Dilemma - accept job offer or further studies

to the above post...

not sure wat kind of librarians you are thinking of... but some librarians do need a deg or even master and above... and they are quite well paid (not fantastic but decent).



Taken from NUS library:

Your responsibilities may include:
- Providing advanced reference support to users accessing resources
and services
- Liaising closely with faculty and students through outreach activities
- Identifying information resources to enhance our outstanding
collections
- Designing and delivering innovative information literacy programs
directly or through the NUS learning management system
- Providing online access to digital and physical collections

Requirements :

University degree and/or a postgraduate qualification in library and information management
Excellent communication and interpersonal skills
A strong service orientation
An ability to adapt to and embrace change
Sound organisational, problem solving and time management skills

Originally Posted by Brian

You will probably not like to hear what I say, but here goes my honest opinion.

There is a huge mismatch between what you say you are interested in doing and what you intend to study.

Organizational psychologist – Not going to happen, companies will not take in some engineering guy who just happen to spend 1 or 2 years studying some masters overseas. If you look at most organizational psychologist out there, they are pretty much very well established professionals with >15 years experience in a related field.

Counsellor – Possible, this is one avenue that studying that masters might help, but do note that it is likely you will end up in either some stat board subsidiary or NGO or VWO which means limited pay and long working hours. Think through carefully first.

Training – Very much an administrative and lowly paid role taken up by at most some generic bachelor’s degree / diploma with experience, you are just wasting money and time to get a Masters in order to do such menial jobs. Most HR folks in training are either ladies with very little interest in climbing the career ladder or old uncles relaxing for retirement.

Organization Effectiveness / Learning & Development etc – Specialized and highly paid roles that are very hard to break into. People who get there are either young high potentials / management trainees who are recruited by mega MNCs (only mega companies can afford to pay for such roles) or high performing mid career HR folks who have chalked up many years of experience in either operations HR or training.

By the time you finish your masters, you will be a early/mid 30s guy without any stellar academic or internship records and largely irrelevant previous work experience, chances for you to get into HR specialist role is very very slim as it is too competitive.

Then we go to your other interest, that is “information science” (whatever that means), you mentioned 3 jobs librarian/archivist/data analyst.

Librarian – Pretty much a job taken up by diploma and below, you will just end up over qualified

Archivist – Possible, but I do not see how a masters in psychology helps. Might as well try and apply with what you have now

Data analyst – I assume its just generic junior level data crunching for either private/public sector. Again you might as well try and apply with what you have now.

dude, don't spread misinformation and sound as if you know a lot. your post is littered with sweeping statements and fallacies.

some glaring ones:

librarians are diploma jobs and below? please educate yourself before spouting such nonsense.

organisational psychologists are not restricted to >15 year professionals. go log on to moo's career page and look at the opening. anyway OP isn't 'some engineering guy', i'm doubting your basic comprehension skills now. ministries like msf and mindef also hire psychologists and while i'm not sure about fresh grad prospects it's definitely not restricted to >15 years exp or more.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

go log on to moo's career page and look at the opening.

apologies for typo, i meant MOE.

what a piece of crappy negative thinking sheet.

as long as ur determine everything also can. it is negative ppl like u forever will be doing low level jobs scared this scared that.

Originally Posted by Brian

You will probably not like to hear what I say, but here goes my honest opinion.

There is a huge mismatch between what you say you are interested in doing and what you intend to study.

Organizational psychologist – Not going to happen, companies will not take in some engineering guy who just happen to spend 1 or 2 years studying some masters overseas. If you look at most organizational psychologist out there, they are pretty much very well established professionals with >15 years experience in a related field.

Counsellor – Possible, this is one avenue that studying that masters might help, but do note that it is likely you will end up in either some stat board subsidiary or NGO or VWO which means limited pay and long working hours. Think through carefully first.

Training – Very much an administrative and lowly paid role taken up by at most some generic bachelor’s degree / diploma with experience, you are just wasting money and time to get a Masters in order to do such menial jobs. Most HR folks in training are either ladies with very little interest in climbing the career ladder or old uncles relaxing for retirement.

Organization Effectiveness / Learning & Development etc – Specialized and highly paid roles that are very hard to break into. People who get there are either young high potentials / management trainees who are recruited by mega MNCs (only mega companies can afford to pay for such roles) or high performing mid career HR folks who have chalked up many years of experience in either operations HR or training.

