所羅門股份有限公司

None

1. The interview location was set at Starbucks on a holiday. Do not order a drink—you’ll just waste your money, and they insist that you buy a drink.

2. They called half an hour before the scheduled time to tell you to come over, without giving any reason. The tone made it sound as if they considered you to have nothing else to do and to be available whenever called.

3. When you meet, there is not even a greeting or introduction; they simply tell you to sit down.

4. When you answer a question about the job after only two sentences, they say they already know and understand everything. If they understand it so well, why ask?

5. They provide absolutely no introduction to themselves, the company, or the job.

6. HR never clarified salary expectations from the beginning. At the interview, when they discovered that the expected salary was above their budget, they simply said, “That’s all for today,” and then discussed behind your back that it was too high.

7. The interview lasts less than five minutes, yet they pressure you to finish a quarter cup of juice and take it to the recycling bin yourself.

As the chairman of a company, he showed not even a hint of a chairman’s bearing. Before the interview, he did not have HR screen candidates according to an appropriate salary range, instead inviting a group of people to a Starbucks interview on a holiday. There was neither courtesy nor any clear purpose. If you live nearby, you might treat it as a stroll around the neighborhood, but you can imagine how stunned an interviewee would be after coming from far away.

In summary: If you receive an interview invitation, don’t go and waste your life. There are plenty of better companies to choose from. And don’t take time off work for this interview—it will only waste your time and vacation leave.

The boss is hands-on.

1. The interview location and time are extremely difficult for an ordinary person to understand.

The interview is on Saturday. The location is at the Starbucks across from Taipei 101.

2. The interview time is notified at short notice, just half an hour in advance.

3. Even after arriving at the scheduled interview time, you still have to wait 45 minutes.

4. You have to spend 130 to buy a cup of coffee while waiting for the interview.

5. The boss cannot even decide on the salary or whether to hire someone.

The boss cannot make a clear decision about anything; it is purely a waste of time.

Only VBU’s R&D department has it easy: they sleep and play video games all day while collecting comfortable salaries. Even the boss doesn’t dare say anything........afraid that this bunch of useless R&D staff will resign. A vicious cycle.

The R&D managers have all worked only at Solomon since graduating. They have never seen the wider world and have no management ability whatsoever. They are merely engineers who are slightly more capable.

1. The company has no fixed salary increase or promotion system.

Therefore, there is no need to work too seriously. No matter how well or excellently you perform, you will not receive a raise or promotion. Management positions are handed out randomly, and there are more managers than entry-level employees. They only know how to talk; the better someone is at flattering the boss, the more comfortably they live. This works the entry-level employees to death, and they will not receive raises or promotions either.

2. The boss values R&D, so in the boss’s eyes, anyone can do the work outside of R&D. Why would they give you a raise!

It makes no difference if you do your work poorly, and doing it well brings no benefit either. People assume that the boss will not pay attention to them, so Solomon is basically full of employees with long tenure waiting for retirement. It can aptly be called a retirement-age club where everyone just waits to retire.

3. The company’s benefits and compensation are extremely poor. The welfare committee is controlled by long-term employees; everyone has the same welfare committee fees deducted, but the longer your tenure, the more you receive in the three holiday bonuses.

I went for an interview, and the HR representative was really unprofessional. She did all the talking from start to finish without letting me get a word in. The conversation was nonsensical, and the answers didn’t address the questions. I wasted half a day’s wages. It felt like a very old-fashioned company…

Speechless

Solomon subsidiary: Industry X & New X

Annual leave and compensatory leave can be deferred indefinitely (even when compensatory leave has already accumulated to over 80 days).

During work hours, you can watch livestreams, sleep, be indefinitely late, and go shopping (while still earning over 50–60K per month).

When faced with something you do not want to do, you only need to shout at your supervisor, say “I don’t want to do it” or “I can’t do it,” and you will not have to do it (you can even taunt your supervisor by saying, “Fire me, then”).

When the generals are incompetent, the entire army suffers.

None

If you become a favorite, you’ll have it made.

I left the company more than five years ago.

The comments I see here are pretty much the same as the “culture” I experienced back then.

- “They completely go back on everything they promised you.” Yes, exactly.

- “They are constantly putting on exhibitions or demos.” Also true.

