Some additional grist for the mill........
Most, if not all MNC's in Singapore are no better than local SME's unless it is a senior position (then it may take up to 3 or 4 months for a decision to be made (look how long it's takes to find a replacement for the younger lee at Singtel). If you stop and think about it, the MNC's HR departments are usually managed by locals and staffed by locals and have the same work ethics which aren't much different than the agencies that they are using. Soooooo.........
They have a
potential position.....
They fax or email the requiremets to 15 or 20 kaki's in various agencies in Singapore (very few, if any, will pay retainers for middle or lower rank positions). The agencies & the majority of consultants in them have no professional training so they all run the same advertisements in the "Dire Straits" and 'JobStreet' and 'JobsDB'. The job seekers sends their badly written Resumes to all of them and the agencies then use the shotgun method of placement.......send the client 20 CV's and hope that you sent in the CV before the other agencies send in the same CV. (Don't forget, it's a very limited pool here!)
If all this isn't bad enough, after they client gets the CV's it just might be that the position was canceled or it was only proposed....... "we will probably need another Mech. Engineer for this project. Be on the lookout for one just in case we score and get the project" They don't get the project, the agency and the job seeker is left hanging out to dry. Then, the whole process starts over again for the next potential project.
I have spent 14 years as a specialist recruiter here in Singaopre and I am currently a Finance and HR Manager for a group of 6 companies. My company has recently sent out proposals for 11 government contracts, we are already advertising for an additional 40 staff just in case we get a couple of the Contracts. That's how it works here. It's a crapshoot at best.
Never put all you eggs in one basket.
sms
edited to add:
Additionally, if you think about it from the recruiter perspective (Not saying it's right!) if They have an average of 10 jobs a day (average) and they shotgun 10 CV's to each that's 100 CV's a day. Now, even if you assume that the clients get back - most do not - the recruiter has to call/chase down 100 people a day to let them know that they were not successful along with any other attendant questions that they may have to field from the job seeker...... Lets assume that each call takes 5 minutes......That's 8 hours and 20 minutes! In the local vernacular: Now How?
When to find the next 100 candidates to send?
