Losing Money to Be a Tycoon

The game was still at the conceptual designing stage. Li Yada was still struggling with the basic design details.

However, they were already more or less ready to buy over some small IPs. They had hired professionals to conduct negotiations with local and foreign companies.

Licenses for these IPs lasted either for a limited period or permanently, both depending on how the many rounds of negotiations went.

The more famous an IP was, the more expensive it would be. The license granted would also tend to be for a limited period. Many games had to be taken off the shelves because their materials’ copyrights expired, the fees exponentially increased, and the developers could no longer afford them. That situation often developed terribly.

Thus, Tengda was currently looking for IPs with permanent licenses.

On top of this was the price. At the moment, they had expressed interest in characters that were not that famous. These included characters from old comics, novels, and movies.

Of course, they had also conducted some brief research into the materials they wanted before commencing negotiations. This was to ensure they would be suitable to be used in the game and would not appear out of place.

If the characters were of a different style from the game, they would have more things to discuss. Tengda would have to request permission to edit the character to suit the game’s style.

Although it was a troublesome process, the direction was clear. Any characters that did not fit the requirements and could not be bought over would be foregone.

There were many rubbish IPs in the market anyway. They could randomly pick as many as they wanted until they found enough.

At the moment, they did not even have an idea of how the game would look. Thus, Pei Qian could not offer much guidance. He could only see how things went during this period.

Not long after he returned to the office, Hao Yun from the HR department knocked on his door.

“Boss Pei, we’ve tried to come up with a set of examination questions. Do you want to see if it’s alright?

“We’ve also arranged for the people in charge of TPDb to create an online platform that would help with the final stage, the Tengda Spirit compatibility test. When Tengda’s recruitment website is ready, you will get exclusive access. You can edit the questions and answers on the platform and prevent others from seeing them.

Pei Qian took the printed examination questions from Hao Yun and nodded, satisfied. “Alright, leave it. I’ll take a look.”

Hao Yun went back to work.

Pei Qian then flipped through and studied the questions closely.

There had only been two main preparation tasks for recruitment. First, they had to create a recruitment website. There, applicants would submit their resumes, register, and print out the examination’s entry proof.

Once the website was complete, applicants would just have to fill in the necessary fields on the website within a set time period.

They would also have to print the entry proof and physically attend the written examination. Moving all those tedious processes online saved the HR department a lot of trouble.

Apart from that, they also had to set the examination paper itself. That was what Pei Qian would be vetting.

The examination was set for May and November every year.

It was well known in the recruitment industry that March, April, September, and October were golden periods. March and April were considered golden periods for the first half of the year. That was because many people would decide to quit after the Lunar New Year when they would normally receive their end-of-year bonus. They would then start their job search in March.

September and October were the golden periods for the second half of the year. That was because many university graduates would have officially received their certificates and started looking for their first jobs.

Boss Pei was looking to avoid these exact months!

There were likely going to be many talents in the market during these months. Tengda was also going to be selecting employees using written examinations. If most people taking the exam happened to be very intelligent and learned, Pei Qian would achieve the opposite of what he wanted.

Thus, he had to wait patiently!

Once the golden periods were over, Pei Qian could be sure that the more capable talents would have found jobs. Then, he could recruit the leftovers in the market, who would probably be less able.

TPDb had been tasked with creating the recruitment website because it could be called ‘Tengda Recruitment Network’ or ‘Tengda Talent Database’ and could attach itself to TPDb’s website.

Pei Qian began to look through the questions.

The questions had broadly been split into three separate parts: the written basic skills test, which was to be held in the morning; the written specialized knowledge test, which was to be held in the afternoon, and the interview.

The questions for the basic skills test had been set by the HR department. Pei Qian flipped through them and found that all the questions were similar to the ones found in government officials’ recruitment tests. It tested knowledge from all over the place. One probably had to be extremely talented to score highly even without studying beforehand.

The questions for the specialized knowledge test had been set by the various departments. For instance, the games department had set questions on foundational knowledge of the game industry, questions on definitions of certain technical terms, short-structured questions on game systems, and a hypothetical game synopsis.

The interview questions were more open-ended as well, but they were more closely related to the various roles.

After reading these questions, Pei Qian fell into deep thought.

All of a sudden, he realized that his thinking had been too simple. He forgot to think about one very important thing, and that was… exactly how difficult the questions had to be.

At the moment, the questions’ difficulty was considered below-average compared to tests that aspiring government officials had to go through. That was to be expected. After all, to the employees in the HR department, Tengda’s recruitment was corporate. Naturally, they placed a higher emphasis on the applicants’ practical skills and abilities.

That was why the interview was given a higher weightage compared to the other two tests.

Industry experts in their thirties or forties could have in-depth knowledge about the profession and yet do very badly at the basic skills test. Wouldn’t the experts be put in a very difficult position, then?

