Workplace reviews and discussion: 大員開發事業股份有限公司

The hotel looks quite new and impressive. I didn’t expect the quality of the department managers to be so inconsistent.

A very poor interview experience. The interviewer showed little respect for the candidate. The position I applied for was restaurant host/hostess.

I entered through the delivery entrance. After going inside, I was asked to surrender an ID document in order to attend the interview. I waited for a very long time in the hotel’s HR office—approximately 40 minutes—before someone came to conduct the interview. During those 40 minutes, I repeatedly heard the HR manager calling to urge the manager of the relevant department to come for the interview. There were five calls in total, including calls made on the office phone and personal calls. The personal call was on speakerphone at a very high volume, so I heard the department’s interviewing manager say that it didn’t matter how long the interviewee waited, because she was still talking to people in the department.

When she finally came to conduct the interview, she did not look at my résumé at all and showed no intention of explaining the job responsibilities, company policies, or anything else. She only briefly asked whether I had relevant work experience and whether I knew what the job involved. Throughout the entire interview, she made no effort to conceal her displeasure and impatience.

What shocked me most was that, after learning I did not live nearby and that I planned to look for a place to rent nearby if I was hired, she asked me in an extremely surprised and displeased tone, raising her voice: “Before coming to the interview, did you look for a place to rent? How could you not have? You have to find a place to live first before you can come to work. If I wanted you to start work tomorrow, would you be able to come to work?” It felt as though she was deliberately making things difficult for the interviewee in a mocking tone. Before the interview ended, she even said, “Please find and arrange your housing first before coming to interview at our company in the future, okay? Don’t waste my time by coming here for an interview with me.”

After the interview ended, before I had even turned around and stepped out of the office, I heard her loudly say to the HR manager behind my back: “How could you bring someone like this in for an interview? They can’t do anything. They didn’t even look for a place to rent in advance. What were they thinking? Are they wasting my time? I was halfway through a conversation with so-and-so and hadn’t finished, but I was interrupted and had to come here for this interview…”

I believe the manager of that department has a lot of room for improvement in emotional control and time management, and her logical thinking was also quite baffling.

So does this mean that anyone who comes for an interview will be hired and must be able to start work immediately? (Especially given the requirement that interviewees find housing in advance.)

If the candidate is ultimately not hired but has already found a place to live, are they expected to bear the loss themselves?