Workplace reviews and discussion: 晶輝企業有限公司

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This was the most disrespectful interview toward people and professionalism that I have ever experienced. Long post.

First, I applied for a design position. At the beginning of the interview, an employee handed me a self-assessment form, apparently to determine whether my working style was more impatient or prone to procrastination. However, the questions were quite blunt, which made me feel rather uncomfortable.

About 10 minutes later, someone who appeared to be the owner’s wife came in. After looking at my self-assessment form, she gave it a score. After I handed over my portfolio, she immediately pulled out my résumé and started drawing on it without even asking. (I have interviewed people myself, and I believe it is mutually respectful and beneficial when both the company and the interviewee bring their own résumé. It shows mutual respect from the very beginning.) This was the first boundary she crossed for me.

She then began flipping through my portfolio in a very casual manner. When she happened to see a logo, she pointed at it and asked, “About how long would it take you to make this?” I said that including research and conceptualization, it would take about three days from start to finish. Considering that this was the visual identity a brand would use for its entire lifetime, I thought that was already fairly fast, wasn’t it?

Next, she pointed to an event poster. It was a full-bleed design that should have looked fairly complex at first glance, and asked how long it had taken me. I said about one day.

Then she pointed to an event banner and asked how long that would take. (To describe the image: it was for a small event and included title typography, color coordination, and the event time and details.) I answered that it would take about three hours.

I thought that even if my speed wasn’t particularly fast, it was at least within a reasonable range, right?

She then opened the company’s computer and said, “Our company requires a very fast pace. We can’t have you take three hours to a day to make one graphic. We need to finish one in half an hour.” It was truly astonishing. I asked curiously, “What kind of graphic would you make in about half an hour?”

She opened a work order. Basically, it was just compositing the client’s logo onto a cutout garment. That’s it! That’s! It!!!!

I nearly stood up and said, “Thank you, goodbye!”

Was she seriously looking down on people that much? I could probably finish that in about 10 minutes, couldn’t I? Sorry! 10 minutes may be an exaggeration! I could definitely finish it in 15 minutes!

Out of curiosity about what other astonishing things this person might say, I held my temper and continued sitting there, listening with my unfailingly polite smile :)

After looking through the work orders, she said that banners also needed to be made. I asked, “Are banners supposed to take half an hour too?”

She said yes! They modeled everything after a certain Taiwanese brand: whatever that brand did, they did the same. Their website followed a minimalist style, and they expected one graphic to be completed in half an hour. She then opened an image consisting of a plain background, five characters, a circle, something along one side or both sides, and a cutout portrait. The portrait did not even appear to have been color-corrected. I’ll let everyone imagine it for themselves. I suspect that if the brand knew it had been imitated this way, it would cry.

Then, from beginning to end, this owner kept emphasizing, “We don’t have time to let you spend three hours on one graphic.”

(After seeing her standards, I felt that she kept emphasizing this sentence to humiliate me...)

In short, this owner seemed not to understand design or respect professional expertise. She couldn’t even distinguish between design and simply making graphics. What she needed was just a graphic-production worker who knew how to operate software—and it sounded like there was no overtime pay.

If you want to go get insulted, you can try interviewing there. Otherwise, for people without a car, having to travel all the way to that godforsaken place just to be treated badly would really make you want to flip the table!