How I Landed My Dream Job in China Real Estate
No. 27
By Firecracker
The first time I heard about Longfor was in the early spring of 2011. I was a senior and about to graduate. I had just taken the civil service exam and was sitting around waiting for grades.
One day a friend told me that he liked one of Longfor Properties’ garden houses and asked me for advice. I remember the excitement and dizziness when I first saw the house.
Looking back, it was nothing special. But at that time, still living on campus, it touched the bottom of my heart. Viewing the multi-story Mediterranean Tuscan style apartments made think:
What if I could work for this company one day.
For me, a graduate of a third-tier university, Longfor was a dream. Nevertheless, I decided to investigate.
I learned through online forums that there were three main types of management trainees in Longfor: the professional and technical “officials;” the “blooming students” of the marketing department; and the “future leaders” of property management.
The comments regarding Longfor were very positive. Many, like me, expressed interest.
“Not less than 100,000 yuan (around $14,500) a year!”
“Get paid twice the average and grow three times faster!”
“An incredible management training system!”
Seeing these comments, I was invigorated. I imagined achieving something as amazing as what I had read. I found out the key was to get an interview after attending a Longfor campus recruitment talk. This made me nervous. I almost never got a job interview, and I had little experience.
My interview was held at Zhejiang Media College.
The questions tested one’s ability to react on the spot. There were two big boxes of cards—one set describing places, the other objects. All the cards were randomly drawn, and the exam question was based on the combination of cards where the interviewee must “sell” an item in a specific place.
The outcomes were so strange that a boy in front of me had “selling helmets in the shower,” while mine I got “selling thermometers in the park.”
During the short three or four minutes of preparation, I kept thinking about how to construct the scene in my head.
“You may come in, student,” said the clerk at the door.
I entered the interview room without being fully prepared. There were three interviewers. One was the keynote speaker of the recruitment talk, and there were two other women. Judging from their clothes, I thought they must be from the sales department. They watched me enter and smile, and didn’t say anything.
“Hello, shall I just start now?” I enquired, trying to take the first step.
“Well, go ahead,” said one the people from the human-resources team.
I began:
“Sir, your child is so cute, how old is he?”
In my scenario I had envisioned, the HR representative was a middle-aged man walking in the park with his child.
He paused for a moment and said: “Thank you, two years old.”
“Oh, what a beautiful day it is today. It is unfortunate a lot of people are catching early spring colds. Have you seen the stories on the news?”
“Yeah, I know,” he responded.
I felt good. He seemed to be cooperative.
“I know that for diseases like colds and fevers, prevention is the most important thing. I have the latest German thermometer to sell. Would you like to take one home?"
“Oh, no, thanks. I already have one,” he said.
“How many thermometers are there in your house?"
“One. Why?” he asked.
“Well, thermometers are a bit like toothbrushes. It is better to have one brush per person to avoid infection. Would you like to buy more for your home?”
He seemed quite satisfied with my answer, and after asking the price, he said: “Yes, I will take one.”
I left the room, believing that I might have the chance of a second interview.
Credit: txzheng from Pixabay.
The Second Round
It wasn’t long before I got a call from Longfor. After a while, a text message also arrived. It described the dress code as formal. But, as a student at university, where was I to find formal clothes? I borrowed a suit and a pair of shoes, but I still needed a shirt and a tie. Gritting my teeth, I took my girlfriend to Youngor, a men’s clothes shop, near the school.
At that time, Youngor was an absolute luxury to me. A casual shirt was priced at almost 1,000 yuan.
My girlfriend saw me reluctantly looking at a tie. “You will use it when you work in the future, just buy it,” she advised.
I thought to myself, this will be an investment. So, I chose the best value for money, and I ended up spending more than 1,000 yuan. It was one month’s living expenses at campus, and by far the most expensive item I bought in my college years.
The next day, wearing a suit and tie, I took the bus to the Longfor headquarters in Xiasha District. Along the way, I felt a little uncomfortable. It was my first time wearing such a fabulous suit to a company interview. I felt very different to the people on the same bus.
Every now and then I looked at the shiny shoes on my feet, worrying that someone might step on them. I made my way to the terminus and walked five minutes to the Singapore Science Park, home of the Longfor Hangzhou headquarters.
The second interview began in a novel way. Ten people were divided into two groups, then the examiner asked: “What if you were a member of Longfor property staff and a homeowner wanted to use the garage to store his dried salted fish, what would you do?”
The two groups had to debate this topic. The preparation was half an hour and discussion time was 20 minutes.
One person in my group suggested that I could make the opening statement, because he thought I had a nice voice and good charisma. The others agreed. I secretly felt happy because the first speaker would be the first to get noticed. But, it turned out I only got to speak at the start and not at all in the discussion. I left disheartened.
Then, in April, at a family reunion, I talked about my job hunting and Longfor Properties. My family’s interest peaked. It was rare that we visited Hangzhou, so the family decided to see Longfor’s “Yan Lan Shan” project in Xiasha District for themselves.
As it happened, the staff member who greeted us was the management trainee who I saw in the Longfor recruitment talk at the Zhejiang Media School. I discovered his name was Big K.
