Applied for a pattern-making assistant position. Right at the beginning, they gave me a drawing to complete within a time limit (1 hour). Since I am not very proficient at drafting, I did not finish it within the allotted time, so I was not hired after the interview. The advantages are that the work environment is nice and the transportation is fairly convenient.
I heard (I have a friend who works there) that employees often work overtime until 11 p.m. or midnight, with no overtime pay. The compensation is also quite average. However, the employees share a sense of camaraderie and perhaps find ways to have fun despite the hardships? There are overseas employee trips. If you want to be put through your paces, you can come here.
A large company, but the salary and benefits are pitifully inadequate.
The company is extremely stingy,
and only wants to cut salaries.
The way someone from the company conducted the phone interview felt like they lacked basic common sense,
constantly probing into what I had been doing after resigning from the job before my previous one, or asking whether I had pursued further education on weekends outside of work at the job before my previous one.
That was five years ago. In 2021, Taiwan was in the middle of the pandemic; starting in May, the government required people not to go out. Did they forget? Many things were put on hold at the time.
And they apparently don’t know that handling visa documents and preparing to travel abroad can be quite cumbersome.
What I did on weekends during the job before my previous one really is none of their business.
They’re more anxious about my future than I am—extremely strange.
After reading many of the negative posts below, I wanted to set the record straight about a few things regarding the company.
Someone mentioned below that overseas trips are a scam. I think they may not have considered whether overseas travel was permitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Otherwise, the company really does offer both overseas and domestic trips every year.
I have been with the company for about five years. During that time, there was a generational succession and the senior HR executive was replaced. The changes have been quite noticeable.
Here is the company’s current situation:
1. Flexible working hours: 8:00–9:30.
2. Starting this year, the company is piloting a mid-year bonus, apparently based on mid-year performance.
3. The annual overseas trip has changed from being limited to group trips organized by the company’s employee welfare committee to allowing employees to travel independently and submit expense claims afterward. You can now take your family or travel with friends, which is quite family-friendly.
4. Improving entry-level employee salaries to levels above the industry average.
All of the above are new changes following the generational succession and the replacement of the senior HR executive.
Other benefits and current conditions include:
1. A guaranteed year-end bonus equivalent to two months’ salary. However, if your performance rating is B+ or above, you will almost always receive four to five months’ worth. Salaries are also adjusted every year—not just by a few hundred dollars, but generally by around 3–10%, depending on performance.
2. Overtime can always be claimed, but you must submit an online application in advance and obtain your supervisor’s approval. If you work past 10:30 p.m., you are also eligible for a transportation allowance, though I forget the amount.
3. The employee welfare committee organizes activities and decorations for holidays and festivals of all sizes, with food, drinks, and small gifts. Last Christmas, there was even an Instagram-worthy buffet on every floor of the company.
As for comments about veteran employees bullying newcomers or about the managers: I honestly cannot deny that there are such managers at this company. Which team or department you are assigned to depends heavily on luck. Both your immediate supervisor and senior manager will affect how you feel about working here, especially your direct supervisor. However, I think every company has bad managers; even companies with excellent reputations have them. So if you encounter a bad manager, it really depends on what you value and care about in this company and whether you can accept the situation.
In summary, the company’s benefits and salary levels are good compared with those of similar companies. You can feel that the company is trying to change the traditional-industry image, but its resources may be limited, so it cannot address everything at once. At least, there has been noticeable progress, so for now, I still have some expectations for the company.
The company’s procurement department is indeed very demanding. Procurement underwent a consolidation last year, apparently to optimize the processes, but so far we have not seen any results. Perhaps it is still in the incubation stage, but it is unclear how long that stage will last. As a result, turnover in procurement remains extremely high, and during periods when orders are being placed, employees compete over who works more overtime. Although the pay is there, it still leaves people exhausted. After all, you cannot get proper rest and then have to work again the next day—who can keep that up?
In addition, the company’s hardware is very outdated and frequently crashes, wasting time on forced shutdowns and restarts. The company has its own IT department, but perhaps it is understaffed, so when requests are submitted, it is often impossible to get a prompt response. This also makes the company feel rather inefficient.
The HR staff were fairly friendly.