- “A foreign woman was deeply favored by her supervisor. She hid in the restroom playing mobile games during work hours, contributed nothing, and faced no consequences.” The company culture was that “the moon is rounder overseas.” A foreign engineer once came to visit and directly told everyone the wrong formula (F=0.5mV^2). As a result, the entire sales team copied it and even came to ask the engineers, “Isn’t the formula supposed to be like this?”

- “They no longer seriously manage R&D data.” Correct. None of the projects had documentation or planning. Engineers would just leave things as they were after finishing them, with no maintenance process.

- “Purchasing parts would be blocked by the heir because he thought they were too expensive.” Correct. The parts used had to be ones the company’s senior management liked, but they would never let you know what they liked.

- “When can it be accepted? When can we issue the invoice? Make the customer swallow things that cannot be used.” Correct. I spent three days designing a mechanism, only to be pressured about why it took two or three days—wasn’t I supposed to just sell it to the customer and let them deal with it themselves? Then I saw the sales team constantly pressuring customers to accept the work and issue invoices.

I would like to thank Solomon!

In March 2021, during the pandemic, as someone in my fifties, I was involuntarily laid off from a company with annual revenues of NT$200 billion. Sigh! My children were still in school, and I had a family to support!

Everyone should have some understanding of how challenging it is to change careers in middle age, not to mention facing it during the pandemic. The difficulty should require no further explanation.

I was very fortunate that the chairman of Solomon did not care about my age and gave me an opportunity. He valued individual ability and enthusiasm for work, giving me the chance to contribute my expertise at Solomon.

During the more than five months I worked at Solomon’s VBU, the work was highly challenging. The chairman also gave me considerable room to perform, was willing to listen to subordinates’ opinions, communicated fully, and jointly tried new initiatives and approaches.

Over my more than 30-year career, I have worked with many bosses. I observed that Solomon’s chairman is extremely serious about his work, prioritizes the overall situation, values professionalism, and is willing to delegate authority. If you are talented and have suitable abilities, you should have the opportunity to make good use of them here!

The chairman is very busy and may not always have time to explain in detail what you should do or when you should complete it. Therefore, you need to take the initiative in your work and manage and hold yourself accountable for its quality and timing.

The chairman is very busy, but he also pays attention to everyone’s work status. If you work seriously, your efforts will definitely be noticed by your boss here.

I like this autonomous working model because it allows me to apply my professional expertise and make full use of my strengths. Thank you, Solomon, for giving me this opportunity!

The products are good, but the brand still needs to work on increasing its recognition.

A little more salary

Office politics and cliques. Think it over carefully. Unfortunately, there is no mutual support. Just get the work done instead of messing around with unnecessary things. The work itself isn’t tiring; it’s emotionally draining.

Money

A company that is extremely skilled at using rhetoric

After you join, the position and department will be completely different from what was discussed in the original interview, and everything they promised you will be overturned.

Senior management basically does not keep its word and only resorts to deception. Beforehand, they will say that various matters have dedicated personnel, but in reality, there is no one at all.

They do not fill vacancies, and there are absolutely no resources.

Regardless of what problems you report, they only hope that the current staff will keep holding on. They will casually pull someone in to fill the gap, regardless of whether it is that person’s area of expertise.

They do not care whether projects succeed or fail, do not care about engineering results, do not care about organizational operations, and do not care about coordination or deployment.

Basically, it is a completely incompetent company.

None

A very poor Taiwanese company

Before securing a project, senior management first asks the sales team to agree to every request from the client. After securing the project, they go back on everything you agreed to, then shift all the blame for their lack of integrity onto the sales team.

The senior management itself does not keep its word and only deceives people. Working here will only damage your reputation further, and afterward they will kick you out.

Go if you want, but I personally will never again seek Solomon’s cooperation on any project.

They break their word—they are nothing but beasts.

When I really think about it, there honestly aren't any. I can only say that the company is fairly impressive, occupying almost all the floors of the entire building. The transportation is also reasonably convenient, located just after coming off Minquan Bridge.

1. There are many salespeople in the company who love to gossip. I had only been at the company for a short time when, before work hours, I went downstairs to the company's convenience store to buy breakfast. A salesperson saw me and immediately ran to complain to a senior colleague in my department... I thought, wasn't it still before work hours? And since you saw me, that means you were also in the convenience store..?

