1. The air conditioning is really cool?

2. It was kind of funny watching the interviewer pretend to know what they were talking about.

1. The interviewing manager was very arrogant and really liked pretending to know things. Even though they clearly weren’t familiar with the situation in other industries, they still insisted on “correcting” the interviewee.

2. The interviewing manager’s every word was filled with a sense of superiority, as though every other company was inferior to theirs. Having confidence and putting other people down are two different things.

The position I applied for was copywriter. The person responsible for contacting me by phone was apparently the manager rather than HR. They originally said they would send me a text message, but after I asked them to email me, they sent a rather informal email. After I replied, I received an even more bizarre email containing only the single word “Okay.” The manager’s email etiquette gets a huge question mark.

When I arrived at the office on the day of the interview, I was asked to fill out a standard personnel information form. After the interviewing manager arrived, the following conversation began.

Manager: Hey, what does XX Company (my current employer) do?

Me: An advertising agency. (Internal monologue: Didn’t I mention that in both my résumé and autobiography? Forget the name—couldn’t you at least figure out the industry before coming to interview me?)

Manager: What’s your boss’s name?

Me: Oh? Do you know our boss?

Manager: No~ We’re very familiar with advertising companies~ We’re always in contact with them~

After I answered truthfully, the manager gave a very bizarre response:

“​​Oh, then you’re probably not a 4A agency.”

Me: That’s right, we’re not. (Internal monologue: I’m sorry we’re not a 4A agency and have disappointed you.)

Then they asked what I was doing now and what I had done before. After I answered, they launched into a long speech, repeatedly emphasizing that the nature of their work and industry was very different, that many people couldn’t handle it, and asking, “Are you sure you’re willing to learn?” I actually think it was perfectly normal and understandable for them to explain these things, but couldn’t they have been a little more polite????

Manager: Although you were also a copywriter before, things are very different here. You could say you’re starting from a blank slate. Do you have any questions for me?

Me: I’d like to ask how this position came about. Is it because the organization is expanding?

Manager: I guess… you could say it’s expansion. (They answered very reluctantly.) We have too many projects, and the budgets are huge—easily hundreds of billions at a time. Ordinary advertising companies are lucky to have budgets of tens of millions; they can’t compare at all, blah blah blah.

Me: Then I’d like to understand the specific responsibilities of this position. (Internal monologue: We’ve been talking for ages and you haven’t even explained the most important thing. I have to ask myself?)

After the manager finished speaking, I asked another question:

Me: From what I’ve heard, does this job lean more toward planning and strategy, while also including budget management? In the advertising industry, budgets are handled by account executives…

Manager (interrupting me directly): No, account executives are blah blah blah.

Hearing that was genuinely both hilarious and baffling. Am I the one working in advertising, or are you? And if you divide the work differently, you could simply say that budgets are managed by the planning team, couldn’t you???

In between, I asked some ordinary questions. Finally, I asked the manager:

Me: How would you describe your company’s way of doing things?

Manager (looking surprised, as if completely puzzled about why I would ask that): We don’t need a brand. The clients already have their own brands. Our job is to sell the clients’ products. Why would we build a brand?

Me (having really had enough): That’s not what I’m asking. I mean, how does your company treat people? What’s your working style?

Manager: Oh, we only let ability speak for itself. Our boss started from nothing; they evaluate people solely based on ability. We don’t place much importance on educational qualifications, blah blah blah.

Manager (with an extremely disdainful expression): I’ve hired people from NTU, NTHU, and NYCU too. Oh, honestly, they were～～～～so difficult to work with!

？？？The way they said it, you’d think people from NTU, NTHU, and NYCU were all begging to be hired by them.

That was the interview in detail. To be honest, I don’t regret coming to this interview—it was truly eye-opening. I’ve never encountered a company this bizarre and arrogant from the interview stage onward. I really wonder whether anyone can be recruited with an attitude like that.