Workplace reviews and discussion: 京晨科技股份有限公司

The base salary may seem not low at NT$35,000, but the overtime feels limitless—it really seems like a job that demands sacrificing your personal life. The HR manager was fairly honest⋯⋯

Please be sure to click in and read my experience. I really do not recommend coming here for an interview.

1. The company is in Zhonghe, and the commute is truly inconvenient. You have to transfer to a bus from the MRT to get there. Unless you ride a scooter or drive, it is really remote.

2. The company building is very old and run-down, and it shares the same building as a nursing home. The entire building is probably considered a mixed-use apartment building. The environment really smells a bit, and it is quite unpleasant.

3. At the beginning, you have to complete a logic test, after which they conduct a group interview. Another interviewee and I entered a conference room for the first-round interview with the HR manager. The manager spoke Chinese, while the interviewees had to introduce themselves and answer the HR manager’s questions entirely in English. During the interview, HR explained the company’s benefits and policies:

First, there is no overtime pay. You may have to come to the office to work overtime on Saturdays and Sundays. If you work in sales and still ask for overtime pay, it means you do not love money enough.

Second, you must also come to work on typhoon days and submit daily reports. Rather than going to karaoke or watching movies during a typhoon, you might as well come to the office to work overtime, since the company is already paying you a salary.

Third, the reason our office is so run-down is that the boss gives all the money out as bonuses to employees. This is a very practical approach.

Fourth, the department I applied to was sales for the Latin American region, so I would have to work overtime to accommodate the time difference. However, the company said that during the first few months as a new employee, I would still have to arrive at the office at 9 a.m. and then work according to overseas clients’ schedules, potentially until midnight. There would be no overtime pay, yet I would still have to come back to Zhonghe to work the next day.

Fifth, HR said that because the boss is usually in Miaoli, employees often have to go down to Miaoli for meetings. However, employees have to arrange carpools with colleagues and drive there themselves; there is no meaningful reimbursement for Taiwan Railway or high-speed rail fares.

After hearing roughly the above points, HR said they would ask the department manager to conduct a more detailed second-stage interview. The other interviewee and I decided to leave immediately rather than proceed with the second-round interview.

Interview advice:

Before going to interview at this company, I had already searched online and knew there were many negative reviews. I did not expect to find afterward that what people said online was indeed very accurate. Also, after listening to HR, I felt that the company’s prospects were fairly limited (HR mentioned that the rise of the Chinese market had caused the company to encounter setbacks at one point).