Losing Money to Become a Tycoon: Starting with Games
Chapter 331: The Tengda Spirit Compatibility Test
After returning to Tengda Games, Pei Qian briefly paid attention to the progress of GOG's development.
The game was still in the conceptual design stage. Li Yada was still struggling with some fairly basic settings.
However, preparations had already begun for acquiring some small IPs, with dedicated personnel negotiating with various companies both domestically and overseas.
Many copyrights are divided into limited-term licenses and perpetual licenses. Which type of authorization to use requires many rounds of negotiation to determine.
The more famous an IP is, the higher its price, and the more likely it is to be licensed for a limited term. Many games that purchase certain copyrights later find that, once the license expires, the renewal fee increases and they can no longer afford to renew it. As a result, the related products have to be taken off the shelves, often leading to extremely awkward situations.
Therefore, the current focus was on IP characters with perpetual licenses.
Taking pricing into consideration, the characters under negotiation were all relatively low-profile, such as anime characters from a long time ago, protagonists from old editions of novels, or movie characters that had already faded into obscurity.
Of course, before negotiating for licenses, there would first be a simple screening process to confirm that the character was suitable for use in the game and would not create any obvious sense of incongruity. Only then would negotiations begin.
If a character's style differed from the game's art style, Tengda would also need to negotiate with the copyright holder to allow a certain degree of adaptation to better fit the game's aesthetic.
Although this was quite troublesome, the guiding principle was very clear: anything that did not meet the requirements or could not be secured would simply not be purchased.
In any case, there were plenty of mediocre IPs on the market, randomly picking and buying some at the initial stage would be more than enough.
At present, the game did not even have a tangible form yet, so Pei Qian had no way to offer specific guidance. He could only check back after some time.
Not long after returning to his office, Hao Yun from the Human Resources Department knocked on the door.
"President Pei, we've tried putting together a set of exam questions. Please take a look and see if they're suitable."
"Also, for the final segment—the Tengda Spirit Compatibility Test—we've already arranged for the TPDb website team to build the corresponding backend. Once the Tengda recruitment website is completed, you'll be given a unique access point. You'll be able to adjust the content of the test and the standard answers there, and no one else will be able to find them."
Pei Qian took the stack of printed test papers from Hao Yun and nodded in satisfaction. "Alright, leave them here. I'll take a careful look."
Hao Yun went off to continue with her work.
Pei Qian flipped open the test papers and examined them closely.
There were two main tasks that needed to be completed in advance for recruitment. The first was a dedicated recruitment website, where candidates would fill in their resumes, register, print their admission tickets, and so on—all through this site.
Once the website was completed, job seekers would only need to register online at the appropriate time and fill in their information.
Before the exam, they could print out their admission tickets and come in for the written test. A whole series of complicated procedures would be handled online, saving a lot of trouble.
The second task was the exam questions themselves, which he would look at later.
The exams were scheduled for May and November each year.
In the workplace, there are sayings like "Golden March and Silver April" and "Golden September and Silver October."
The peak season in the first half of the year is March and April, because many people choose to resign after receiving their year-end bonuses and start job hunting around March.
The peak season in the second half of the year is September and October, because many university graduates officially graduate around this time and enter the workforce.
But Pei Qian's idea was to avoid these recruitment peak seasons entirely!
During peak hiring seasons, the talent pool is huge. Using exams to select candidates at that time would mostly attract people with outstanding learning abilities, which was completely contrary to his original intention.
So patience was required.
Wait until the peak season had completely passed, when the truly capable talents had already found jobs. Then start recruiting, and scoop up all those remaining candidates whose work abilities were somewhat questionable in one fell swoop.
The task of building the recruitment website was handed over to the TPDb website team. The new site could be called "Tengda Recruitment Network" or "Tengda Talent Resource Database," and it could also exist as a subsidiary section attached to the TPDb website.
Pei Qian looked through the questions.
The exam was divided into three parts: a basic ability test for the written exam in the morning, a professional knowledge test for the written exam in the afternoon, and interview-stage questions.
The basic ability test questions were prepared by the Human Resources Department. Pei Qian flipped through them and found that they were not much different from civil service exam questions. The knowledge covered was extremely broad; without deliberate preparation, probably only a handful of geniuses would be able to score highly.
The professional knowledge test, on the other hand, consisted of questions independently designed by each department. For example, the game department's test included basic knowledge of the game industry, explanations of professional terminology, short-answer questions on game systems, trial writing of game copy and packaging, and so on.
As for the interview questions, they were likewise relatively open-ended, but more closely tied to the specific position.
After reading through all the questions, Pei Qian fell into deep thought.
He suddenly felt that his earlier thinking had been too simplistic.
There was a crucial point he had not considered at all, namely… just how difficult should these questions be?
Judging by their current level, compared to civil service exams, the difficulty was slightly below medium.
That was understandable. In the eyes of the Human Resources staff, Tengda's recruitment was corporate hiring, where actual working ability mattered more.
Therefore, the interview naturally carried more weight.
