1. Both HR and the interviewing manager were friendly.

2. It seemed that they did not mind candidates switching from other industries.

3. The company benefits sounded pretty good (flexible work arrangements, free dinner boxes, etc.).

4. An opportunity to learn about finance-related information and products.

5. The environment looked clean, and employees do not need to clean it.

The position I interviewed for was PM. When I applied, I saw that they were hiring 1–4 people, which made me a little worried. I was afraid it might be a terrible company, and that was why they had so many openings…

However, strictly speaking, my previous industry was more related to food or catering. I mainly helped some foreign companies set up factories in Taiwan. Although I had several years of PM experience, I did not really have any connection with digital financial products or apps, so when I received the interview invitation after applying, I thought I might as well have a chat.

The interview process started with being taken to a meeting room to fill in basic information and details about my previous experience. The HR interviewer was quite friendly and went over my résumé in a conversational manner. They also asked why I wanted to transition from traditional industries to digital. I honestly said that I was not very familiar with financial processes. I had only self-studied some basic Python courses a while ago, and the concepts of the parameters were still quite vague to me, but I was interested. My main consideration was that the rise of AI has been a major direction in recent years and is also a trend for the future. HR said that was fine, and that they mainly looked at personal characteristics and one’s attitude toward learning.

(My personal consideration was also that the overall atmosphere in the tech industry might be more lively, and that it would be less likely to have a military-style work environment where even using your phone is not allowed….)

The second interview was with the department manager. That manager spoke a little slowly but was quite humorous and seemed very friendly. Maybe they were also worried about scaring candidates away? They openly said that the PM department was very busy. Although it was not the kind of military-style environment I had been worried about, where you cannot use your phone or eat, the workload was quite heavy. It was normal for each person to have more than 10 projects running at the same time, but the performance bonus sounded pretty good.

The main responsibility was managing the processes of app projects. There were also projects involving cooperation with government agencies or major companies such as Chunghwa Telecom and Mega Financial Holding. Since most of the projects involved apps or maintenance and operations, in addition to negotiating and communicating with external parties, the role also required extensive coordination with internal engineers, IT staff, and other relevant personnel. There could occasionally be plugin-related situations as well… so strong communication skills across different parties and good time management were very important.

I was asked whether I could adapt to an environment with frequent changes and a large volume of projects, where I would need to manage schedules and risks every day. I said that there had also been many similar tasks at my previous company, and that I was quite willing to take on the challenge of switching industries.

About a week later, I received a call from HR with an offer, and the salary met my expectations. However, at that time I had received another offer that was closer to home, so after considering it, I politely declined. I’m sharing the interview process as a reference for anyone interested in applying.

PS: At the end, I discreetly asked about the reason former employees had left. They said that because the company is related to financial products, most people pay attention to stocks, and it seemed that some left after achieving financial freedom.

1. It sounded like there were quite a lot of projects, although that is a common issue in the PM industry…

2. Too far from the MRT station.

3. I used the restroom, and it was somewhat far from the office area. It was near the emergency exit, which was inconvenient, and there were very few stalls.