I was a fresh graduate last year, didn't had much problems deciding on entering the private sector.

Speaking from someone who is just average and from a humble background (2nd upper honours, local uni), I feel that most fresh graduates these days place too much emphasis on work-life balance. If you place a lot of emphasis on work-life balance, more often than not civil sector will suit you better because you desire routine and work to you really is not all that important in your life at this stage. Overall, I feel that you yourself have already form an inclination towards public sector, but do note I also have fair amount of friends who OT quite a bit.

I am from the private sector so I will share with you some of my experience and thoughts but bear in mind it would be pretty biased since I made the decision to go private pretty easily. Also, I'm strictly speaking from an average point of view as I view myself as average and all my friends are pretty average too. There is bound to be that one talented dude with numerous case competition wins or that one dude with an Ivy League degree that will just conflict with what I am about to say.

Firstly, remuneration. It is clear cut that public sector usually offers much higher remuneration than private when starting fresh, probably as a way to entice more people to work for the government. It works pretty well and I did question myself a lot of times why didn't I just went public in the first place when I first joined my current company. Fast forward 9 months later, I have now already surpassed almost all my public sector peers in terms of monthly base salary and will only jump faster and more exponentially than any of my public sector friends.

Secondly, career progression. If you have a rough idea of what you want to do, what industry to move into, private sector is a much faster way of accelerating this progress. You could start off in a fresh position in company A, move on to assistant manager position in company B, move on to senior manager position in company C, all of which company A/B/C are all competitors in the private sector. This is clearly not that feasible in the public sector.

Thirdly, all important work-life balance. I suggest you drop the idea of having work-life balance unless your family is rich, or if you have an idea to get rich fast. Better buck up to lock in your market worth as soon as possible. The general trend is public sector got more work-life balance, private sector don't have as much. For reference, if I only work 10 hours a day I am very contented already. 60 hours working week does not happen often, but it does creep in once a month or so. Just have to grit your teeth through it.

Fourthly, and a rather biased point but, private sector is really rather dynamic. Anything can happen because it really does not much red tape. You work with people from everywhere and it's just really good exposure I feel. I just think, it's good to dive into something more of the "unknown" rather than just going straight into public and knowing more or less what's gonna happen everyday.

That being said, I must say the variance of work satisfaction in private sector really is wide and it really depends on the company and the job you land yourself into. So do lots of research and don't take up an offer unless you really want it. You yourself should know by now which sector you really want to go into already.