Relocating from India

[geeta123]

Hi All! Need your help for deciding on taking up a job offer in Singapore.
I am an Indian and have received a job offer to work in a technical help desk in Singapore. It's a 5 working days and in rotation shift kind of a job. Accommodation (including deposit) and daily transport have to be borne by me. Salary is offered as 3500 SGD.

Does this offer deserve to be taken? This is my first time to work in Singapore and till date I have worked in India only. I am 31 years old and unmarried. My work experience is of 8+ years. I need to focus on savings also (Not initially after landing in Singapore but later on at least).

Moreover, is Singapore safe for staying alone?

Can you please guide me on these points?
I am looking forward to hearing from you really very soon.

Thanks for your time for reading my post.

[x9200]

Hi All! Need your help for deciding on taking up a job offer in Singapore.
I am an Indian and have received a job offer to work in a technical help desk in Singapore. It's a 5 working days and in rotation shift kind of a job. Accommodation (including deposit) and daily transport have to be borne by me. Salary is offered as 3500 SGD.

Does this offer deserve to be taken? This is my first time to work in Singapore and till date I have worked in India only. I am 31 years old and unmarried. My work experience is of 8+ years. I need to focus on savings also (Not initially after landing in Singapore but later on at least).

Moreover, is Singapore safe for staying alone?
Can you please guide me on these points?
I am looking forward to hearing from you really very soon.

Thanks for your time for reading my post.

Surely it is not the same level of safety as it is in India but don't worry, if you are going to save anything you will not be staying alone.

[Wd40]

What kind of technical help desk role is it? Is it some very basic PC troubleshooting kind of job or something more high end? You say you have 8 years experience, I would imagine you should be more like an assistant manager or manager or QA manager kind of role at that experience.

3.5k is a low end salary and if you planning to rent the whole house on your own then you wont have any savings and may run into cash flow issues regularly. However if you are renting a room in a HDB then you should be able to save 1.5k - 2k a month.

Is it worth taking? You are the best judge. Do consider; your career, savings, hardships of moving to a foreign country and put it into perspective.

Cheers!

[sundaymorningstaple]

But you will be safe on the buses here.

[Wd40]

But you will be safe on the buses here.

+1. Safetywise especially if you are a female, this is one of the safest place on earth. In fact the men here are more in trouble, if they get too close to a female

But seriously, I wouldnt worry if my wife took a cab like late at night to come back home. On the other hand though, your employer can overwork you knowing that safety is not an issue to go back late Also you cannot make excuses here that you are late to office because you got stuck in a traffic jam, like you can do in India

[geeta123]

What kind of technical help desk role is it? Is it some very basic PC troubleshooting kind of job or something more high end? You say you have 8 years experience, I would imagine you should be more like an assistant manager or manager or QA manager kind of role at that experience.

3.5k is a low end salary and if you planning to rent the whole house on your own then you wont have any savings and may run into cash flow issues regularly. However if you are renting a room in a HDB then you should be able to save 1.5k - 2k a month.

Is it worth taking? You are the best judge. Do consider; your career, savings, hardships of moving to a foreign country and put it into perspective.

Cheers!

Hello, thank you very much for the reply. The job is of L1 level troubleshooting. Till date, I have worked up to the designation of associate manager and I can understand that it would be surprising for others to see me considering this job opportunity. Actually, the main reason is I want to have an experience of having worked in Singapore. In India, I have worked up to L2 support but somewhere I felt that I still havent got the right opportunity where I can have some growth in the career.

As this offer comes with the onsite opportunity and technical work and I was told that I will be saving up to 2000 SGD per month after the necessary expenditures, I was putting serious thoughts to take it up.

But seems I need to do some more home work before taking up the decision.

[geeta123]

Hi All! Need your help for deciding on taking up a job offer in Singapore.
I am an Indian and have received a job offer to work in a technical help desk in Singapore. It's a 5 working days and in rotation shift kind of a job. Accommodation (including deposit) and daily transport have to be borne by me. Salary is offered as 3500 SGD.

