Chinese student fails job interview because of iPhone

Fruity phone seen as symbol of pampered and decadent youth

By Phil Muncaster, 4th December 2012

An incensed university student in China’s Jilin province has taken to the web to vent his frustration at being rejected during a job interview after his interviewer spotted that he owned an iPhone.

The unlucky fourth year student, surnamed Gao, attended the interview at the tail end of November in Changchun city, only to be told just a few minutes in that the unnamed firm was “not looking for students with iPhones”.

The issue was not that the company was morally opposed to fanbois, or that it thought the smartphone would provide an unwelcome distraction in the workplace. Instead the iPhone seems to have been declared a bourgeois accessory, symbolic of over-privileged fops who have never done a day’s graft in their lives, according to NariNari (via RocketNews24).

The interviewer apparently explained the rather harsh decision as follows:

"Students who have iPhones don’t work. Everything you have was bought by your parents. You haven’t bought anything by working yourself. You are wealthy and can’t stand the stress. Working at our company is tough. It calls for someone who can take the pain and suffering."

Apparently Gao’s phone was indeed bought by his parents, although he pleaded that the device was not intended as an ostentatious show of wealth.

With the iPhone 5 launch in the People’s Republic just around the corner, the story should serve as a cautionary tale to any final year uni students; buy Chinese or keep your smartphone hidden during your job interviews. ®

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