Singapore IT recruiters and jobhunting

[nakatago]

naive-useless vs. unprofessional-useless variety.

I've ran into both types and both types can apply to humans AND software*.


* those that actually update your status but do so after months and you never get a notification even though they have your email and you opted-in for notifications. And these system auto-expire your password every month so even if on a whim, you try to log back in, it will tell your username and/or password is invalid then you try to change your password but the verification email is hours late and when you click on the hyperlink, it will tell you that it's invalid already and go through the process all over again and when you finally succeed in changing your password and logging back in, it will tell you that your record is not found and you try to use the search feature but it's useless and when you try to manually navigate, you end up going around in circles but eventually you realize you can use the parameters in the very first application confirmation you received months ago and then you see your application status as "new" but when you click on the position, it will say "closed; application fulfilled" then you say to yourself why did you even bother with this company and you question your decision and wonder if you got blinded by so-called prestige this company holds and then you go back to your life and wonder how long you'll have to endure your evil boss, your incompetent colleagues or the number of brain cells that die out of sheer boredom in your current job which has you question your own abilities, telling yourself, "hey, I'm a reasonably smart person but why am I doing this? Am I really smart?" and you start thinking if it's imposter syndrome or maybe you're just deluded.....

[Brah]

Whatever there is, I found my current job through a recruiter (UK guy from UK company that has office in SG, he contacted me himself when he saw my profile on LinkedIn)

This is good to hear. So there is some hope for them.

[Brah]

I've ran into both types and both types can apply to humans AND software*.

* those that actually update your status but do so after months and you never get a notification even though they have your email and you opted-in for notifications. And these system auto-expire your password every month so even if on a whim, you try to log back in, it will tell your username and/or password is invalid then you try to change your password but the verification email is hours late and when you click on the hyperlink, it will tell you that it's invalid already and go through the process all over again and when you finally succeed in changing your password and logging back in, it will tell you that your record is not found and you try to use the search feature but it's useless and when you try to manually navigate, you end up going around in circles but eventually you realize you can use the parameters in the very first application confirmation you received months ago and then you see your application status as "new" but when you click on the position, it will say "closed; application fulfilled" then you say to yourself why did you even bother with this company and you question your decision and wonder if you got blinded by so-called prestige this company holds and then you go back to your life and wonder how long you'll have to endure your evil boss, your incompetent colleagues or the number of brain cells that die out of sheer boredom in your current job which has you question your own abilities, telling yourself, "hey, I'm a reasonably smart person but why am I doing this? Am I really smart?" and you start thinking if it's imposter syndrome or maybe you're just deluded.....

Sounds like experiences I've had with Taleo.....

[Sergei82]

Btw, imo Taleo got a little bit better now - you can download your information from LinkedIn to Taleo. It will correctly fetch your experience and other details. You will still have to fill some information, but the HUGE amount of pain is out by now.

P.S.: all that assumes you correctly maintain your LinkedIn profile.

[nakatago]

You know what's funny*? HR systems that allow you to apply/login with your Facebook credentials.

*not 'ha-ha' funny.

[Sergei82]

You know what's funny*? HR systems that allow you to apply/login with your Facebook credentials.

*not 'ha-ha' funny.

Why? They want to post ads on your Facebook. Same as they ask you to subscribe for their news e-mails.

Theoretically you can keep your work history neat and clean on Facebook - it has tooling for that, and they give you API to pull it out of your account properly. But 1) it is MUCH harder than with LinkedIn, 2) subjectively I think that is plain stupid and I would never want my work credentials be next to my family/drinking/Ukrainian war photos, nor I want some of my FB friends asking annoying questions about that.

[Pflug]

A question for the finance IT folks. I have no experience in finance IT but understand that they use asset/investment management specific apps for market data etc. What exactly makes it so different from non-finance IT environments to the extent that they only hire technical staff with prior experience in the finance industry? Is it the systems they use, culture or regulatory/compliance?

[brian_singapore]

From my personal point of view:
Its a complex business domain and it helps immensely if you understand it when it comes to working in it.

But I think the same is true of any industry with a complex specialised business domain. For example: game development, medical/healthcare, logistics, fmcgs

I'm not sure its quite as absolute as 'only'. Probably very strongly preferred and it would vary a bit by hiring manager.

[brian_singapore]

To add to the above: If your seeing this exclusivity via recruiters its because someone is forking out a lot of money to find a specific background / skillset, usually after either justifying internally on the spend and usually after demonstrating you were unable to find a match through other means. Recruiters who submit candidates who don't match will quickly find themselves cut out of future opportunities.

Or at least for yours truely.

[Pflug]

Another thing I've noticed with multiple recruiters is that they get some key things wrong while describing the role. For example they will say things like there are x amount of existing staff in the team/company or these are the up and coming projects but once you get an interview its clear that this is not the case. I don't know if it is shoddy work or talking rubbish but they are not helping themselves. Either way an interviewer started off with 'what did the recruiter tell you about the role' which can't be good for them if its not accurate. The above example is from a recruitment company that was awarded preferred recruitment firm 2013. Seems that they are all the same from my experience.