“I attended the second interview the other day, and it was a disaster,” I told Big K. “There is no way I got through.”
“No way, I remember you from the recruitment talk, and my colleagues said that there were two good candidates,” Big K told me. “Now I just heard more about you, one of them must have been you!”
Spookily, just moments later, my phone rang. To my surprise, the number was Longfor HR’s landline. I immediately picked up the phone.
“Congratulations! You passed the second interview and will be entering our training session. Please come to the company next Monday,” the voice on the line said.
A Battlefield with No Fire
I entered the training session not knowing what to expect. There were 20 people participating in total, seven of them from Zhejiang University, a top-tier university.
On the first day, we were told the training would be like a game and one of us would be knocked out for good. The training was to last one month, during which time we would learn about real estate basics, enter team-building events, and complete an internship project.
Longfor Properties had a site in Chao Mountain in Linping, an area in Hangzhou. As many of us would be sent to the mountain when the houses went on sale, it was important for us to know the competitors’ buildings near Linping.
Gemdale and Greentown each had local projects, mostly townhouses. Longfor Properties Chao Mountain project was also going to consist of townhouses, specifically a circle of 16 townhouses called a “courtyard house.”
It was said that “16 families can become a family by sharing a yard.” But later we learned that was marketing propaganda, and the house had to be built in such a way because of the limits of the plot.
A week later, we were taken to the project to learn sales techniques and get a sense of the market. Except, the housing market had recently cooled, so most people chose to wait and see.
We were visited by a maximum of 12 customers a day, usually much less. So, we spent most of our time watching or sitting on the sofa in the lobby. Everyone arrived at the sales office early each day, hoping to get a visit from a stranger or the opportunity to lead a presentation. The competition remained intense, with each trainee eager to get picked at the end of the training.
The Offer
In addition, there was an online training test. An American company was to analyze them and create reports on personal competencies and character. It was said that Longfor Properties paid hundreds of yuan for each report.
The previous cohort of “blooming students” was also indispensable during the training session. Although we were all the same age, they were like the predecessors who were greater than us, akin to university seniors. We chatted to them as they seemed to hold the secret of getting hired by Longfor Properties.
Big K was from Shandong Province. He was very handsome, more than 1.8 meters tall, funny, and friendly.
Qiao Feng was not tall. He had dark skin and was down-to-earth.
Su Hang was a graduate student from Zhejiang University. He didn’t say much and he seemed to like to take a prudent approach to things.
We asked Big K whether they were always three “blooming students.”
“There were supposed to be seven or eight, but some people gave up when they got the offer,” Big K informed us.
“Why?” we asked.
“Probably because they didn’t think it was suitable for them,” he said. “Longfor Properties isn’t for everyone.” At that moment, I didn’t understand what he meant.
One month’s training session soon passed. Then came the “offer” days. A company supervisor called Kou and another of his colleagues went to the project office and called us in one by one.
Some people went in and returned with an offer. Some couldn’t help smiling, while some pretended to be calm. Some came out in silence. Everyone knew what it meant so they no longer asked. When it was my turn my heartbeat jumped. Seeing Kou’s simple and honest smile, I sat down as he instructed.
“Do you think you got in?” asked Kou.
“I suppose so,” I said with all the courage I could muster. At this point, you had to have some faith in yourself.
“Yeah? Well, you can look at this,” said Kou, handing me the analysis report done by the American company. I took it and opened it. I turned white. The report concluded that I was not fit for sales and advised the company not to hire me.
Kou looked at me. “Don’t worry. This report is just a reference,” he said. “We’ve seen what you’ve done this month.” I could feel the color drain back to my face.
You are from Wenzhou. We hope you will be able to act like your predecessors and fellows. Welcome to Longfor Properties!
Some Stay, Some Leave
Soon the final results came out. Five of us had been eliminated.
Since we were amid the graduation season and the off-season of sales, Longfor Properties agreed to let us go back to university before having us officially report for work.
During that time, I had a phone call with a girl called Dan who had left, despite receiving an offer. She told me that she had another offer to go to graduate school in America.
She confessed that she felt like she had lied to everyone and that if it wasn’t for her one of the five eliminated people could have stayed. She told me that she was eager to excel and when she heard it was hard to get a job offer from Longfor properties she was motivated to try.
Then I got a phone call from Big K. I was surprised because we had never talked in private on the phone before. “We had a predestined relationship,” he said. “Just so you know, I didn’t mention it to anyone else in our group.”
Hearing his words, I was a little moved. I did not expect him to take me as a friend. He told me he was leaving.
“Why are you leaving? What will you do in Green Town?” I asked.
“I'm going to the marketing center. I wasn’t feeling happy at Longfor Properties. I felt they were too focused on sales, which was not interesting to me. Anyway, we’ll keep in touch. After all, we are in the same circle now.”
Later I found out Big K hadn’t sold a single apartment during more than six months at Longfor Properties. He was under great pressure. But, the company didn’t accept excuses or consider the market status.
Big K told me the sales director and sales manager had also left.
I thought, how could so many people leave such a great company? I set out to prove them wrong.
Firecracker describes himself as a hardworking public servant in his early 30s. This story was originally composed in Chinese for writing platform China30s.com.
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