An Unforgettable Job Interview,

Translated…

Last year, I’d gone for an interview at a foreign company, the way they’d held the interview was for all of us, wanting the same positions, to be interviewed together. There were, three interviewers, one of them was a foreigner.

Normally, as the foreign companies interviewed, they’d asked for our introductions in English, and so, when the interviewer asked us to introduce ourselves one by one, everybody naturally made the introductions in Chinese first, then, in English.

The main character of the event, was the man before me, he was about thirty, when it came his turn, I’d heard him, using a thick accented Taiwanese-Chinese to introduce himself, and then, he’d squeezed out, stuttering, “My name is……”, then, he’d stopped talking.

The room fell silent, I thought, that he was out of the game for sure, and then, he’d started, speaking in very fluent Taiwanese!  And, all of us in the room, had eyes on just him, and he’d carried his calm, and he’d even spoken, as if he was making a speech, and, the foreign interviewer was shocked, by the flair he’d carried, with his jaws falling open, as he heard the man speak.

As I stood behind him, my mind went blank, after he’d spoken, not using the scripts, and, naturally, I’d, bombed my own interview too.  After this round was over, when it came the Q&A time, the foreign interviewer couldn’t help, but smile at the man, not mentioning what had just happened.  But, as I was the last to leave the room, at the moment I closed the doors, I’d heard, laughter, bursting out, I think.

Later on, I did NOT get that job, but the way the other man calmly used Taiwanese to make his own introductions, had deeply, ingrained, into my mind.  In a way, I guess, that, was sort of a gain, from this job interview that I did not get the job.

And so, the interviewer must have been impressed by the man’s self-confidence, and, as it was, a foreigner who was interviewing, all the people there for the interview automatically assumed, that they were to give their self-introductions in English, but the man couldn’t speak English fluently enough, so, he’d used Taiwanese, a language he was comfortable, and fluent in speaking in, and, his level of confidence had, impressed the interviewer, as I’m quite positive, that the interviewers never expected that he would’ve spoken in Taiwanese, as there was, a foreigner, as an interviewer in the room.