We Interviewed the Person Behind the Viral Job Posting

I'm pretty sure you have seen the job advertisement recruiting for durian knife master by Durianman SS2. The Stephen Chow photo might ring a bell. This job ad went viral within a few days it was posted because of its satire content. As we speak, this job ads went viral in Hong Kong too. We managed to get hold of the person behind the job ad and below is the job requirement. 

After stumbled on the job ad, we were curious and contacted the Ho Wai Keong (the person who created the ad). Below is a brief chat with him.

Since it is called a satire job posting, does the vacancy really exist, or is it just a marketing gimmick?

Yes, we are really hiring this position. When my client first gave me the request, it was just a few lines. (Please refer to the real screenshot of the WhatsApp message. This is really exclusive to you only.) I had no idea how to translate 榴槤到手 to English as Google Translator give "Durian is in hand" and literally kills me and die laughing haha.

In fact, the Chinese words were wrong, it should be 榴槤刀手 (durian knife hand) whereas 榴槤到手 means durian reach a hand in Chinese.

So I paste the 榴槤刀手 to my old schoolmates and one of them just showed a film cover of Stephen Chow's movie From Beijing With Love and tell me just call it as Durian 007. So somehow in the end I just called it as Durian Knife Master and thought of why not I just mashup Stephen Chow and durian pics and make a job ad cover photo along. So yeah, this was how it all began la. 

The requirements were hilarious, are you actually looking for acrobat dancers, 6-pack guys, etc.?

As you can see, I had 2 job ads to write. I wrote the assistant operations manager first and it was so damn boring. When I was writing the Durian Knife Master, since it has an awesome job title, what if the jobs ask for real knife master skills? Also, in that particular Stephen Chow movie (one of my fav n hilarious movies), he had a true skill of the cleaver knife. So my mind went wild and got so inspired. I started to write the job requirements and responsibilities with durian and funny elements.

Do you get genuine applicants? What is the turnover rate for the job advertisement? 

Yes, we had an immediate inquiry a few hours after it was up. Then 2 days after that, when Malay Mail and WOB interviewed me, and other media sites are covering this job ad, people are starting to walk in and we get like an average of 10 people walk-in daily. Unfortunately, those are unsuitable candidates.

Have you successfully hired the position?

We have shortlisted a few candidates already and closed the opening 2-3 days ago. I removed the phone number already but still can click the 'apply job' button on the job ad. So I'm still receiving an average of 5 applicants daily now.  We should be finalizing the candidate next week.

As an employer, what are you looking for in a candidate besides the requirement stated in your advertisement?

Due to the nature of the job of handling durians (very hard and sharp thorns) and the durian knife, safety must come first. We want someone who has handled the durian knife before and has the knowledge of identifying where to cut to open the durian. Then comes personal hygiene as it's the fruit that we are dealing with. Great interpersonal skills and always willing to smile to customers.