Career Resource Center for Expatriates-useful or useless?

[danielb]

Guys, so I've been doing some job hunting and thus far I'm pretty disappointed with JobsDB as it seems to be more geared for Singapore natives and PRs. I've also come across the Career Resource Center for Expatriates run by the American Association of Singapore which at first blush seems a lot more attractive. They claim that in addition to job postings, they actively assist their members in all steps of the job application process.

Naturally, though, you can't avail yourself of any of these services until you pay their membership fee. Do any of you guys know anything about this service? Is it worth the money? I'd like to hear from you before I decide to sign up.

[beppi]

I'm pretty disappointed with JobsDB as it seems to be more geared for Singapore natives and PRs.

That's is not a feature of JobsDB, but accurately reflects the Singapore job market in general (there are actually laws demanding that locals must be hired first!). If you want to look for employment here, you have to face this (and other inconvenient) facts.

[Strong Eagle]

I'm a former American Association board member, therefore, my opinions may be biased.

The CRCE is more than just a job board. It initially got started as a way to support trailing spouses but now serves a larger community. In addition to the job board, it offers resume writing workshops, interview technique and training workshops, and a variety of other resources to enable a candidate to do the best marketing job for herself/himself.

As to the job board itself, the employers get low cost to no cost ads, and at any given time may range from only a few ads to hundreds of ads. Whether or not the ads would be relevant to you depends, of course, on what you are looking for... it is doubtful that you'll find a senior VP position here.

Joining the CRCE (and AAS) supports the organization as whole, and helps defray the costs of staff who conduct trainings, recruit employers, etc.

[JustMyself]

I think the Career Resource Center for Expatriates is well worth the membership fee. I was hired at my current job within three weeks of posting my CV on their job board. I didn't take advantage of their various seminars because I lucked into a job so fast, but the staff was very kind and helpful when I went in to get my membership.

As Strong Eagle said there were a wide variety of job listings and some of them were for higher paying positions (I remember seeing one listing for an accountant). My current job is in the knowledge management department of an international law firm, so it is not just small local firms looking at the posted CVs.

Since the employers posting want ads and checking the posted CVs are generally targeting employees who are in Singapore on a Dependent pass, they won't have any problem applying for the Letter of Consent for you with the Ministry of Manpower. If they don't want to bother, they put the PR only flag on the listing, but I didn't see much of that.

My PR friends were shocked that I found a job so fast, so please don't expect immediate results from the job board, but I'm sure it will be helpful tool for your job search. Good luck!

[uscate]

Strong Eagle and Just Myself - thank you for the words of encouragement!

I'm off to Singapore in October, and had just about resigned myself to being unemployed to the 2 years my partner and I are there (his company is still trying to figure out what kind of pass I'll come in on, as we've co-habited for 11 years, but are unmarried). It is great to hear that there may be a prayer of employment (or maybe I can just volunteer for this association, as my background is 25 yrs in HR / staffing, so I could definitely conduct interview / resume workshops....)

In any case, I'll continue to hold onto that glimmer of possibility....

[extraordinaire]

I'm pretty disappointed with JobsDB as it seems to be more geared for Singapore natives and PRs.

That's is not a feature of JobsDB, but accurately reflects the Singapore job market in general (there are actually laws demanding that locals must be hired first!). If you want to look for employment here, you have to face this (and other inconvenient) facts.

I'm with beppi here. I actually found my current job via JobsDB...Not all of the openings are PR/local exclusive, FYI. Expats should really be informed about the "local-first" employment policy, so they wouldn't end up getting too disappointed.

[ecureilx]

beppi and extraordinaire:

You know, the local-first policy was in place for many many years .. as it is in many other countries.

Coincidentally I found my recommendation / supporting letter to MOM by my first Singapore employer, in 1997, where the key words to note where "the work cannot be completed by a Singaporean" "we spent the last six months looking for a local candidate" "within 4 years, we will ensure his knowledge is transferred before sending him back to him home country and establish our presence and promote business there" and "our company is staffed by 120 locals, vs 10 foreigners" and more .. well, except the last one, all of the rest were true, and from the date I was scouted, to the company submitting the EP application, manual in those days, at Lavender Street - was 6 months, and approval took 3 months. Well, the promise of expansion of the company too got lost as the company was a casualty of the Economic crisis and the early stages of the dot com crash.

And it was pretty common for sales people with excellent industry connections to be denied EP, and it was a Firm NO-NO for Accounts / HR / Admin and all .. and I know a few technical sales people who were employed officially as Engineers, though they were simply brought in due to their regional network - including one guy who was well connected from Hawaii to Dubai and all the countries in between .. if they had applied as a sales person the MOM would have rejected the application so fast .. was the excuse to place him as an engineer in MOM's eyes. So was it for renewal - every renewal was like lock down time in the company - and our sister companies, as the bosses feared the EP will be rejected and they used to frantically get the back up persons in place, and once the EP renewal was approved did they breathe easily ..

It was in the succeeding years that things were relaxed, doors / gates opened and now it is very common to see foreigners even doing accounts, HR, Admin, Sales jobs, forget about the whole of the service industry - all of which you couldn't even think of, those days.

I would say 'those days' aren't here .. so well, there is a tendency to specify locals/prs, to avoid the pass issue, it is a far cry from the last 90's when even if the employer wanted, MOM would have chucked the person out.

Things Aint that bad .. says me ..

[sundaymorningstaple]

I see your verbal diarrhea is back with a vengeance!

[ecureilx]

I see your verbal diarrhea is back with a vengeance!

Nope .. just trying to clear the air to those who harp that things are tighter now .. re: MOM

[shunkwugga]

Resurrecting this old one to check and see if this advice still applies. A google search led me here, not many other resources I could find. Plus I've been lurking and meaning to make an account here for a while, so here I am!

Is the $220USD/year fee worth it in 2019? Anyone have any recent experiences with the org?

[shunkwugga]

Well after reading some more on here the consensus seems to be its nigh impossible for an expat to get a job at the moment and I should wait until elections are over. Looks like those are in 2021, and the subscription is only for a year, so Ill pass and look at other countries in the near term. I'll still keep looking on linkedin, I see positions pop up for SG quite a bit on there and its free!

[kp1985]

Well after reading some more on here the consensus seems to be its nigh impossible for an expat to get a job at the moment and I should wait until elections are over. Looks like those are in 2021, and the subscription is only for a year, so Ill pass and look at other countries in the near term. I'll still keep looking on linkedin, I see positions pop up for SG quite a bit on there and its free!

Any idea whthr i hav to be in sg to register, will they allow visitors to register?

[shunkwugga]

Anyone can register.

[abbby]

Someone here did have great success finding a job via www.linkedin.com so those hunting for a job could do some networking.

[PNGMK]

I was one of those Abby. Honestly nothing else beats LI except a direct networked introduction.