Workplace reviews and discussion: 恩平方財經股份有限公司

1. It is genuinely convenient: opposite the AppWork that has already gone out of business at City Hall Station, just a short walk from Exit 1.

2. HR was very polite and efficient, and a nice person.

3. The potential future co-workers I interviewed with in the first round were all quite courteous, and the questions they asked were also very professional. I believe the company puts a lot of effort into selecting talent; everyone had their own ideas. I believe it is a good, hard-working company.

4. I remember the COO was also very nice during the second interview. By “nice,” I mean that the questions overall made quite a lot of sense. They did not ask strange questions that made me feel they did not understand other people’s areas of expertise. Instead, they asked about the candidate’s personality, attitude, and psychological resilience to ensure a good fit with the company.

5. The website’s information is very detailed, extensive, and abundant (a double-edged sword). Although I personally would not use their site to look at macroeconomic or other data.

1. It was all my fault—I imagined the office environment too beautifully and fantasized too much. I shouldn’t have expected so much.

2. I got the CEO’s business card, which said that they were a “Dreamer.” What is that supposed to mean? Do they not know that many employees nowadays are very afraid that their boss is a “dreamer”? I once heard a friend say that they had worked at a company where the boss called their company a paradise. I think a company is a company; it is fine for a boss to paint grand visions and have ideals. But there is a difference between an ideal and a dream, so the CEO should just be a good CEO.

3. Here goes. The following explains why I gave a negative review, including but not limited to the fact that after the interview, they asked me to complete a survey about my interview experience. The survey’s options did not include anything negative; the worst option available was only “average,” effectively preventing you from saying that you genuinely had a very bad experience.

The written test was an article translation, and the first-round interview was with two partners. After it ended, I proceeded to the second-round interview (there was a slightly long two-week gap in between, but I wasn’t sitting around doing nothing either, so I didn’t mind). HR emailed to explain that I would only be meeting with the CEO personally. When I arrived, I was suddenly told that because HR had not attended the first interview, they would be joining as well, and that the COO would also join—three people interviewing one person. I let that go; I considered it a stress test. There is nothing particularly unusual about three people interviewing one person.

As soon as I entered the interview room, I was asked to sit on the side with my back to the door. An old laptop—an ASUS, I think—had been prepared on the table. They told me, “Oh, we also need to have you take a small written test. It’s proofreading, because we want to see whether your perspective and the things you pay attention to are the same as those of our future partners.” They then expected me to proofread two pages, or at least one page, of Chinese and English text in 15 minutes. At this point, I already did not want the job. First, the written test had never been mentioned in the job description or email. Second, if your perspective differs from that of a partner, can’t you communicate? Is this a one-person dictatorship?

All right, that wasn’t the end of it. Let’s continue. If you apply for a position there, you absolutely must be mentally prepared to know a great many things during the interview. And what you know cannot be limited to knowing a little—you need to have strong opinions of your own and understand a lot.

I applied for a content translation position, and the job description also described a translation-related role involving many types of copy. In short, it was translation. Then, I’m not sure whether Dreamer did not understand that “simultaneous and consecutive interpreting” is a profession distinct from “written translation,” requiring a different kind of expertise, or what. They said that they would need someone to attend meetings with them and, when inspired, interpret impromptu speeches. Then they presented three paragraphs of fairly lengthy text and asked me, in front of three interviewers, to demonstrate English interpreting without notes—even though I had been completely unaware that anything like this would happen, and it suddenly made me wonder why I had applied for this position in the first place. I said I couldn’t do it after the second question, but at that point I also couldn’t simply walk out of this somewhat dimly lit room, a conference room more bleak and oppressive than 12 Grimmauld Place in Harry Potter.

If you need interpreting, hire an interpreter directly. Interpreting is not cheap; a monthly salary of NT$70,000–80,000 or more is a normal market rate. Yet you expect candidates to know some interpreting, to be able to explain in English which financial analyses they have read, to be at a native-speaker level, to understand financial terminology, to know writing, to understand SEO, to have the same ideas as your partners and be in sync with them, and to repeatedly prove that the things they pay attention to align with your partners’—you have to be an all-rounder, yet the salary starts in the low NT$40,000s. Take it or beat it :)

Summary:

Me: I’m applying for a content translation position.

Them: No, you need to be a “professional translator + financial analyst + near-native speaker + interpreter + communication expert”—a complete all-rounder with all five abilities—before you can join our company.

Me: Okay, thanks. I thought I was interviewing with Amazon or Google. I’m flattered; I learned a lot.

Overall, MM is indeed very good at judging people. I’m exactly the kind of person who rolls my eyes a hundred times at mindless questions or demands like these, so I’m not a fit. I completely accept that.

But setting aside these personal grumbles of mine, I also have to acknowledge that smaller companies scrutinize a person’s personality and other traits more closely. The fewer people there are, the more closely and deeply they examine candidates, afraid of hiring someone who is a bad fit. Their margin for error is low, and that is hard work too. I should be more understanding.