Does this offer deserve to be taken? This is my first time to work in Singapore and till date I have worked in India only. I am 31 years old and unmarried. My work experience is of 8+ years. I need to focus on savings also (Not initially after landing in Singapore but later on at least).

Moreover, is Singapore safe for staying alone?
Can you please guide me on these points?
I am looking forward to hearing from you really very soon.

Thanks for your time for reading my post.

Surely it is not the same level of safety as it is in India but don't worry, if you are going to save anything you will not be staying alone.

Hello, thank you for your reply. Actually, since I don't know a person in Singapore whom I can trust enough to make my roommate, I was thinking of taking up a small room to stay alone and then to team up with someone to share the a bigger apartment etc in future. I am not sure whether my thinking is right.

[geeta123]

But you will be safe on the buses here.

+1. Safetywise especially if you are a female, this is one of the safest place on earth. In fact the men here are more in trouble, if they get too close to a female

But seriously, I wouldnt worry if my wife took a cab like late at night to come back home. On the other hand though, your employer can overwork you knowing that safety is not an issue to go back late Also you cannot make excuses here that you are late to office because you got stuck in a traffic jam, like you can do in India

Hello, thank you for your reply. I am really feeling happy to read about the positive response regarding the safety in Singapore

[Wd40]

Hi All! Need your help for deciding on taking up a job offer in Singapore.
I am an Indian and have received a job offer to work in a technical help desk in Singapore. It's a 5 working days and in rotation shift kind of a job. Accommodation (including deposit) and daily transport have to be borne by me. Salary is offered as 3500 SGD.

Does this offer deserve to be taken? This is my first time to work in Singapore and till date I have worked in India only. I am 31 years old and unmarried. My work experience is of 8+ years. I need to focus on savings also (Not initially after landing in Singapore but later on at least).

Moreover, is Singapore safe for staying alone?
Can you please guide me on these points?
I am looking forward to hearing from you really very soon.

Thanks for your time for reading my post.

Surely it is not the same level of safety as it is in India but don't worry, if you are going to save anything you will not be staying alone.

Hello, thank you for your reply. Actually, since I don't know a person in Singapore whom I can trust enough to make my roommate, I was thinking of taking up a small room to stay alone and then to team up with someone to share the a bigger apartment etc in future. I am not sure whether my thinking is right.

You wont get a room with an seperate main entrance. There are no low cost 1 bedroom houses in Singapore. However you can get a complete room for yourself within a 2 or 3 bedroom house. But dont worry. There are lots of Indians here and there are lots of Indian girls working here sharing accomodation with other Indian girls. Safety shouldnt be an issue, but getting used to sharing accomodation is something that you will need to get used to if you have never done it before.

Apart from that one thing that I would suggest though is read your employment contract carefully. If your employer is a big reputed MNC then it shouldnt be a problem. But if it is a local vendor, read it very very carefully. Most small time vendors here are crooks, there will be very tough exit clauses. For eg, I know a vendor here who has a clause that you need to pay 5-6K SGD towards recruitment costs if you quit the company within 2 years. And here they will enforce those clauses in case you quit early, unlike India.

So just in case things dont work out, make sure you can go back without much losses.

If you do have such clauses, then I would say ditch that offer, Singapore is seriously not worth it to get that desperate.

Another thing about small time vendors, there are high chances that they suddenly cancel the offer stating that the client has done a hiring freeze, that too as late as hours before you board your flight or even after landing here. They could also postpone the joining date by several months. They wouldnt give a damn about the fact that someone is packing up and coming all the way from another country. I hope such things dont happen, but they have happened in the past with friends I know, so just be prepared for such eventualities, if you are dealing with small time vendors.

[x9200]

Hello, thank you for your reply. Actually, since I don't know a person in Singapore whom I can trust enough to make my roommate, I was thinking of taking up a small room to stay alone and then to team up with someone to share the a bigger apartment etc in future. I am not sure whether my thinking is right.

