Sick of seeing "Singaporeans and PRs need only apply"!

[dumuthi]

Well I have the same story. My husband was offered a job here & chose to come with him leaving behind a very good job at my country. My husband is a doctor & hes been busy ever since we got here. It is frustrating to stay at home doing nothing with a my qualification. Its been 5 months & Im begining to loose hope.

[Strong Eagle]

Well I have the same story. My husband was offered a job here & chose to come with him leaving behind a very good job at my country. My husband is a doctor & hes been busy ever since we got here. It is frustrating to stay at home doing nothing with a my qualification. Its been 5 months & Im begining to loose hope.

It is my (unqualified and unvetted) opinion that expats will have a hard time getting a job with a local company in Singapore unless it is a local company that interfaces with MNC's as part of their business. This could include printers, event companies, and other service and supply companies who see the benefit in having an expat as the front woman in catering to an MNC.

Otherwise, you're looking to break into the same network as all other expats who want to be here... trailing or otherwise. You do have the advantage of being able to build networks... and for the trailing spouse, the volunteer network will be the best to start. AWA, AAS, FOM... to name but three gives one the opportunity to meet other people whose spouse are working and hiring.

[carolinemain]

Great, thanks very much for your advice. I'll try the volunteer route.

[mauvecloud]

*sighs*

assumptions of entitlement

i'm still trying to find a highly qualified BUT non-caucasian person bitching about being sick of seeing "[Insert western nation citizenship] and PRs need only apply" advertisements

[ProvenPracticalFlexible]

*sighs*

assumptions of entitlement

i'm still trying to find a highly qualified BUT non-caucasian person bitching about being sick of seeing "[Insert western nation citizenship] and PRs need only apply" advertisements

I guarantee that you'll have better luck finding those at www.[Insert_western_nation]expats.com sites.

by the way why is race again relevant to this?

[mauvecloud]

really? why then not point me to a specific link instead?


as to your other question,

we dont like to think it is, but race is almost always relevant, because it is often tied to cultural background. cultural background is almost always tied to outlook on education and life.

i tend to think that non-caucasians, sorry, will "people from less developed countries" do? have less sense of self-entitlement (and also less sense of self-empowerment on the other side of the coin) than "people from more developed countries."

therefore i wonder about the likelihood of a bangladeshi trailing [sorry, often female] spouse lamenting about the difficulty of getting employed in Australia. In a similarly (again please excuse me, but to me it does sound) arrogant tone as the one used by the original poster.

that's all.

[carolinemain]

It's not necessarily to do with race though - I am mainly talking about Permanent Residency and wondered why that was so important...Not that you have to be born and bred in Singapore, but you have to be a PR. That was my initial query.

[Saint]

It's not necessarily to do with race though - I am mainly talking about Permanent Residency and wondered why that was so important...Not that you have to be born and bred in Singapore, but you have to be a PR. That was my initial query.

Employing a PR doesn't require an employer to apply for a EP or justify to the MOM why they should employ the person. Simply really

[sundaymorningstaple]

As saint said, with Permanent Residency, MOM is now not playing dog. ICA gives you PR and once you have that, MOM does not enter into the equation at all thereby allowing you to deal directly with the employer as MOM is not the final arbitrator any more. You have the same rights as a Citizen has in the employment market.

[ksl]

It's not necessarily to do with race though - I am mainly talking about Permanent Residency and wondered why that was so important...Not that you have to be born and bred in Singapore, but you have to be a PR. That was my initial query.

Since you have only been here 3 or 4 weeks, and are dependant on your husbands EP it would be highly unlikely that you would get PR anyway. Unless your husband was already PR, which I believe on EP Q1 pass is minimum 2 years waiting the last time i looked.

I think all countries have similar restrictions to protect the workforce, the PR system allows you to look for other positions without any restrictions, and possibly take on 2 jobs.

However there are still restrictions for Singaporeans and PR's and that would amount to language barriers, English and Mandarin being the main two business languages, and to be quite honest all the meetings i have been to have been conducted in Mandarin, if dealing with Chinese and not English.

Though they can conduct business in English if they are forced too, it's a matter of feeling comfortable in communication with a language, and almost always the mother tongue will be chosen and not English.

My own Mandarin skills are mostly on listening and not speaking. Though my belief is that most Companies hope they can be more cost effective employing Mandarin speakers that speak English, than English employees that cannot speak Mandarin.

But my thoughts are on productivity and i would always take that into account, Local companies want it all, and do not want to pay for it, so you may end up with a 72 hr week, for 1500k a month Not many westerners would be happy about that and Singaporeans would run a mile to get away from it, if it involved hard graft!

The other downfall is that property management staff are kept to a minimum, because most agents are working on a self employed basis and are not employed, event organisers are also outsourced for leasing space out, so the industry is probably very different to the Country you are from.

[movingtospore]

I am relatively new here - trailing spouse as well. I've casually applied for a couple of jobs but haven't started really looking yet.

But for what it's worth, from my observations, I think a different tact may be needed for job hunting here. It's an entrepreneurial city - is there a business opportunity you can fulfill? Also, this is Asia, as un-Asian at is seems on the surface. Business is done on relationship. So when I do start seriously job hunting my strategy will be to go out and meet people, expats and locals, and then start looking for a job. I believe there are always opportunities, even for us trailing spouses, if we can be creative and be willing to change our approach. But I think if we try to job hunt the same way we would at home we will indeed be out of luck.

Just my 2c.

[isabo80]

It's not necessarily to do with race though - I am mainly talking about Permanent Residency and wondered why that was so important...Not that you have to be born and bred in Singapore, but you have to be a PR. That was my initial query.

I came to Singapore 8 months ago, I decided to move here on my own initiative because I'm not married and it took me 4 months to find a job after many interviews...so I can say I'm lucky, even if my current job is not the one I've always dreamt of
What I've been told during some of my interviews is that each company has "quotas" of foreigners they are entitled to hire, depending on the field they are working in...so I think it really does not depend upon recruiters or companies and you should not get upset but just keep on trying.
Singapore is a very friendly country with foreigners if compared to many other countries. Most countries in Europe are not friendly at all with foreigners who come and look for a job and I was impressed when I moved to Singapore and saw people of different country/race/religion/culture living toghether and respecting each others...so I really don't think we should complain about this. Good luck!!

[intellectualsmuse]

Hi all! Am going to be in Singapore on a DP too, next month and from the above posts does seem like will have to brace myself for a tough time getting a job! I have a post grad degree in Mktg with 2 and a half yrs of work ex with a Telecom firm. Just wondering if firms differentiate based on expats edu qual or is PR status/having an EPass all that matters?

[irvine]

intellectualmuse, by all means, try for jobs. You got good stuff to offer!

Another thing about jobs is, it might get a tad better after the Chinese New Year. This is due to the bonus payout before CNY for some companies, and some employees would resign shortly after that. And therefore, the vacancies to fill.

[sundaymorningstaple]

What I've been told during some of my interviews is that each company has "quotas" of foreigners they are entitled to hire, depending on the field they are working in...so I think it really does not depend upon recruiters or companies and you should not get upset but just keep on trying.

That is only applicable in the case of S Pass or Work Permits. There are no quotas on EP or Q passes.

sms