The interview took a long time, and the wait was very long…
At first, they were very proactive during the phone call, and I had also explained what I was good and not good at.
But later, the supervisor who conducted the actual interview had an extremely sour expression and made sarcastic remarks about how I was not good at this or that.
If you think someone is not suitable for the position, you really shouldn’t ask them to come for an interview.
I also spent my time and transportation costs making the trip.
The funny thing was that I had to figure out how much I could lower my salary expectations and then report it back to them myself.
After the interview, I completely understood why the position has remained open for so long.
The HR staff were quite friendly.
The interview took a long time, and the waiting time was very long…
At first, they were very proactive during the phone call, and I had also explained what I was and wasn’t good at.
But later, the manager who conducted the actual interview had an extremely sour expression and made sarcastic remarks about what you couldn’t do and what else you couldn’t do.
If you think someone isn’t suitable for the position, then you really shouldn’t ask them to come for an interview.
I also spent my time and transportation costs making the trip.
What’s funny is that I had to figure out myself how much I could lower my salary expectations and then reply to them with the amount.
After the interview, I completely understood why the position has remained open.
The HR staff were quite friendly.
The interview took a very long time, and the waiting time was also very long⋯
At first, they were very enthusiastic during the phone conversation, and I had also explained what I was good at and what I wasn’t good at.
But later, the manager who conducted the actual interview had an extremely unpleasant expression and made sarcastic remarks about what you could and couldn’t do.
If you think someone isn’t suitable for the position, then you really shouldn’t ask them to come in for an interview.
I also spent my time and transportation costs to make the trip.
What’s laughable is that I had to figure out how much I could lower my salary expectation and then reply to them myself.
After the interview, I completely understood why the position has remained open for so long.
The HR staff were quite friendly.
The interview took a long time, and the wait was very long…
At first, they were very proactive during the phone call, and I had also explained what I was good and not good at.
But later, the manager who conducted the actual interview had an extremely sour expression and made sarcastic remarks about what you could and couldn’t do.
If you think someone isn’t suitable for the position, you really shouldn’t ask them to come for an interview.
I also spent my time and transportation costs making the trip.
What’s funny is that I had to figure out how much I could lower my salary expectations and then reply to them myself.
After the interview, I completely understood why the position has been open for so long.
The HR staff were quite friendly.
The interview took a long time, and the wait was very long…
At first, they were very proactive during the phone call, and I had also explained what I was good and not good at.
Later, the manager who actually conducted the interview had an extremely sour expression and made sarcastic remarks about what I could and couldn’t do.
If you think someone isn’t suitable for the position, you really shouldn’t ask them to come for an interview.
I also spent time and transportation costs making the trip.
What’s funny is that I had to figure out how much I could lower my salary expectations and then reply to them myself.
After the interview, I completely understood why the position has remained open.
None
The interview was extremely long and took up almost my entire day. I had already mentioned earlier that I had no experience, but after arranging the interview, they nevertheless interviewed me with an attitude of *How can you have no experience?* The interviewer spoke so bluntly that it was somewhat rude, and kept circling around the same point with the questions, making it exhausting to answer. By the end of the interview, I really just wanted to leave == I truly advise against interviewing there; it was a huge waste of time (including their lunch break, the interview took about 6 hours of my day). I interviewed for a position in the Technical Department, and when I interviewed with the supervisor, they did not even explain the benefits and policies—I had to keep asking about them myself... The experience was truly awful.
The benefits are good: annual salary adjustments, half a month’s salary each for the Dragon Boat Festival and Mid-Autumn Festival, and a guaranteed year-end bonus of two months’ salary. There is a dedicated welfare committee responsible for the company’s benefits and activities. I really enjoy the holiday events, small gifts, afternoon tea, and birthday celebrations—they are little bright spots amid busy workdays. There is one domestic trip and one overseas trip every year. The company has a gym, showers, and an aerobics studio. Overtime pay is provided in accordance with the Labor Standards Act! I previously interviewed at several traditional manufacturing companies where overtime was exchanged for compensatory leave or employees were under a duty-based system, and many traditional manufacturing companies do not comply with the Labor Standards Act. The company also has a lucky bag sale—I forget how often it takes place—where you can buy lots of sports-brand apparel for very little money. I feel this company is relatively open-minded among traditional manufacturing companies, and the compensation is also quite good.
