Got a job offer in singapore and have some questions

[Pinshot]

I am from the UK and I have recently been offered a job in Singapore for a US Tech company. Its a security/investigations type role as a senior manager.

Some brief info:

I do not have a degree
Currently hold similar role in competitor company covering all of EMEA
Will require an employment pass
Compensations (210 000 SD a year including 60k bonus, excluding 200 000 USD stock)
Have 14 years industry experience working for major US firms. There is not really degrees for what i do (or wasn't when i was of age), typically requires military or police experience of which i have police experience.

My question is will i face issues with the visa process as im hearing different things? The company has not said it will be an issue but i dont wish to labour the point with them at this stage.

[nakatago]

I am from the UK and I have recently been offered a job in Singapore for a US Tech company. Its a security/investigations type role as a senior manager.

Some brief info:

I do not have a degree
Currently hold similar role in competitor company covering all of EMEA
Will require an employment pass
Compensations (210 000 SD a year including 60k bonus, excluding 200 000 USD stock)
Have 14 years industry experience working for major US firms. There is not really degrees for what i do (or wasn't when i was of age), typically requires military or police experience of which i have police experience.

My question is will i face issues with the visa process as im hearing different things? The company has not said it will be an issue but i dont wish to labour the point with them at this stage.

Yep; looks good. Move along, now; nothing to worry about here.

[x9200]

IIRC 12k is a base salary said to be the minimum to get your foot in without a degree. Yours is 12k5 so it seems ok.

[BBCWatcher]

Professional experience can often substitute for a degree. MoM is reasonable and evaluates holistically. Quoting MoM directly, to be eligible for an Employment Pass one must "have acceptable qualifications, usually a good university degree, professional qualifications or specialist skills." MoM used the words "usually" and "or" intentionally, we should assume.

I agree that you and your prospective employer are unlikely to encounter any particular problems. There are many, many high skill professions that never or seldom include time spent at universities. To pick an example, many aircraft mechanics and pilots first acquire their skills in the military, and military enlistment is a common alternative to university attendance in many countries. To pick another example, Matt Damon, the highly successful actor, attended Harvard but never received a degree. If MoM receives an application to allow Matt Damon to appear in a Mediacorp production, I'm highly confident MoM would approve it even though Damon doesn't have a degree from Harvard.

[JR8]

As I understand it you do not have to have a degree to get a P1 visa. And on that salary it will be a P1. Since 'everyone is a graduate these days', at least compared to how it was20/+ years ago, there might be a presumption that 'everyone is going to be a grad, aren't they, I mean how thick do you have to be to not be a grad?'

It can be a little hard to get your head around how you can need a degree for 'lesser' visas, but for the P1 there is a level of acceptance that there are people working in that $-realm who didn't go to uni/graduate. Perhaps it's contrary to the whole orthodoxy of you have to get educated to get ahead; and Singapore (and elsewhere) does have a number of embedded mantras such as that.
Thinking about it - it wouldn't be that smart to deny entry to the likes of Bill Gates either would it?

I dropped out of uni in year two, and later got a P1 in Singapore. In any case there was no degree at that time that would have related to my career, kinda hybrid between banking finance/accounting/IT/applied maths. By then I'd already expatted from London to Tokyo, in that line of work. So I recall on my visa application, the SGn HR making a clear argument that although not a grad, I was 'Qualified by experience'. I think that that would apply to the OP as well, especially as he is getting senior in a very specialised niche line of work.

p.s. so yes, I agree with BBCW above

[Pinshot]

IIRC 12k is a base salary said to be the minimum to get your foot in without a degree. Yours is 12k5 so it seems ok.

Wow so i am cutting it very close on the salary front?! Only 500 over the minimum i must earn?

[Pinshot]

Thank you all for the prompt and helpful responses. I feel a little better about it even though i appear to be cutting it close with the minimum salary issue.

[JR8]

You talk of a '60k bonus', but to what extent is that variable/discretionary?
If it is some way fixed then why is it split off as a 'bonus' rather than simply being incorporated into the basic?
I'm not an SME on the visa/pass applications... I suppose the question mark for me is what elements of salary/bonus/etc/+ add together to form the figure used for visa categorisation...

p.s. '500 over/pm'. Could be coincidence, or HR might have done that for a reason, maybe to clearly be above $12k level. Either way presumably they are comfortable structuring the remuneration in that way.

[Pinshot]

You talk of a '60k bonus', but to what extent is that variable/discretionary?
If it is some way fixed then why is it split off as a 'bonus' rather than simply being incorporated into the basic?
I'm not an SME on the visa/pass applications... I suppose the question mark for me is what elements of salary/bonus/etc/+ add together to form the figure used for visa categorisation...

p.s. '500 over/pm'. Could be coincidence, or HR might have done that for a reason, maybe to clearly be above $12k level. Either way presumably they are comfortable structuring the remuneration in that way.

The bonus is 60 000 Singapore Dollars in company Equity and cash (80/20 split with cash being the 20). So i didnt want to rely on that. It is indeed guaranteed as long as im not some kind of moron (its the minum on target bonus rising to 300 000K).

I found a website that has a self assessment and says i am eligible for both E Pass and S Pass and should get accepted as long as im no criminal or the company is not eligible (no risk here).

[PNGMK]

Thank you all for the prompt and helpful responses. I feel a little better about it even though i appear to be cutting it close with the minimum salary issue.

That's typical. The salary levels have actually created a salary floor (i.e. a minimum salary level) which it's hard to come up from. My wife is paid about $1 more than the salary floor for her employment pass as a teacher. The advantage is that when ICA/MOM change the levels upwards your employer has to follow. It certainly is an example of a multi tiered minimum salary system in action... everyone falls to the same level (except PR's). I think it was last year that the level my wife is on changed from $3500 to $4000 pm - her employer had to match it.

[Siv]

Thank you all for the prompt and helpful responses. I feel a little better about it even though i appear to be cutting it close with the minimum salary issue.

Nah, you shouldn't have to worry about it too much mate.

I don't have a degree and am earning less than 12.5K on an EP. For the last 3 years now. But I have been in my industry for more than 13 years and just turned 40, so experience does count in a big way with MoM, as BBCWatcher put it.

Cheers

[zzm9980]

IIRC 12k is a base salary said to be the minimum to get your foot in without a degree. Yours is 12k5 so it seems ok.

Wow so i am cutting it very close on the salary front?! Only 500 over the minimum i must earn?

12k/month is for PEP pass. Back when EPs were P1/P2, it was 8k/month for P1 and that one didn't need the degree, just professional experience.

[BBCWatcher]

....as BBCWatcher put it.

Credit where credit is due: I'm just quoting MoM. One can reasonably assume their published eligibility criteria accurately reflect their views and practices.