Internship questions

[fifthele]

Hi folks, thanks for taking the time to read this, I really hope you can help me a little...

I am a UK masters student and I have been offered the opportunity to take up a 3 month internship in Singapore with a local design agency. I am struggling to work out which visa I need to apply for.

The most likely seems to be the WHP - however the university I am enrolled with is not in the top 200 as requested by the MoM website.

My questions are these: Does anyone know how strict this requirement is? Does anyone have any first or second hand experience of the system? Also, if this is not the best plan for an intern looking for a visa what is?

Thanks so much in advance for any advice you can send my way. Anything is welcome, I am really struggling to find good sources of information and the company in Singapore seem to be as confused as I.

Thanks!

[JR8]

I am surprised that you are expected to determine the answer to this yourself, when local HR are unable to themselves. Talk about having it back to front! Or maybe it is a test of initiative, although I doubt it.

http://www.singaporeinternship.com/inte ... ls-interns
Have a look at the above. It's five years old but might give you some leads. Check out those leads, and if they don't help then come back here and we'll try another route.

Good luck, and welcome to the forum.

[fifthele]

Hi, thanks for your help.

They've changed the requirements for WHP in Dec 2012 so I don't think there's much advice around since the changes! The MoM website states that only 2000 WHPs are accepted at 'any given time', whatever that means!

I think I'll just have to apply for the WHP and see what happens. Do you know if there are any rules with applying for a different pass if you get rejected for one?

Thanks again

[JR8]

The figure of 2,000 is a quota. You'll find such things in many aspects of life in SG. In this case it means the government can see no net benefit to SG of there being more than that number of interns in-country at any time.

I'm not aware of any alternate avenues that are open to you. But HR/work visas is not my forte as it is for some others here, so take that as my rather uninformed 2c worth.

[ripplevan]

Since the design house already offered a letter, you should just apply through MOM. Such cases are usually handled on individually independent of each other. In most cases, your nationality and your university results should play a bigger part in the approval process.