ST Online Story: Don’t just look for paper qualifications…(ST 3 July)
Online Story
Don’t just look for paper qualifications – what about work experience and transferable skills?
I REFER to Tuesday’s letter by Mr Gilbert Goh, ‘Help Singaporeans stay home by helping the over-40s’.
I agree with his comments about the lack of quality work-life here.� When I started work in the early 1980s, work was fun because everyone in the office looked forward to after-office activities such as squash, badminton and bowling, and weekend picnics with colleagues organised by the office recreation club. It was one big family in the office environment.
Fast forward to the 1990s, when employers were more demanding but still ‘treasured’ staff by giving more bonuses if profits were good and implemented pay freezes only if business was poor.
But the new millennium 2000 has changed the working landscape and working 24/7 for one’s employer is the norm, with retrenchment and hire-and-fire rampant. Forget recreation and family-life activities which the Government has advocated to increase the population.
Many baby-boomers born in the 1950s and 1960s are non-graduates but worked their way to the top through sheer determination and hard work. Many were managers or heads of department, managing younger colleagues who were graduates. However, due to the recent global downturn, many have lost their jobs and are unable to find meaningful employment because of their lack of paper qualifications.
I had worked in the financial sector for the past 30 years and was retrenched in November last year. Because I am a non-degree holder, I have not been successful in my job search. Can someone without a degree with more than 20 years’ experience be inferior to fresh graduates or graduates with less work experience?
My sister, who emigrated to Canada more than 20 years ago, is urging me to migrate there with my family as she feels my experience will be an asset.
However, I would still like to call Singapore home and would not consider emigrating unless life is really so unbearable for older people in the 45-55 age group.
How can someone who earned more than $10,000 a month less than a year ago with over 20 years’ work experience suddenly be unable to find a job, even if he is prepared to take a 50 to 70 per cent pay cut? Why don’t employers look at one’s transferable skills, rather than a piece of paper that says you are a graduate?
Roland Ang
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