Interview_YiTing

Yi-Ting Liu graduated from the Department of Electrical Engineering at National Changhua University of Education(NCUE) with the same expectation as all his to-be engineer classmates. Engineers’ path is quite straightforward; continue to graduate program for engineer master degree, doing research and development, and spend the rest of the work life in a sterile room in the technology industry. This had been the plan for most of his classmates while they were discussing in the school lab back then. Yi-Ting then started to imagine whether that is the life he wanted. The salary is generally the main drive for working in such an environment, but is it really the best choice for his life decision? Needed more time to think after graduation, he decided to give up his enrollment at the National Chung Hsing University (NCHU) and chose to complete his mandatory military service.

Not long after he finished his duty, Yi-Ting went to Indonesia to visit his relatives. There he found out that his cousins could speak both Chinese and English fluently, in which was impressive for him seeing people speak not only second but even the third language in such level. Yi-Ting was motivated to learn English and asked for suggestions. At first, relatives agreed that going to a language school in English speaking country like America, UK, or Australia is the best option. However, his cousin argued considering to go to those countries while also pursuing a master degree – hitting two birds with one stone. Yi-Ting could not agree more to the latter. He then applied for Nottingham Trent University (NTU) in England.

Going to NTU with an engineering background was difficult for him to catch up the business knowledge at the beginning. Every specific business terminology that came up in the class just went straight over his head. Fortunately, that situation did not make him lose his motivation, by putting extra learning time in the library every day, reviewing school subjects and reading online articles, he eventually got to understand the class discussions and terms been used in the case study. Touching numerous fields of business, the course that changed Yi-Ting’s perception was human resource management. As an engineering college student, he thought human resource department’s task is only working for talent recruitment, however, he then learned that it is responsible for more other things such as performance evaluation, company’s fees, and benefits, training and workshop, and many more until the workers leave the company. Impressed by the truth, Yi-Ting wanted to dig deeper into this area and asked for his NTU professor’s suggestion. That is how he heard NSYSU’s GHRM MBA has an English professor teaching human resource at master level. Without a doubt, Yi-Ting came back to his home country Taiwan to obtain a dual degree from NSYSU.

The fact is, the reality is not always as beautiful as expected. Having an extra degree does not guarantee to get his dream position and the desired salary in the UK, Yi-Ting finally decided to move back to Taiwan to gain more experience. At first, Yi-Ting works for a technology company for recruiting, his works mainly focus on gather all applicant’s information and integrated it into a report in order to present to his manager. Being as a talented employee, Yi-Ting soon got an offer from Digiwin Company, and he then decided to work for Digiwin. Yi-Ting felt he’s lucky because  his manager was also graduated from NSYSU, and are willing to teach him with his own experience.

Yi-Ting realized there are some quite differences between common HR practices in the UK and in Taiwan, and he hopes Taiwan’s HR will keep improving by the time going.