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Home Stories2021 Success StoriesHIWIN Tech-Elvira Vanda Utomo

HIWIN Tech-Elvira Vanda Utomo

  • date:2021-08-26
HIWIN Tech-Elvira Vanda Utomo

Elvira Vanda Utomo (吳秋凌), who comes from Surabaya, Indonesia, recalled that she came to Taiwan originally to learn Chinese in Autumn 2015 and received a full scholarship for National Chiayi University afterward.  She decided to study the Global Tourism and Management Program (MTM) master's degree and stayed to work in Taiwan after graduation.  This September (2021) marks her sixth year in Taiwan.   

Elvira Vanda studied a Public Relations Program on personal relationships, communication and management at university in her hometown.  She is an outgoing person who likes to interact with people and gets along well with groups of diversified cultures and backgrounds.  Her studies at university helped her integrate into a society of diverse values of Taiwan.  She was happy during her two years of study in graduate school in Chiayi.  In addition to studying, she also had the opportunity to interact with classmates from different countries.  As an extrovert, she took the chance to serve as vice president of the International Students Association (ISA), helping international students adapt to life in Taiwan, and promoting cultural and friendship exchange. 

Elvira Vanda mentioned that the new logo “Taiwan- The Heart of Asia” fully expresses everything she feels living in Taiwan as people are friendly and willing to help one another even if a stranger meeting another person for the first time.  She found the place to be very touching and warm, even though she was studying in a foreign county alone. 

Elvira Vanda knows many foreign friends and she acknowledged the matchmaking platform, Contact Taiwan, which provides employment opportunities for foreign students.  When she was seeking work opportunities in Taiwan, she searched on Facebook and found that the official Contact TAIWAN platform provides a lot of information on Taiwanese businesses and highlights working opportunities in Taiwan.  Therefore, she registered immediately and enrolled in the “One-on-One Employment Meetings in Hsinchu” in September last year (2020).  

She recalls that she had made appointments with several companies and many of them had waiting lists.  Finally, she interviewed with five enterprises. HIWIN Tech was one of them.  Originally, she was on a waiting list for an interview with HIWIN and there was slim chance of getting a job.  However, she found that the HIWIN booth was free before the end of the final session and asked the representative if it was possible to arrange an interview.  She took the chance to introduce herself in Chinese, discuss her previous work experience as a travel agent and submitted a Chinese and English resume.  It was a very productive 15-minute conversation.   

Opportunity favors the prepared mind.  Elvira Vanda now works as a Sales Officer in the Sales Department of HIWIN Tech.  She is mainly responsible for the Southeast Asia market (Indonesia and Thailand), and has recently started engaging in the Russia and Israel markets.  Her daily work includes price estimations, arrangements, order confirmation and communication with distributors about schedule confirmation and payment delivery.  

HIWIN Tech was established in 1989 and now has more than 4,000 employees.  It is an expert dedicated to the manufacturing of transmission control and system technology products as well as being the second large ball screw manufacturer with its headquarters in Taichung City and offices in the US, Germany, Japan, Switzerland Czech Republic, Israel, Singapore, Korea and China.

The sales department of HIWIN is divided into five sections according to different market segments. Elvira Vanda works in the second section.  There is another Indonesian person in the same section. Other colleagues include people from Italy and Singapore in the fourth section.  Elvira Vanda says she has been happily working in HIWIN for six months now.  Even though it is a busy place to work, coworkers help each other out, while officers genuinely treat employees like family and friends and encourage teamwork so everyone feels connected in the workplace. 

We asked Elvira Vanda before the end of the interview if she could give some suggestions for the One-on-One Employment Meetings that she attended before as improvement for the future.  She said that the activity planning was great overall as an exchange platform to match overseas Chinese students and Taiwanese businesses.  She and her friends all support the activities organized by Contact TAIWAN.

However, she commented that she found that many students had reserved several interview slots so sometimes representatives did not have time to find talent among new interviewees.  In addition, there is little time in between appointments which can affect the next interviewee if the previous appointment slot runs long.  Some appointments were also cancelled as students did not show up within their allocated time slot.  This was due to the fact that their previous appointment had run long.  Therefore, she suggests that the online appointment system not allow a person to book two appointments right next to each other to leave enough time should one appointment run long for the person to get to their next appointment and have sufficient time to prepare for each interview.  This will allow a smoother experience for the talent who attend.

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