By the time you finish your masters, you will be a early/mid 30s guy without any stellar academic or internship records and largely irrelevant previous work experience, chances for you to get into HR specialist role is very very slim as it is too competitive.

Then we go to your other interest, that is “information science” (whatever that means), you mentioned 3 jobs librarian/archivist/data analyst.

Librarian – Pretty much a job taken up by diploma and below, you will just end up over qualified

Archivist – Possible, but I do not see how a masters in psychology helps. Might as well try and apply with what you have now

Data analyst – I assume its just generic junior level data crunching for either private/public sector. Again you might as well try and apply with what you have now.

librarians are one of the most prestigious jobs, i know of someone who only got in after getting a phd as for psychologist many are willing to take in fresh grads.

poster on top obviously talking rubbish.

Originally Posted by stonehallow

My current situation: local uni grad (second upper hons), regret choice of degree, employed in a horrible job I dread going to most days

Been job hunting for around 6 months plus, but little luck. So thought of going to do a Masters to open more options for myself and hopefully can enter a field I'm more interested in, as I have little passion for the industry related to my bachelors degree.

But earlier today I received a job offer where the job scope, environment and work-life balance is an improvement from my current job. Quite decent, but it's still something I'd be tolerating rather than enjoying. But now I'm wondering whether I should decline the offer and go study, so that in the long term I have the chance to be more fulfilled. I'm male, so I did NS, not very young anymore, and I think if I want to try a career switch it has to be now.

Though there's the fear that studying Masters, though enjoyable and personally fulfilling to me, might not guarantee a job, and it's a huge time and money investment. Maybe it's better to just take the offer and play safe.

What do you guys think?

ps. Assume I can't work and study as I'm the Masters degree I'm considering is at an overseas university, also I'm not rushing to get married or buy house/car or anything like that...

Just go & study something you like, no point wasting time on some cmi lousy job. Most people are studying masters now, bachelor degree no selling point.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

librarians are one of the most prestigious jobs, i know of someone who only got in after getting a phd as for psychologist many are willing to take in fresh grads.

poster on top obviously talking rubbish.

here's some additional info if threadstarter wants to find out more about being a librarian
://musingsaboutlibrarianship.blogspot.sg/
://ramblinglibrarian.blogspot.sg/ (read his older posts)

maybe you can consider market research jobs? there are positions with a lot of number crunching and a communications background is always a plus.

Librarians are seen as a proper professionals with proper qualifications and pay that are higher than accountants / actuaries. Experienced librarians with 6-8 yrs experience can easily make 220k+ a year.

Originally Posted by Brian

You will probably not like to hear what I say, but here goes my honest opinion.

There is a huge mismatch between what you say you are interested in doing and what you intend to study.

Organizational psychologist – Not going to happen, companies will not take in some engineering guy who just happen to spend 1 or 2 years studying some masters overseas. If you look at most organizational psychologist out there, they are pretty much very well established professionals with >15 years experience in a related field.

Counsellor – Possible, this is one avenue that studying that masters might help, but do note that it is likely you will end up in either some stat board subsidiary or NGO or VWO which means limited pay and long working hours. Think through carefully first.

Training – Very much an administrative and lowly paid role taken up by at most some generic bachelor’s degree / diploma with experience, you are just wasting money and time to get a Masters in order to do such menial jobs. Most HR folks in training are either ladies with very little interest in climbing the career ladder or old uncles relaxing for retirement.

Organization Effectiveness / Learning & Development etc – Specialized and highly paid roles that are very hard to break into. People who get there are either young high potentials / management trainees who are recruited by mega MNCs (only mega companies can afford to pay for such roles) or high performing mid career HR folks who have chalked up many years of experience in either operations HR or training.

By the time you finish your masters, you will be a early/mid 30s guy without any stellar academic or internship records and largely irrelevant previous work experience, chances for you to get into HR specialist role is very very slim as it is too competitive.

Then we go to your other interest, that is “information science” (whatever that means), you mentioned 3 jobs librarian/archivist/data analyst.

Librarian – Pretty much a job taken up by diploma and below, you will just end up over qualified

Archivist – Possible, but I do not see how a masters in psychology helps. Might as well try and apply with what you have now

Data analyst – I assume its just generic junior level data crunching for either private/public sector. Again you might as well try and apply with what you have now.

Obviously another idiot making sweeping statements and fallacies