The systems at a large company are relatively strict, with various evaluation criteria. They are not extremely difficult to meet, but there are quite a lot of them. The overtime can be very intense, so you really need a certain level of stress tolerance and a fresh liver (recently, the company has also tried to address staffing allocation issues by adjusting the division of work between departments—at least it is not simply leaving the problem unattended). The office atmosphere is relatively dull. Although people can occasionally chat briefly during work, most of the time all you hear is the sound of typing, with an almost complete silence (headphones are not allowed during work). During peak commuting hours, the elevators are very difficult to catch…
Many activities and good benefits
There are so many miscellaneous and highly detailed tasks that the overtime never seems to end. Mutual concern among colleagues was described as complaining about work. Although we had clearly agreed on my departure date, I was later told that the timeframe I provided was unclear. I never intended to force myself to stay; however, when I ultimately submitted my resignation, it happened to be exactly six months in, and I was pressured by upper management to leave. Even my compensatory leave and annual leave were denied because of her personal feelings, negating all of my efforts and overtime at work. With only one week left, was there really a need to rush someone out so urgently? I saw everyone’s negative reviews at the time but still joined. Now I understand what social treachery is—it was exactly as everyone above described. I really should not have wasted six months of my time working in this kind of environment. Not long after I joined, I was told I had to work independently, which was different from what had been discussed in the interview. Taking leave was also extremely troublesome, and I was constantly given a hard time. No wonder the employee turnover rate is so high. Day after day, you hear about who has resigned or stopped working. It is these awful people and situations that truly make you feel you have wasted all this time.
The salary is quite fair, and the department manager generally does not make unrealistic promises. The salary adjustments promised at the time of hiring were implemented as promised, and were even slightly higher. The Dragon Boat Festival and Mid-Autumn Festival bonuses are equivalent to half a month’s full salary, and the year-end bonus currently appears to be four months (during the interview, HR said the company-wide average was 2.2 months).
For various holidays, such as Western Valentine’s Day, Qixi Festival, the Dragon Boat Festival, and Halloween, the welfare committee prepares afternoon tea (usually a drink and some food), as well as gifts and additional raffle prizes. At the start of the work year, there are also opening red envelopes and dragon and lion dances. During company worship ceremonies around the Lunar New Year and other holidays, the snacks offered are available for employees on each floor to take themselves.
There is one domestic trip and one overseas trip every year. For overseas trips, only employees at the manager level or above may bring one guest; for domestic trips, friends or family members may participate as long as they pay their own way, although it is not particularly cost-effective (guests on domestic trips usually have to pay over NT$10,000). For overseas trips, the company usually provides a subsidy of over NT$30,000. Some destinations, such as Southeast Asia, can be visited without additional personal payment, while others require employees to cover part of the cost, such as North Asia and Europe.
As mentioned in other reviews, the company really does have quite a lot of long-tenured employees, while the turnover rate among younger employees is also quite high. The most frustrating part is that sometimes work requires cross-departmental collaboration, and some colleagues in other departments pass the buck, making it difficult for cases to move forward and leaving people feeling both annoyed and powerless.
The workload is not particularly light, but personally, I feel that if you put in the effort, your manager genuinely sees it (the team has recently been understaffed and has been unable to recruit anyone for a long time, so I hope that anyone who happens to read this favorable review will consider applying for an interview).
The interview is easy to pass. As long as you have basic English skills and are a blank slate who appears well-behaved, that’s enough.
The position is in procurement.
The veterans deliberately make things difficult for newcomers.
You can’t ask too many questions; if you ask too many, they’ll ask: “Why do you have so many questions?”
If you forget to ask a repeated question for the second time, you’ll get scolded.
The procurement system is extremely difficult to use and not user-friendly at all.
You often have to strain your eyes until they nearly pop out.
The veterans secretly watch TV shows during work and cover for each other.
The supervisor may pretend not to see it from the back.
Act like a good student, tough it out, and once you’ve been taught enough to make friends, you’ll be able to stay.
