The top five taboo behaviors by job applicants while being interviewed for jobs at corporations are playing with their hair, crossing and uncrossing their legs, playing with their fingernails, dressing inappropriately and “not answering the question.”
These were the findings of a poll conducted by the online job bank yes123 among corporations during the peak job-hunting season between the middle of last month and early this month.
Criticizing former employers or previous work, as well as providing false education and work experiences, were also considered taboo, the survey showed.
The poll also found that the average job-hunter secured one interview for every 16 jobs applied to. Furthermore, applicants were interviewed by 5.33 companies on average before being offered employment, the survey results showed.
The online job bank reminded job-hunters that they should also keep their attitude in mind when looking for a job.
Many companies have a standard, referred to as the blacklist standard, which includes the reasons the company would not hire an applicant, it said.
Among them, failing to show up for an interview was the main reason, at 80.6 percent of all businesses, with applicants who were hired, but failed to show up, coming in second at 72.7 percent. Other factors listed include applicants saying they need further consideration when notified of their being hired, not answering their telephone after submitting applications for jobs and changing the time for interviews on multiple occasions.
The poll also found that more than 60 percent of applicants dressed up for an interview. However, stylist Hanny said the type of job the job-hunter applied for should be considered when dressing up, adding that the rule of thumb is for women to use makeup sparingly, while men should wear dress shirts and dress shoes.
Meanwhile, applicants are not the only ones who should be careful when asking questions or making statements. The amendments to the Enforcement Rules of the Employment Service Act (就業服務法施行細則), passed by the Legislative Yuan in November, made it illegal for employers to ask applicants questions that require personal information “outside the bounds of the job being applied for.”
Violation of the act is punishable by fines of NT$30,000 to NT$600,000.
The yes123 poll found that despite the amendments, applicants are still facing all sorts of questions that seem unrelated to the job they have applied for.
More than 74 percent of applicants said they have been asked whether they were in a relationship, 52.4 percent were asked what they did after work and more than 20 percent were asked why they were not married or if they planned to have children, the poll showed.
A further 47.1 percent were asked about their sexual orientation, 41.2 percent said they were sexually harassed with lewd jokes, while 22.1 were asked about their bust, hip and waist ratios. Some applicants said that they were harassed with inappropriate gestures, with 20.6 percent saying interviewers touched them on their shoulders and 17.6 percent saying interviewers touched their hands.
A woman surnamed Chan (詹) said that when she was being interviewed for an administrative job at a legal firm, she was asked if she smoked and if she knew how to make coffee. She was also asked to sing and tell jokes, to stand up and turn around in a full circle, and even what one particular set of mahjong combinations was called.
However, after passing all the tests, Chan refused the job because it offered a monthly salary of only NT$23,000.
Shanghai Shanghai restaurant’s human resources management chief Tsai Chung-ping (蔡中平) said that corporations often ask about applicants’ relationship or marital status because they want to know whether the person they are thinking of hiring would quit once they get married.
Referring to Chan’s case, Tsai said he supposed the firm wished to know the range of the applicant’s social experiences.
Yes123 public relations department deputy head Yang Tsung-bin (楊宗斌) advised applicants, when being asked inappropriate questions, to simply tell the interviewers that they are sorry, but their questions touch on personal matters. They can also ask why the interviewers posed the questions, so as to choose which aspect of the original questions to answer directly.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the