Thus, the HR department had lowered the difficulty of the basic skills test on purpose.

That way, they could guarantee that the shortlisted applicants would be stronger and better-performing in terms of practical work abilities.

On the other hand, Pei Qian thought that this simply would not do.

The recruitment test was a way of selecting employees. If many people fought for the limited slots in Tengda, Boss Pei wanted to make sure that he hired the applicants that matched his requirements.

That meant backward elimination would not work.

If Pei Qian wanted to admit the applicants in ascending order of their scores on the tests, the System might not accept it, and he would have difficulty explaining this to his employees. Moreover, it was simply not practical.

If word got out and everyone handed in blank scripts or purposely kept their scores under a certain mark, what could Pei Qian do about it?

Thus, he could only admit applicants in descending order of their scores. To put it plainly, he only had two choices: he could admit bookworms who were good at exams, or he could admit talents who were good at interviews and working.

At times, the two came hand in hand. However, the two were mutually exclusive most of the time.

All in all, talents with high education records were normally extremely good at academics and pretty good at work as well. People with high in examination scores but had low ability were not common.

However, Pei Qiao also knew of companies that emphasized so much on education records in their employees that the company’s achievements slipped.

Many applicants with high education records did not like their jobs and only applied for high salaries. They lacked passion in their work and ended up producing good work but lacking souls.

That was beside the point.

In any case, after much consideration, Pei Qian decided on the former. The latter would only back-stab him like crazy. The former would be extremely good at learning and taking examinations but might not be good at working. It seemed like a much safer option.

At that thought, Pei Qian wrote a comment on the top of the paper: ‘Increase the difficulty of the basic skills test-maximize it!’

After that, Pei Qian decided it was finally time to think about questions for the Tengda Spirit compatibility test.

To be frank, this test was meant to uncover applicants’ tendency to slack, thus filtering out the hardworking ones.

Of course, Pei Qian had to maintain a level of confusion around this test. The right answer must be kept a secret at all times.

Once the website was ready, the interns who wanted to be converted to full-time employees would be allowed to sit for the test at an allocated time on an allocated computer. They would submit their tests once they were done, and the website would mark them automatically.

Pei Qian would be the only one who would be able to see the scores. He would only notify the interns whether they made it or not and not how much they scored.

At the same time, the company would prohibit any discussion about the questions.

There was no way to prevent people from discussing in private, but there was no way that the applicants would be able to remember all the questions in the test. Even if they ended up discussing some questions, they probably would not be able to guess what the right answers were.

Pei Qian would also edit and replace the questions from time to time, in order to maintain the test’s accuracy.

Boss Pei’s questions were all going to be extremely confusing.

This was one example.

Question: It’s time to get off work. You have an incomplete assignment on your hands. You should:

Work overtime to complete it.Wait until tomorrow.Ask around to see if this task is urgent. If it is, you’ll work overtime. If not, you will wait until tomorrow.Work overtime if your superior (not Boss Pei) asks you to. If he doesn’t, assume that there is no need to work overtime.Argue with your superior (not Boss Pei) if he tells you to work overtime to complete the assignment.

Those who picked E would get five marks, B would get four, D would get two, C would get one, and A would get zero.

This was another example.

Question: It’s time to get off work. You have an incomplete assignment on your hands, and Boss Pei told you earlier that you need to finish it before a particular day. You should:

Work overtime to complete it.Wait until tomorrow.Ask Boss Pei to see if this task is that urgent. If it is, you’ll work overtime. If not, you will wait until tomorrow.Work overtime to complete it and ask Boss Pei for double the overtime pay.Finish the assignment at home.

Those who picked D would get five marks, A or E would get four, C would get two, and B would get zero.

As for why the answers for both of these questions were different…

That went without saying. If Boss Pei asked an employee to work overtime, settlement must be approaching. If the release of the product was delayed, Boss Pei would be dealt with by the System.

Of course, the employee could not forget to ask Boss Pei for as many overtime pay as possible after completing the task. All in all, if Boss Pei was the one who was personally assigning tasks, they had to be done. If Boss Pei did not expressly say that the task was urgent, they should not work overtime of their own accord.

On that basis, employees could ask for as much company benefits as they wanted. The more initiative they took, the better.

Pei Qian racked his brains and came up with a few more questions, all circling around the same principles.

The questions involved many hypothetical scenarios. The variety of tangled and complicated scenarios served to hide Boss Pei’s true intentions, so that the applicant had no way of guessing them.

Once the website was ready, Pei Qian would upload the questions onto it and set the correct answers. Then, he would wait for applicants to take the test.

He could also consider creating a bigger question bank, from which he could select random questions during each round of recruitment. That way, he could further reduce the chances of applicants guessing the correct answers through discussion of the questions.

Only people who passed this test could be considered talents compatible with Tengda’s spirit.

People who did not… would have to study harder to understand Tengda’s spirit.