2. The company does not value hardware R&D personnel. I previously took on a government-subsidized R&D project for another department, and as soon as I completed the work, the company laid me off.

3. The VBU department offers very little prospects for people who want to apply for mechanical design positions. It is indeed very easy to pass the interview, but after joining, it is essentially like retirement. The only person in VBU who currently works with me openly said that he is the "jack-of-all-trades," and the company has no intention of mass-producing anything at all. If you want a normal mechanical design job, this may really not be suitable. Do not be fooled by the company's size.

4. Continuing from point 4, the people currently working in VBU's mechanical division have a retirement mindset. I don't know what bad things he went and told the chairman about me, but not long afterward I was laid off. During those six months, no one ever told me what I had done poorly or pointed out anything in my work that failed to meet expectations. They simply listened to someone else's casual comments and fired me without verifying them personally. The severance calculation was also deliberately manipulated through a petty trick so that I received three fewer days of annual leave compensation.

5. A really exploitative large company. Typhoon days off are unpaid, and there are no particularly good benefits. Even the seasonal gift money for new employees is only NT$500 in RT-Mart vouchers.

6. I was originally interviewed and hired for position A, but after joining, I was inexplicably placed under another department to work.

7. When you first join the company, none of the people training you will tell you about the resources available for the job. You have to figure out the vendors and brands entirely on your own. The same things keep getting done repeatedly, which is very inefficient.

8. The company has absolutely no file backups or cloud sharing. This was my first time working in a mechanical R&D position, and I found that all the files were stored locally. Files designed by previous employees were not preserved at all, showing that the R&D data was not managed seriously.

9. No one manages the projects, or the people who do manage them do not understand mechanics or software. The purchase of parts may be blocked by the chairman's son because he considers them too expensive; then, when the delay holds up progress, he criticizes you for that too. The PM is simply a former salesperson who changed careers, and he has no concept of the schedules for part design and software testing.

10. New young employees are ignored. There are project group chats that the chairman's son simply will not add you to for discussions. Another engineer who worked with me acted as if he had no ulterior motives, and even the other software staff liked him and enjoyed chatting with him, but all the credit for the work I did was written into his own weekly reports. He often made sarcastic remarks toward me, and I have no idea what his intention was.

None

Okay, at the beginning they did give a brief one- or two-minute introduction.

Maybe because I had just graduated, they asked what courses related to the position I had taken. However, this course was taken more than two years ago, so I honestly couldn’t remember much. Although I had already given a general explanation of the course content and assignments, I was still mocked and spoken to harshly. They even directly asked, “Do you still want to continue with the interview?”

The entire interview lasted only five minutes—I’m not exaggerating—and then I was sent out. This was the worst interview I’ve ever had. After the interview ended, the interviewer even walked out without a word and completely ignored me. Extremely bad—an absolutely terrible experience. I’m giving them my first post.

Deceived by the supervisor; there are no advantages.

Issue A:

There is a foreign woman who is greatly favored by the supervisor. She hides in the restroom playing mobile games during working hours, contributes nothing, and faces no consequences.

All she does is spread rumors and lie. She never reflects on her own work abilities, which are “so poor that even clients complain.” Unfortunately, for some unknown reason, the supervisor still keeps this person who is affecting the company’s development (almost everyone else has left, and only she is still here.....).

Issue B:

The head of the RD department has significant shortcomings in both ability and management style, resulting in numerous problems with the company’s products, with the same issues recurring repeatedly.

At other companies, they would have been asked to leave long ago, but this company handles things differently from other normal companies.

I can only lament that capable colleagues who are still employed have no platform for development. Some colleagues, like me, have moved on to develop their careers at normal companies.

P.S. Ability and compensation are not proportional; the salaries of the “3 group leaders” are exceptionally high (even somewhat higher than those of engineers at TSMC).

Their educational backgrounds and abilities are not particularly strong, yet their salaries are much higher.

Deceived by my superior; there are no advantages.

Issue A:

A foreign woman is highly favored by the supervisor. She hides in the restroom playing mobile games during work hours, contributes nothing, and faces no consequences.

She only goes around spreading rumors and lying. She never reflects on her own work performance, which is “so poor that even clients complain.” Unfortunately, for some unknown reason, the supervisor still retains this person, who is affecting the company’s development (almost everyone else has left; only she is still here.....).

