Workplace reviews and discussion: 信義房屋仲介股份有限公司

Interview: From joining in 2018 to the present, interviews involve multiple applicants facing multiple managers (assistant managers, store managers, etc.) who take turns speaking.

Related questions include why you want to join Sinyi Realty and your goals in life.

Once you pass the interview, you basically get the job. Women have an advantage because they make up approximately 30% of the workforce.

Job: Tamkang University graduate, female, with over three years of experience, currently at the position of business specialist.

Advantages: Colleagues are willing to help each other; work starts relatively late (9:00 or 10:00), avoiding rush-hour traffic; colleagues are willing to teach; after the meeting, you can go out and handle your own schedule; there are team dinners; during the first six months, there is an additional NT$50,000, and if you decide during the first month that the job is not suitable, you can receive another NT$50,000 (NT$100,000 in total during the first month); the work contributes to society (although it still drives housing prices upward because service fees are added on).

Disadvantages: Because of information asymmetry, colleagues cultivate their own clients and therefore compete with one another. There have also been cases of senior colleagues taking leads from junior colleagues. Of course, colleagues are willing to help one another, but only to a certain extent; personal interests still come first. There are official rules and regulations, but they are merely written policies in name. Some colleagues in the same intake were assigned unsuitable mentors (the company assigns a business employee to guide and teach you), and some mentors do not teach at all. In addition, managers’ management styles vary greatly. Some managers favor self-management, while others are completely authoritarian. I went from a self-management environment to an authoritarian one—rotations within our district are very normal—and became extremely unhappy at work. It felt like a concentration camp. The manager could not accept other people’s opinions or ideas. In the past, several business employees tried communicating with this manager and argued with them, but were ultimately transferred to other stores, with no possibility of adjustment. However, some colleagues who transferred to other stores developed better because self-management suited them better; they simply needed time to become familiar with the new business area and product characteristics. Also, when you first join the company, there is indeed a honeymoon period during which new employees are allowed to leave at 6 p.m. However, after becoming a regular employee (which requires achieving a certain level of performance), in reality no business employee leaves at 6 p.m. Although the company claims to offer flexible eight-hour workdays, it is not actually flexible because other business employees do not leave early. If you leave early for a period of time, your manager will criticize you indirectly, making you uncomfortable. They expect you to demonstrate efficiency and performance, although both require time to build up, while also forcing business employees to work in the office even when there is nothing to do.

A good manager takes you to heaven; with a bad one, transfer to another store or resign as soon as possible.

Conclusion: Fresh graduates can consider this job as an opportunity to gain experience, but I do not recommend staying too long because it is difficult to change careers afterward—unless you are genuinely interested in working in real estate. You can indeed make money because the total prices of houses are very high, but I do not recommend staying for more than three years. In my current situation, I feel that I have learned most of what there is to learn and that there is not much more room for growth. However, changing jobs is not easy because store managers also started as successful business employees and were promoted. Although the head office offers management courses, managers tend to carry their previous management styles into their current roles, which are no longer suitable for people born in the 1980s.