I was suggesting a room in a shared apartment. With this level of salary you will not be able to rent any of the apartments alone as they start at around 2k. For a single room you will need to pay something between 0.8 to 1.5k (lower but decent end). In that sense you will never be alone because it will be a shared apartment. Single room apartments are practically non-existent in Singapore or they are highly priced.

[vishalgupta2]

But you will be safe on the buses here.

Hey SMS, I appreciate the way you can indicate things so subtly.

[geeta123]

Surely it is not the same level of safety as it is in India but don't worry, if you are going to save anything you will not be staying alone.

Hello, thank you for your reply. Actually, since I don't know a person in Singapore whom I can trust enough to make my roommate, I was thinking of taking up a small room to stay alone and then to team up with someone to share the a bigger apartment etc in future. I am not sure whether my thinking is right.

You wont get a room with an seperate main entrance. There are no low cost 1 bedroom houses in Singapore. However you can get a complete room for yourself within a 2 or 3 bedroom house. But dont worry. There are lots of Indians here and there are lots of Indian girls working here sharing accomodation with other Indian girls. Safety shouldnt be an issue, but getting used to sharing accomodation is something that you will need to get used to if you have never done it before.

Apart from that one thing that I would suggest though is read your employment contract carefully. If your employer is a big reputed MNC then it shouldnt be a problem. But if it is a local vendor, read it very very carefully. Most small time vendors here are crooks, there will be very tough exit clauses. For eg, I know a vendor here who has a clause that you need to pay 5-6K SGD towards recruitment costs if you quit the company within 2 years. And here they will enforce those clauses in case you quit early, unlike India.

So just in case things dont work out, make sure you can go back without much losses.

If you do have such clauses, then I would say ditch that offer, Singapore is seriously not worth it to get that desperate.

Another thing about small time vendors, there are high chances that they suddenly cancel the offer stating that the client has done a hiring freeze, that too as late as hours before you board your flight or even after landing here. They could also postpone the joining date by several months. They wouldnt give a damn about the fact that someone is packing up and coming all the way from another country. I hope such things dont happen, but they have happened in the past with friends I know, so just be prepared for such eventualities, if you are dealing with small time vendors.

Hi, thanks for the advice. Fortunately, there is no such a clause mentioned as of now. Moreover, it will be really great if I can get a shared accommodation within my budget. Sharing the accommodation will not really be a problem for me as long as I can get a complete room within the house.

As for landing into the trouble by the vendor, I really hope that it does not happen with me as I will be quitting my current job if I take up this Singapore offer

[sundaymorningstaple]

But you will be safe on the buses here.

Hey SMS, I appreciate the way you can indicate things so subtly.

Subtle as a brickbat, yeah? Farmboys tend to call a spade a spade, but I thought I did good that time.......

[ecureilx]

Another thing about small time vendors, there are high chances that they suddenly cancel the offer stating that the client has done a hiring freeze, that too as late as hours before you board your flight or even after landing here. They could also postpone the joining date by several months. They wouldnt give a damn about the fact that someone is packing up and coming all the way from another country. ...

Come End of Feb / March, I hear some dark clouds maybe gathering here .. and your prophecy may come true ..

[geeta123]

Hello, thank you for your reply. Actually, since I don't know a person in Singapore whom I can trust enough to make my roommate, I was thinking of taking up a small room to stay alone and then to team up with someone to share the a bigger apartment etc in future. I am not sure whether my thinking is right.

I was suggesting a room in a shared apartment. With this level of salary you will not be able to rent any of the apartments alone as they start at around 2k. For a single room you will need to pay something between 0.8 to 1.5k (lower but decent end). In that sense you will never be alone because it will be a shared apartment. Single room apartments are practically non-existent in Singapore or they are highly priced.

Hi, thanks for the advice. In case I happen to take up this offer, I will look for a room in the shared apartment, as suggested.