Workplace reviews and discussion: 博識資訊顧問有限公司

Interviewed position: Project Manager

Interviewers: Product Manager (female), Head of the R&D Department (male).

Both interviewers expressed themselves quite clearly, and I felt no discomfort at all.

- During the interview, they asked about my past project experience. I gave clarifying requirements as an example, and the Product Manager (hereinafter abbreviated as “Product”) kept focusing on the “clarifying requirements” aspect. Later, Product mentioned that some of the projects they take on require system integrations, and that some companies have no prior experience with certain integrations, requiring further cooperation with system vendors. In the past, things were often not confirmed properly, resulting in a great deal of back-and-forth and wasted time; this is something to pay attention to in projects. I asked whether there was a list showing which systems had already been integrated with (Why did I ask that...? I should have approached her with the assumption that she would obviously not have one, so there was no need to ask and give her an easy opening...)

She awkwardly said there was no such list (her straightforwardness and honesty here are positive qualities); some information was scattered among the various engineers, who would have to be contacted individually. She said that this should be her responsibility (Thank you—because you are senior and very likely to have been given the authority to manage project managers, so yes, it is). However, she hoped that once I joined the project, we could work on it together.

In other words, standardizing it into an SOP.

At first, I agreed.

But after thinking about it, she had neither done nor thought of doing even this task,

and worked in a disorderly manner. I don’t think it would be ideal for someone like that to become the person who would have a major influence on my work in the future.

It felt somewhat like how, at many companies, the sales team asks a sales assistant to write the SOP simply because they themselves are disorganized and cannot write it, while having no intention of promoting or otherwise rewarding that sales assistant.

- It felt like compensation was not decided by them, because when I asked about performance evaluations, they said they had to discuss it with the general manager.

However, Product did ask about my expected salary range.

After evaluating the job responsibilities myself, I gave a range.

She was very happy when I mentioned the lower end, but somewhat displeased when I mentioned the higher end (aren’t we colleagues?). Since they do not decide the compensation, she is very likely just a colleague, and I felt that asking about salary was quite impolite.

- Many of the company’s processes have not been established. The advantage is that they have realized the need to establish them, so one can skip the stage of communicating the need to create systems. An experienced male PM might consider joining to establish the systems, but if an experienced woman or an inexperienced man or woman joins, I’m afraid they may be completely overwhelmed—whether by the actual project management and work management or by the task of establishing the systems.