November 1st, Thursday.
It was Tenda’s recruitment season again. Wu Bin from the Human Resources Department was, as usual, supervising the exam. Looking at the bustling crowd outside the examination hall, he felt somewhat emotional.
Each Tenda recruitment exam allowed Wu Bin to directly experience the rapid development and changes of the behemoth that was Tenda Group.
He was among the first batch of employees who had entered through the Tenda recruitment exam. At that time, the Tenda recruitment exam was still in its infancy.
Although compared to other companies, Tenda’s recruitment exam had been quite formal and large-scale from the beginning, it indeed only contained the most basic content compared to later recruitment exams.
The Human Resources Department certainly hadn’t been idle, because the Tenda recruitment exam was the most crucial step in talent selection and had to be well-controlled from the source.
The question bank was updated every year, adding some new questions, and the content of various professional knowledge sections was becoming more refined.
Moreover, the examination process had become stricter, and the confidentiality level had also increased.
Starting from the last Tenda recruitment exam, the content had undergone some special changes.
That is, it was the first time that Tenda Spirit test content had been added to the written exam!
This was something Wu Bin had especially pushed for.
Because Wu Bin felt that if employees had gone through numerous stages such as written tests and interviews with managers, and had already entered the company as interns, but were ultimately eliminated because they couldn’t pass the Tenda Spirit test, that would be too unfortunate.
For Tenda, this was a waste of resources, and for the interviewees, it was all for nothing, which seemed a bit too cruel.
Therefore, Wu Bin proposed adding some Tenda Spirit test questions in the written exam stage, to filter out some of those who didn’t conform to the Tenda Spirit from the beginning, minimizing such unpleasant situations for both sides.
Of course, as an interpreter of the Tenda Spirit, Wu Bin deeply knew that everyone’s understanding of the Tenda Spirit, including his own, was relatively one-sided and incomplete. The person who truly comprehensively and completely mastered the Tenda Spirit was Mr. Pei.
In other words, the Tenda Spirit test created by Mr. Pei was the real test.
To prevent errors, Wu Bin had created some questions that he was confident about, with relatively standard answers, based on his understanding of the Tenda Spirit and in combination with Mr. Pei’s original questions.
These questions didn’t account for a high percentage of the entire written test, occupying only about 15 points out of 100.
Wu Bin believed this proportion was just right.
It wasn’t so high as to prevent measuring the basic abilities of the test-takers, yet it could serve a certain screening function.
Although 15 points didn’t seem like much, sometimes for a key position, the written test scores really could come down to just a point or two of difference.
Because more and more people were participating in the Tenda recruitment exam, everyone came prepared by practicing questions, and all had strong abilities.
Under the premise that everyone was excellent, sometimes the difference really did come down to these few points.
This achieved a screening effect: among people with similar basic and professional skill levels, selecting those who better aligned with the Tenda Spirit.
Six months ago, in the Tenda recruitment exam, these Tenda Spirit test questions had already been introduced, which had caused some controversy among the test-takers at that time.
But it hadn’t sparked widespread discussion online.
Because these questions weren’t directly labeled as “Tenda Spirit Test Questions” but were cleverly dispersed among different types of questions.
Most people only felt they suddenly encountered an easy question while working through the exam. At most, it left an impression, but not a deep memory.
Most people also fundamentally hadn’t realized the significance of these questions and hadn’t delved into their deeper connotations. Many questions had more discussion value.
For example, in the Tenda Game Department section, the final big question each year would be a game design question, requiring the design of a game completely different from those on the market, under several key conditions.
This question was the most discussed every year.
So, in the face of so many unique questions, the Tenda Spirit test questions scattered and interspersed throughout various modules didn’t stand out that much.
Wu Bin was satisfied with this, considering it a small contribution and optimization he had made in the Human Resources Department.
Wu Bin put away his examiner’s badge and went outside the examination hall to take a walk.
Every year during the recruitment exam, he liked to walk around like this, observing the various states of the candidates and feeling the enthusiasm everyone had for participating in the Tenda recruitment exam.
Sometimes these “incognito inspections” yielded unexpected discoveries.
For instance, during the recruitment exam in November last year, Wu Bin discovered that some institutions had already created practice papers and analyses for the Tenda recruitment exam and were selling them as educational supplements.
There were titles like “Detailed Explanation of Tenda Employment Exam Real Questions,” “Tenda Employment Exam Universal Handbook,” “Professional Knowledge Question Predictions for Various Positions in Tenda Employment Exam,” and so on.
These weren’t from internal leaks but had been compiled by training institutions that saw a profit opportunity.
Similar situations occurred in many exams. Training institutions specifically organized people to register, but once inside, they wouldn’t answer the questions—they would just memorize them. Each person would memorize a small section, and when combined, they’d have a complete set of test questions.
Afterward, these institutions would organize people to answer them, compare their scores with those who took the normal exam, and derive approximate standard answers.
Of course, this was limited to the objective questions section. For subjective questions, the deviation would be too great.
This was also why candidates for the National Civil Service Exam weren’t recommended to spend too much time on the essay questions, because those answers weren’t the true standard answers but were written by people organized by the training institutions.
