To all UOL sim students,

My background, bcs in acc and finance, fch, UOL SIM. I landed a job last year in the finance/banking industry for 4k flat. That obviously did not come with just my SIM results.

I interned in every holidays/vacations i had during poly and university. My last year in uni, i was juggling studying and internship at the same time which allowed me to intern for an extended period of time.

My advice to all uol grads/ students if you are looking to clinch a decent job, it doesnt come naturally, you have to put in the effort to achieve that. I will not deny or glorify the private degree, as you should expect, the stigma is real in the industry for private unis. As an individual, I would deem myself a confident individual and do well in interviews; the only difficulty is clinching an interview in itself. Im able to leverage on my internship/contract experiences and my contributions during my stint to prove myself that i am worthy of their hire.

If you are an uol grad that didnt do much internship at all and have troubles looking for a job, I am sorry to say that your competition is harder than it already is. The only corrective action u have at this moment is to not expect so much in a job and to just start somewhere. With effort and meaningful value, money will naturally come afterwards.

If you have sufficient internship/relevant experience, well done, you won 20% of the battle to go above the majority private uni students that were too lazy to do anything with their time during their holidays. 70% of the battle now is to clinch an interview, be selective and try to focus your scope on sth related to your experience so that firms believe you stand a chance. Draft a cover letter. Imo, it is easy to draft a cover letter if you want the job bad enough; if it is difficult for u to do a cover letter, you know what it means.

Clinching the interview, DO NOT portray yourself in a way that speaks lowly of your internship experience (even though it may be), speak of yourself as an equal footing to the contributions of a full time employee. Describe your relevant experience and how it will benefit the interviewing employer. SPEAK CONFIDENTLY. Show that youre an analytical and logical person.

My job hunting experience was definitely not a pleasant one as you may or may not have expected. I started job hunting ever since November as an undergraduate, interviews only started coming in in Feb-May. Had to juggle between interview schedules and exam period, that was one of the challenges as well. There were 2-3months of no replies even though i put in so much effort in finding and applying. So my point here, is to keep on applying and not give in.

I will not entertain any questions that will digress about my background/industry/company i belong to. I will also understand and expect ppl who doubt my post content, id just say, my post were not for them to read, it is however, for incoming/ongoing/graduating uol students.
I would not have spend the effort to type this post just for some pointless purpose. I hope this post help the relevant parties that are worried.

- Graduate2018