Hello everyone,
First of all, I apologize if this question has been asked before and I somehow did not find it on the forum. I tried looking through the all of the threads on "PR, Citizenship, Passes & Visas for Foreigners" posted on 2012 - 2013 but I might have missed some threads.
Without further ado, my backgrounds are as followed:
nationality: Indonesian
ethnicity: Chinese (but I don't speak the language)
age: 25
gender: female
current pass status: Visit Pass (valid until 20/10/2013)
degrees:
- master degree (in chemistry/biochemistry) from an offshore institutes with local campus in Singapore &
- bachelor degree (in pharmacological chemistry) from University of California in US
work experiences:
- 3 yrs as part time interns in academic and commercial lab in US,
- 6 months as full time position (research assistant) in small biotech in US (I left the company because I was offered full industrial scholarship for my master study)
- 8 months internship in a big chemical company in germany (part of my master studies)
I finished my study on April 2013, received my degree on July 2013, and got a job offer on August 2013. The details for the position that I got, the company that hired me, and the EP application processes are as follow:
- company: US-based biotech/pharma MNC with research centres in various countries, publicly traded, quite established (10+ years of existence in US), small-med size
- position: research scientist, entry-level (it is more of a biologist work instead of a chemist work but it's not a very long stretch from my studies and previous experiences)
- salary: 3.3k/month for 13 months. Therefore, I actually get 3.5k/month which qualifies me for S-pass or EP (level Q1)
Notes that might be relevant:
- the company applied for my EP on 2nd Sep (on the application, the HR only mentioned about my full time position in US because the HR thinks that my other experiences in germany and US were irrelevant)
- the company did not apply for both S-pass and EP for me because they do not have any more quota for an S-pass
- my friend (chinese national & chinese ethnicity, female, 22 or 23 year old) who was my classmate in my master program and currently working in this company (she started on June 2013) was rejected when she applied for EP but she got her S-pass within 2 to 4 days.
- another person in the company (malaysian national, male, I don't know his age or ethnicity because I have never met him) who was hired for the same position as myself (same duty, same salary) and was hired on May or June 2013 got his EP within 1 week of application.
I hope that some of you are still with me (sorry for the long narratives, I just want to be as clear as possible) and can answer my questions:
1. Do you personally think that the EP application will be approved because I haven't heard any update from MOM and the HR for one week while my colleague gets their work passes relatively quickly?
2. If I accepted another offer from other company while waiting for the EP application result from the first company and the second company applies for EP or S-pass for me, does the EP application from the first company get cancelled right away?
3. Are there anything that I can do during this waiting time to improve my chances of getting the EP approved (e.g. sending additional documents to MOM, contacting MOM personnel, sending email to MOM, etc.)? I called MOM once asking if they need additional documents and asking if there is any problem with my application and whether it will get approved. As expected, MOM only give vague answers to my questions.
4. If any of you apply for EP (Q1) can you share with me about the length of your waiting time?
5. Should I apply for LTVP as soon as possible or should I wait until early October?
6. If I choose to apply for LTVP, will it be better to ask for sponsorship from my friend (a mother of 2 children, HongKong national, chinese ethnicity, holder of Singapore PR) or from the company that hire me?
7. Will it be problematic to my EP application if I leave Singapore while waiting for the result of my EP application? (If I leave singapore, my 3 months visit pass will be automatically cancelled).
Thank you very much for your time and I hope I can get some feedback from you all.