A Trip for an Interview

This article was extracted from my early NetEase blog. NetEase Blog is no longer operating, but looking back, these words are still quite interesting, so I decided to move them over as intact as possible. Mainly as a record; after all, it was a long time ago, so the quality of the writing, images, and links may all be affected.

This article was originally published on June 9, 2009. I was about 20 years old then and was in university.

Today, according to the original plan, I took the bus at 7:30 in the morning to "Mercury Home Textiles" near Nanqiao for an interview. I arrived at the destination at 8:30. The scene in front of me was much, much better than I had imagined, and the factory buildings were also quite large in scale. I had learned a bit about this company before, but only when I actually saw it did I really get a sense of its corporate culture. This was my first time interviewing at such a formal company.

I waited in the reception room, holding my resume in my hand and thinking about what kind of questions the examiner would ask later.
But the result was still optimistic. I smoothly answered the several questions the examiner asked me, but my classmate did not seem to have it as easy as I did. According to him, the examiner asked him a pile of strange questions, such as whether he had dated anyone, why he had not, and so on. (Here I will organize my interview experience a little: first was the self-introduction, which should be indispensable in every interview; then they asked some work-related questions, such as whether I was willing to work overtime; later there were some experience-related questions, what I was familiar with, what experience I had, and so on. These were almost the same as the interviews we had imagined and encountered.)

Because we were interviewing for the e-commerce department, the next part was a computer test. The task was very simple: collect some information online and then make a logo for their company. Although it was very simple, after finishing it and comparing it with the others who interviewed in the same round, I finally understood what it means that there is always someone better out there! There were really many, many good works!

Only when you need knowledge do you regret not having studied enough. Only after actually experiencing an interview did I understand some things! Fortunately, we are only freshmen now, and there is still more time to improve ourselves. Keep going!

2009-06-09

Zhu Wenlong