Assessment of relocation strategy

[manic.squash]

Hi all

I appreciate that the answers to most of my questions are most likely in either the FAQ’s or in the forum. I would however, appreciate some objective feedback and recommended improvements to my proposed approach to relocating to Singapore.

I’m currently living in Australia with my wife, two year old daughter, two beagle dogs and one very annoying cat  I work in the IT industry for a major telecommunications provider as their lead strategy architect specialising in IT security.

I’ve travelled to several Asian countries and love the culture, people, food, and just the exciting vibe. Singapore seems to be an extremely good balanced environment that provides a great base for conveniently experiencing what Asia has to offer, whilst providing a safe environment for my family and therefore I would like to relocate to there for at least a two to three year period.

My thoughts are that we would look at renting for this period with my wife taking on the role of being a full time stay at home mum (not sure how easy it would be for her to work). Not sure what the position is on pets living in rental apartments but would love to bring our dogs and cat along for the journey – the warmth might even get our female beagle to lose a few pounds 

1. Work Permit: I have both Australian and New Zealand citizenship, but understand that I would need to obtain a work permit. Question regarding this; could I obtain a permit without securing a role before my arrival, which I believe would assist me in finding a position within the Singapore job market?

2. Recruiter recommendation for Executive Roles: With respect to finding a job, like Australia and New Zealand the good roles are rarely advertised and normally require you to have connections with head hunters / recruiters – can anyone recommend a good one that could assist me? Certainly plenty on the net, but would like a recommendation from someone who has had a positive experience.

3. Salary Expectations: On the topic of pay, when I convert my Australian pay to Singaporean dollars it works out to be slightly over $200K, we will still have investments / debts in Australia that we would need to service, is it realistic for me to obtain or better this salary? I assume that this salary would also be sufficient to maintain and support my family and our current lifestyle?

4. Language Barriers: My final point is on language, whilst I love to immerse myself in other cultures, even learnt Maori when growing up in New Zealand, I’m only really fluent in English. Will this be a major hindrance both professionally and socially? I certainly have all intention of learning as much as I possibly can to maximise the experience.

[jpatokal]

1. Work Permit: I have both Australian and New Zealand citizenship, but understand that I would need to obtain a work permit. Question regarding this; could I obtain a permit without securing a role before my arrival, which I believe would assist me in finding a position within the Singapore job market?

No, you can't -- getting an Employment Pass basically requires a standing job offer. Yes, this is a catch-22, because many employers are unwilling to hire people who don't have residence status in Singapore, so you need to be able to offer something that locals can't.

(BTW, don't use the term "Work Permit" in Sing -- such a thing exists, but it's for manual labor only.)

Salary Expectations: On the topic of pay, when I convert my Australian pay to Singaporean dollars it works out to be slightly over $200K, we will still have investments / debts in Australia that we would need to service, is it realistic for me to obtain or better this salary? I assume that this salary would also be sufficient to maintain and support my family and our current lifestyle?

Assuming your current lifestyle doesn't include snorting coke off the tits of strippers on your private jet, yes, that will be more than sufficient. However, in Singapore that would be a fairly massive salary for a glorified code monkey (which is what having "architect" on your business card translates to in this wondrous land where Customer Sales Executives take your order at McD's), so you'll probably need to append "VP" or "Manager" to the title somewhere to impress the bean-counters.

Language Barriers: My final point is on language, whilst I love to immerse myself in other cultures, even learnt Maori when growing up in New Zealand, I’m only really fluent in English. Will this be a major hindrance both professionally and socially? I certainly have all intention of learning as much as I possibly can to maximise the experience.

You don't need anything other than English, and in fact you'll have to make a very active effort to learn another language...

[manic.squash]

Cheers for the response, I know the post was a little verbose

Happily use manager (VP is not used in Oz, seems to be an American term) to describe more accurately in local terms my role here in Oz. It is a management role that I have, however I prefer to avoid using the word manager as it seems that everyone and anyone has manager or director in their titles.

I guess the next step is to hook up with a Singapore based executive head hunter - any recommendations or try my luck with one of the major firms?

Experience in Oz has been very indifferent, good ones who are well connected are hard to come by and usually the roles come about via word of mouth and reputation - I'll assume the same for Singapore?

Manic