Recognizing the good friends who went through hardships together
1. There is a lot of behind-the-scenes manipulation regarding the company's year-end bonuses. Human Resources always makes it sound very good, but in reality, the bonuses have been trending downward. In recent years, the company has also stopped disclosing the year-end bonus basis and prohibits employees from discussing it privately, apparently because it is afraid everyone will discover the shady way the bonuses are distributed.
2. A great many people leave the company, resulting in frequent staff turnover, because many managers are quite full of themselves. Those who stay are almost all like robots: they obediently do as they are told and do not have too many ideas of their own. If you put forward your own ideas, your manager will label you.
3. The benefits listed by the company on 104 are simply false. The employee trip was later canceled, and there are no other subsidies or benefits either.
4. Many of the company's long-serving managers are very emotional. They may speak pleasantly in the morning and then lash out in the afternoon. Whether your workday goes smoothly depends entirely on the manager's mood.
5. This company does not really respect "professional expertise." It prioritizes its own ideas and assumptions, and is also very hostile toward people who come from other companies.
If you have other job options, please think twice.
Fei-Yen has quite a few shady matters and all sorts of chaotic problems. Moreover, this company cannot retain talent;
very capable people leave after working here for only one or two years.
The benefits are okay.
The salary really isn't worth it. For such little pay, you're expected to do everything under the sun. The more senior employees are increasingly obnoxious—they love to complain and are spiteful and caustic. After all, 90% of the employees are women (and there are quite a lot of older employees). HR is very good at squeezing employees and has no empathy. Regret, regret.
1. Good benefits
1. The company's systems are very poor and not very user-friendly for new hires
2. The work is very miscellaneous, and turnover among entry-level employees is high
1. Overseas employee trips
2. Extent of salary adjustments
1. The work of an apparel merchandising assistant is very miscellaneous and tedious. You need to assess whether you can handle many unexpected situations or the supervisor’s unusual errands.
2. Cliques are a serious issue. Remember to keep your eyes open and observe the office dynamics. If you can hide, dodge, or avoid getting involved in gossip, don’t get dragged into it—or choose a side from the very beginning.
3. When a customer complaint occurs, you have to transform into a production control coordinator, then get caught between the sales team and the vendor, arguing until the issue is resolved.
Lots of women
1 The compensation and benefits offered by the company are considered average in the industry—better than some, but not as good as others.
2 If you are in a technical role, I strongly advise you not to join. This place is only suitable for people who are good at English, know nothing else, and just want to coast.
3 The company is currently in a transitional period as the second generation takes over. The old guard and the successor’s new faction are openly and covertly fighting each other; if you happen to support the wrong person, expect to be fired.
4 The company has no understanding of or regard for patents. Outsiders are managing insiders, and many senior executives at home and abroad even secretly run their own side businesses. If you have a technical background, joining means helping those bastards develop their future startup products. Once they have used you, they will start constantly finding fault with you and set unattainable performance goals for you to meet, ultimately using this tactic to make you leave voluntarily. Most outrageous of all, the successor turns a deaf ear and does nothing.
5 There are many self-important old-timers at the overseas factories. The longer their tenure, the more arrogant they are; some even keep setting traps for you behind the scenes. During interviews or when you first join, they may tell you on the surface that the company is very flexible, but in reality, you are simply left to fend for yourself, so do not expect anyone to train or guide you.
6 If you are looking for long-term development, I strongly advise you to think twice. This place is not miserable; it is simply two-faced and focused on short-term gains. If you are not sufficiently devious, do not come here.
A few weeks ago, I interviewed for a software engineer position, and the written test turned out to consist only of an IQ test!
Only an IQ test!
Only an IQ test! It was so important that it had to be said three times.
The IQ test consisted of questions similar to brainteasers found on websites, but the key point was that it did not test any software engineering knowledge at all.
Unfortunately, there were about 12 questions, and I got only one right. There’s no way anyone could get them all right.
Afterward, they said I would wait for the manager to interview me, but the manager had apparently gone somewhere, so they told me to go home, wait for further notice, and come back another time.
They said they would contact me again in about two or three days, but nearly a week later, they finally called to tell me that, after reviewing my written test results, the manager had decided not to hire me. Honestly, I find it astonishing that they think they can assess an engineer’s abilities without testing software engineering skills at all. To make matters worse, the person who called even sounded amused and said, “After all, you only got one question right.”