Industry veterans in their thirties or forties might be able to handle professional knowledge with ease, but asking them to answer basic ability test questions—wouldn't that be making things difficult for them?
So the Human Resources Department had deliberately lowered the difficulty of the basic ability test.
As a result, the employees selected would inevitably be those with relatively strong working abilities and good interview performance.
Pei Qian felt that this would not do.
A recruitment exam is a form of selection. Given that so many people would be scrambling to get into Tengda, he naturally had to recruit employees who aligned with his own preferences as much as possible.
Reverse selection was definitely not an option.
For example, if Pei Qian wanted to hire people from lowest score to highest, on the one hand the system would never allow it and there would be no way to explain it to other employees; on the other hand, it would be completely impractical.
Once word got out, everyone would hand in blank papers, or some top students would deliberately control their scores to fall within a specific range, what then?
So the only choice was to screen candidates from high scores to low scores.
In plain terms, it came down to choosing between two types of people: those who excel at exams, and those who excel at interviews and have strong practical working abilities.
Sometimes the two overlap, but many times they are mutually exclusive.
Generally speaking, highly educated talents tend to have strong learning abilities and decent working abilities as well. The so-called phenomenon of "high scores but low competence" is actually not that common.
However, Pei Qian also knew that some companies, because they were overly obsessed with hiring highly educated workers, ended up suffering declines in performance.
Many highly educated employees do not actually like the job itself and come only for the high salary. Lacking passion for the work, what they produce may look good on the surface, but lacks soul…
That was getting a bit off track.
In any case, after agonizing over it for a long time, Pei Qian decided to choose the former.
The latter type, once hired, would immediately start stabbing him in the back like crazy; as for the former, there might be plenty who were good at learning and taking exams but not good at actual work, they are much safer overall.
With that thought, Pei Qian scribbled a note on the test papers:
"Increase the difficulty of the basic ability test, raise it to the maximum!"
After that, Pei Qian felt it was also time to roughly consider what the Tengda Spirit Compatibility Test should actually consist of.
As for this test—put bluntly, it was meant to assess an employee's "slacking spirit" and weed out potential workaholics.
Of course, this had to be done with sufficient misdirection. The standard answers absolutely had to be kept secret.
After the website was completed, interns awaiting confirmation as full employees would be arranged to take the test at a designated time and on designated computers. Once they finished answering and submitted their responses, the website would automatically calculate the results.
Only Pei Qian would be able to see the actual scores. The interns would merely be informed whether they passed or failed; their specific scores would not be disclosed.
At the same time, on the surface, the company would forbid any discussion of these questions.
Private discussions would be impossible to completely ban, of course. But it would be unlikely for test-takers to remember all the questions, and even if individual questions were discussed, it would still be impossible to determine what the standard answers actually were.
Pei Qian would also periodically revise and refresh these questions to ensure the accuracy of the test.
And the questions personally designed by him would all be extremely misleading.
For example:
Question:
It is already past working hours, and you still have a task unfinished. What should you do?
Work overtime to finish it Deal with it tomorrow Ask whether the task needs to be completed urgently; if so, work overtime, if not, deal with it tomorrow Work overtime if your superior (not President Pei) explicitly emphasizes that the task requires overtime; if not emphasized, assume no overtime is needed Argue with your superior (not President Pei) using reason and logic
Scoring:
Choose E: +5 points
Choose B: +4 points
Choose D: +2 points
Choose C: +1 point
Choose A: 0 points
Another example:
Question:
It is already past working hours, and you still have a task unfinished. President Pei previously stated that this task must be completed by a certain date. What should you do?
Work overtime to finish it Deal with it tomorrow Ask President Pei whether the task needs to be completed urgently; if so, work overtime, if not, deal with it tomorrow Work overtime to finish it, and demand double overtime pay from President Pei Complete the task at home
Scoring:
Choose D: +5 points
Choose A or E: +4 points
Choose C: +2 points
Choose B: 0 points
As for why the answers to these two questions are different…
Obviously—if President Pei tells you to work overtime, it must be because the settlement cycle is approaching. If the product is delayed, President Pei will be punished by the system.
Of course, after working overtime, don't forget to vigorously demand overtime pay from President Pei, that's all there is to it.
In short, any task personally assigned by President Pei must be completed seriously.
On that basis, you should claim as much company welfare as you can, be proactive, the more assertive the better.
If President Pei has not clearly indicated that a task is urgent, do not, under any circumstances, take it upon yourself to work overtime.
…
Pei Qian racked his brains and, based on this core philosophy, came up with several questions.
These questions assumed many different scenarios. Through various intricate and intertwined options, His true intentions were completely buried, making it impossible for test-takers to accurately judge the question setter's real purpose.
Once the website was ready, Pei Qian could upload all these questions, set the standard answers, and wait for test-takers to respond.
He could also consider building a relatively large question bank and randomly selecting a portion of it for each test, further reducing the possibility of people privately discussing and deciphering the questions.
Only those who passed this test would be considered talents truly aligned with the Tengda spirit.
If you failed the test… sorry, please continue studying harder and strive to better comprehend the Tengda spirit.
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