Went for a job interview this morning at a US listed technology company. I have about 2 years’ relevant experience doing things similar to the job requirements, so I asked for 3.3k starting salary despite being a fresh graduate (I mentioned that the figure is negotiable. The hiring managers kept asking me questions like… “is money important to you?”, “is your family dependent on your income?”, “how much are your peers earning?”. One of them mentioned that 3.3k is the rate for someone with about 5 years’ working experience (I don’t believe it).
The irony of it is that they know that the pay is low, probably not even enough to feed a family – they are the ones being unrealistic, not me. Welcome to Singapore, where graduates are expected to earn scarcely enough to feed or start a family.
This afternoon I had a very different interview experience at another company. Unfortunately, the pay being offered is very low again. However, there is a very strong focus on work-life balance in this particular organization – little OT required, plenty of benefits geared towards ensuring work-life balance. I pretty much like the idea of working in this organization… and the job seems to fit exactly what I am looking for. The only downside is the salary being offered. But I might just take the low pay for the benefits.
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It’s not impossible to get 3.3k for a fresh grad, but only if the job is in the civil service (you need good honours); in the banking industry or in one of the semicon fabs (both require lots of OT and are extremely stressful jobs).
To be honest, gunning for 3.3k as a fresh grad is not very realistic in other sectors/ industries. A more reasonable starting pay to ask for would be around 2.5 – 2.7k. 3.3k would not seem far off from the pay for an average person with 5 years of job experience, assuming that the increment is around 100+ per year. Of course, those high-flyers (promotion to senior/ managerial levels within 5 years) are a different story.
Yup, which is why after some careful thought I am now happy to accept the job market reality of less than 3k for fresh grads.
I noticed that many companies are now offering between 2.1k to 2.3k for fresh grads. It’s a little sad, but I guess is a difficult stage most fresh grads must go through.
Mr Biao, you should not forget that there are many foreign talents asking for much less! This is important in companies where wages form the bulk of operating costs.
For instance, in the company where I work, which is technical and IT related, 80% of the engineers and even some managers are Chinese, Indian, Myanmar and even Nepalese nationals. The rest are some Malaysians and even fewer Singaporeans!
And their output and quality is still OK and the company can still make profits as long as projects flow in.
Yes it is unfortunate. I think the issue of foreign workers is a double-edged sword. Sure, they help to boost Singapore’s position in terms of competitiveness, but it creates an unfair playing field for Singaporeans vs foreigners. IMO it is not a sustainable policy when looking in the long-term.
But well at the end of the day companies will definitely choose profits over nationalism – an uncle of mine who owns a transport business here once told me – as much as they would like to employ more Singaporeans, their competitors are all hiring drivers from China and they don’t have a choice but to follow suit in view of staying competitive.
On the topic of IT industry, the very reason why I am choosing a non-technical career path despite my strong technical background, is precisely because of the number of good foreign workers in this field – I have to admit many of them are much more skilled than us, and on top of that they ask for less salary.