Issue B:

The head of the RD department has significant shortcomings in ability and management style, resulting in numerous problems with the company’s products. The same problems also repeatedly occur.

At other companies, they would have been asked to leave long ago, but this company operates differently from other normal companies.

I can only lament that capable colleagues who remain employed have no platform for development. Some colleagues, like me, have gone to develop their careers at normal companies.

P.S. Ability and compensation are not proportional; the salary of the “three-person team leader” exceeds the market ceiling (and is even somewhat higher than that of engineers at TSMC).

Neither the school attended nor the abilities are particularly strong, yet the salary is much higher.

None

First, regarding the company: when they are short-staffed, they will hire you, possibly offering a higher salary to bring you in—or deceiving you into joining. In any case, once you are there, if it feels like they are not making money, they will deal with you quickly. It is entirely a businessperson’s approach. Do not really expect to stay for a long time; perhaps this is the consistent practice of the big and small bosses. Once they no longer want you to work there, they will also get rid of you quickly.

Here, it feels like technical skills cannot really be developed or continued. At most, the company represents many products, so it is more suitable for making money from ready-made opportunities. For other technical issues, you probably can only rely on yourself.

As for the colleagues, based on what I understand, those who have stayed for a long time must have their own ways of handling things. Newcomers need to know how to pay their respects and cooperate. Even though there are only a few people, they can be very combative. The administrative staff here are all very capable, so you need to be careful and cautious in everything you do.

The company’s exterior in Neihu is fairly impressive, I suppose?

To cut to the chase: an absolute disaster.

1. This is probably one of the companies with the most disorganized interview processes I’ve ever interviewed with.

2. The company’s exterior looks quite impressive. Inside and outside the elevators, there are presentations about management concepts and knowledge, along with various informational materials. But once you enter the office area, it is completely silent.

3. The interview consisted only of an interview, with no written test. The first step was for two chairmen to review you (reportedly the former chairman and the younger chairman). Although you initially agreed to interview for Position A, after speaking with the chairman, the position could become Position B. Then, regardless of whether you accepted, they would have the manager of Department B speak with you. The manager of Department B would then criticize you for lacking professional expertise, and the entire interview would turn into a complete farce.

4. The interview lasted an hour and a half, with nearly an hour spent waiting around.

4. The management knowledge posted by the elevators is really quite contradictory to what actually happens.

Come here to make friends.

Here, every engineer is cannon fodder, waiting to be sacrificed. R&D alternative service personnel are the indestructible Wolverine: whenever there is a software problem, they are sent to the customer’s site to take the blame. When there is an electromechanical problem, the department of Brocade Guards with its infinite reincarnation ability is sent out, as if it had absolutely nothing to do with certain people. Meanwhile, they can still cheerfully broadcast every day that we are the strongest team on Earth. When the problem is finally resolved... oh! That day never comes—don’t even think about it...

Before taking over, the supervisor of a certain department stood on the same side as all the colleagues. But after taking the position, they began eliminating dissenters, distorting right and wrong, and removing most of the people in the entire department by shifting blame. They let the Brocade Guards of the Eastern Depot roam between departments with golden swords. When a project designed by this supervisor went wrong and the chairman wanted someone to answer for it, the supervisor would confidently push one of the Brocade Guards under them forward and tell the chairman that the last golden sword in the sword case was called “Serving Heaven and Completing Benevolence”—and that the engineer’s life ended there. Then they would turn over the covered reset card and start the cycle again. Of course, whenever there was credit to claim, there was no need to say more: it all belonged to the Eastern Depot regime.

New colleagues are usually assigned to handle the most problematic projects. You are given a few manufacturer phone numbers and told to figure things out yourself. At first, they tell you to learn more and become a salesperson, mechanical engineer, electrical controls engineer, FAE, PM, and purchaser—saying that whatever you learn will be yours, using that to lull you into complacency. Then, whether you handle something yourself or do what your supervisor tells you, if anything goes wrong, you alone are responsible. In the end, you either resign or wait to be fired.

The turnover rate is unusually high. It’s pretty good if your goal is to make friends.

None

A very problematic company. After joining, you won’t be working in your area of expertise at all. When the supervisor is happy, they’ll ask you to adjust the machines; when they’re unhappy, they’ll reassign you to be their lackey. And then… there’s no “then.”