wanted the website to have new articles 24 hours a day—but you’re a beauty media outlet, not the Apple Daily, okay? And under these standards, you still have to attend press conferences, constantly racing against time!

No effort is made to improve traffic or fix website problems.

The website itself has many bugs, and I discovered many more after joining. Every time, they said they would fix them, but they still hadn’t by the time I resigned. As mentioned earlier, the boss wanted a new article every hour, but the website had low traffic and no one was reading the content. Shouldn’t they first think of marketing and campaigns to attract traffic? Otherwise, what’s the point of writing so many articles if no one reads them? In the end, they blamed the editors for the low traffic. Somehow, everything was the editors’ fault.

The company has absolutely no trust in its employees.

The company’s computers use a shared password and cannot be personalized. You even need a password to download software. There are also no individual email accounts; the email accounts are shared with other editors because they’re afraid editors will independently take on advertorials, accept PR products, and so on...

The boss constantly changes their mind.

They make empty promises, such as saying that you can receive bonuses based on article reach, but during all the time I worked there, I only received one once. They assign you new sales responsibilities, then later say that’s not what they wanted and tell you not to be clever—wasn’t that what they themselves asked for? The most ridiculous example was when an editor was asked to photograph a feature. In front of the editor, the boss said the photos looked great and were exactly what they wanted. The next day, however, they complained to someone else that the editor didn’t know how to take photos and that the results were terrible!

The boss is extremely self-important.

They often give examples of how capable they used to be and how many connections they had. But once, when I went out with them, I saw them try to act familiar with someone who completely ignored them. Ha.

There are many more stories, but basically, this company is an absolute disaster with an enormous number of problems. If you have more time than you know what to do with—or enjoy being mistreated—feel free to apply.

By the way, almost everyone at the company has left now, so your chances may be pretty good if you apply. Everyone should give it a try ^_^