Reviewing them did provide some improvement, but not a significant one.
Comparatively, the standard answers for objective questions were more meaningful.
This situation was basically unavoidable. If candidates memorized questions using their brains, you couldn’t make them forget as they left the exam room, could you?
Hit each person on the back of the head with a stick? That wouldn’t be appropriate either.
The only effective way to delay this situation was not to publish specific scores, but only to announce the acceptance results.
But doing so would clearly have more disadvantages than advantages.
Because for most objective questions, with the questions in hand, you generally had the answers—the questions couldn’t possibly violate objective laws and common sense.
And not publishing specific scores would easily make people feel that the exam was irregular, operating in a black box, raising questions about fairness.
Compared to scoring high by practicing questions, most people would be even less accepting of an exam’s lack of transparency.
Mr. Pei’s Tenda Spirit test was completely closed, but that was personally handled by Mr. Pei and aimed at internal company interns, so no one would question it.
But the Tenda recruitment exam was facing the entire society for recruitment, making a completely closed process unrealistic.
Therefore, the only solution was to update the question bank every year, trying to reduce the impact of question practice on the exam as much as possible.
But the reduction couldn’t be too significant, because preparation before an exam was also an important part of the process.
Wu Bin wasn’t very opposed to the existence of these study aids. Their existence had a certain rationality, just as the state hadn’t directly banned those civil service exam coaching institutions.
As long as these study aids didn’t mislead people, it was fine.
Wu Bin walked around the examination hall several times and saw many touching scenes of people encouraging each other and agreeing to enter Tenda together.
As he was walking, suddenly a person wearing a long coat approached him and said in a low voice: “Hey buddy, here for the exam? Want some study materials?”
Wu Bin strangely had a sense of déjà vu, as if being asked “Hey buddy, want to buy something?”
Looking at this study aid vendor in a long coat, Wu Bin suddenly felt a bit of sympathy.
Buddy, aren’t you a bit late to be selling study aids now?
It was like trying to sell sword techniques to swordsmen who were about to go to Mount Hua for a competition—these things couldn’t be mastered instantly.
“The exam is about to start; isn’t it too late to sharpen your sword right before battle?” Wu Bin asked.
The study aid vendor smiled mysteriously: “Not late! What I’m selling isn’t the regular study aid—it’s the answers and analysis for the ‘special questions’ that just appeared in the last Tenda exam!”
Wu Bin was taken aback: “Special questions? What are those?”
The study aid vendor explained: “Haven’t you done the real questions from last time? It’s those questions about whether to work overtime and such.”
“These questions are scattered in different sections. Although their positions vary, they can roughly be categorized together, and they’ve never been seen in other exams, so we all call them ‘special questions.'”
Wu Bin was stunned for a moment before he suddenly realized.
Weren’t these the newly added Tenda Spirit test questions?
Had they been noticed so quickly?
On second thought, it was quite normal for them to be noticed. After all, these questions had a completely different style from other questions—like fireflies in the night, difficult to ignore.
Not forming widespread discussion online was one thing, but whether people had noticed was another matter entirely.
Tenda’s question bank was changed each time, so even if these institutions could determine some answers through the process of elimination, it wouldn’t be useful. But the key was the analysis.
This study aid vendor actually claimed to have analysis for these spiritual test questions?
Had the Tenda Spirit manual leaked?
That couldn’t be right.
The Tenda Spirit manual that Wu Bin had previously compiled was an internal publication, which only highly trusted employees could obtain from their managers. It shouldn’t have leaked outside.
As the compiler of the Tenda Spirit, Wu Bin had always highly valued confidentiality work.
“I’ll take one.” For work purposes, Wu Bin felt he should buy one to study.
“Sure, fifteen.” The study aid vendor pulled out a palm-sized booklet from inside his coat that looked like it only had a dozen or so pages.
“Fifteen? That’s robbery!” Wu Bin was shocked.
He had long known that study aids were relatively expensive.
After all, knowledge was priceless… it was already good enough that they were willing to sell it to you, so why quibble about whether it was expensive or not?
Moreover, study aids primarily targeted people with urgent needs. If it was a bit expensive, so be it. Most people who invested so much time for the exam wouldn’t care about twenty or thirty yuan.
But such a thin booklet actually cost fifteen?
This was simply inconceivable and difficult to understand.
The study aid vendor smiled slightly: “Buddy, don’t think it’s expensive. True, there aren’t many pages, but the effort behind it is immense!”
“Think about it—memorizing questions from the exam hall, determining the correct answers by comparing scores, summarizing the commonalities of these correct answers, and providing a universally applicable analysis—how much work is that!”
“Besides, the competition in the Tenda recruitment exam is so fierce that a difference of a few points could be the difference between passing and failing. Think about Tenda’s salary and benefits—isn’t spending fifteen yuan on a dream worth it?”
“Plus, this is something that works fast. It has well-summarized patterns inside. Just flip through it before the exam, and it’ll take effect. Tell me, is it worth it or not?”
Wu Bin: “…”
Suddenly, he felt the study aid vendor’s words made some sense.
“Alright, I’ll take one.” Wu Bin took out his phone and obediently scanned the code to pay.