NOBODY

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Tag: interview

  • Red Flags in Job Hunting: When ‘Work-Life Balance meet Sunday’s message

    You are important to us. But don’t expect high salary.

    Photo Source： Wikipedia

    Nowadays, finding a job is difficult. Even worse, some companies are taking advantage of this situation to exploit fresh graduate and those who are eager to enter the workplace.

    This is my friend’s personal experience. She urged me to share this story warn other potential applicants, so here it is.

    Last week, my friend attended an interview arranged by an international NGO in Hong Kong. The interviewer was amazed by her skills sets and international working experiences. The CEO even talked to her in person, promising that they were planning to train her to be the successor of the company.

    However, there was a sharp turn when my friend asked about the monthly salary. Despite claiming to guarantee work-life balance, they said they could offer no more than 2,297 USD (approx. $18,000 HKD) per month.

    It looked so creepy.

    Two days later, on Saturday, the hiring manager sent my friend an email with the date and time for a second-round interview. My friend intentionally ignored the email, but the CEO of the company messaged her directly via LinkedIn on Sunday 😂.

    “Where is the work-life balance? “, she asked.

    At last, my friend rejected the interview invitation.

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  • Day 30: Change of directions

    I am back.

    How it feels to find a satisfying job in Hong Kong

    Latest Update:

    • Recovering from wisdom teeth removal surgery
    • Caught a cold
    • Attended three interviews and completed two written tests (one was super long)
    • Met up with a friend
    • Edited a short video

    Although I’m still waiting for feedback from the hiring managers, I’ve realized that reality is forcing me to change my plans.

    Originally, I was mainly targeting community-based organizations. However, some of the recent interview experiences made me reconsider. The first one went okay, even though the written test was quite complicated. But the second and third ones didn’t go well at all.

    Both hiring managers appreciated my skill sets. However, after watching the video I made and edited myself, one of them asked:

    “Do you appreciate yourself for the fact that you survived alone in Laos for six months as the only person in the department?”

    “You have very strong self-learning skills. But will you be bored by admin tasks? Like filling in Excel forms with numbers all day…”

    “No problem,” I replied.

    Towards the end of the interview, she looked at my expected salary and said, “You wrote HK$20,000 (about 2,553 USD). Is this negotiable?”

    When I shared the questions from the third interview with my friend, she couldn’t stop laughing. For example:

    “You are accompanying a group of wheelchair-bound members to a restaurant. If the escalator was out of service that day, what would you do?”

    “I will enter the mall or restaurant from another entrance.”

    “What if they don’t have a second entrance?”

    “Then I’ll just move to another restaurant.”

    Another question was: “If a member complained that someone else ate three shrimps from the basin cuisine, what would you do?”

    My answer: “I would tell them there’s abalone and other more expensive food available.”

    The interviewers burst out laughing. The whole interview felt quite strange. The written test was even more ridiculous — I had to draft a notice informing the center that it would be closed due to urgent electrical maintenance.

    After these experiences, I’ve decided to pause applying for community-based roles for now.

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  • Creating an Emotional Interview Video: A Personal Experience

    The Pétanque court outside office(This is not the evidence of my sin. I played a game with my colleague during the lunch hour)

    All in a sudden, I wanted to make a professional interview video for my Japanese colleague, who will be leaving Laos very soon.

    A month ago, when I just arrived in a office located in this landlocked country, I met her at my first team meeting. Both of us couldn’t speak in Laos, so English became our common language. Sometimes our accent and pronunciation caused some misunderstanding between us, but that didn’t affect our relationship at all.

    From time to time, we would share our worries with each other. When I told her my crush betrayed and lied to me, she would try to lift my spirit, stating that it was better to loss an unsuitable person than being in a relationship. As women, we understood each other. (No offence, men can understand other people’s emotions as good as women). Apart from matters related to work, we talked about our aspiration, and the reasons we came to work for this international organization. Although our conversation was not deep and did not make us smarter, it was more pure and genuine than the small talk I had had in my life.

    But time flies. Nine days later, she will be going back to Japan and prepare for her exchange program in Switzerland. During this time, she told me her team does not allocate any task for her, so she asked me if is there anything she can help. I wanted to assign some tasks for her. I was confused for I didn’t know how she could help me to finish my tasks.

    In the mean time, my senior colleague was invited me to help him record an interview video. And I was intrigued by this new experience. He set the camera stand on the floor, and he asked some questions to the interviewees. And the girl answered his questions. Then, a few days later, you will see a clean, refreshing interview video popped up on the screen. The whole process looks magical.

    I want to try it as well. I thought

    “Maybe I can shoot an interview video with her? I can make something like my consultant did a few days ago?”

    And I suddenly wanted to have an interview with her.

    New update: She agreed to make an interview video with me. I am going to write a script for her tonight. Hope I will make an interview video that will leave a strong impression on the audience. Let’s see if I can make a video that fits her needs and my expectation. 🙂