A few days off this site and the discourse has extended interestingly to the area of project management.
Read through some of the comments to my amusement but I also cannot help but shudder at the thought of what sort of people ST hires if these are the mental framework of their staffs.

What a Project Manager Can Do
“Everyday just meeting. Worrying about deadline but can't affect the outcome”
“Anyway you cannot do much as a project manager except to pray for no problems.”
“You no need to know anything about the project or your whatever product as long as your men know their job.”

Precisely why you need experience in performing project management. There are so many more things you can do apart from worrying and praying with a degree paper qualification.
- When the project is conceived with your sales team, you need to access the feasibility of all aspects like technical, operational, material/financial resource-wise, potential profits then create a project charter to convince the management why this project is a GO.
- Manage the capex, calculate the amount of capital and ensure the requested amount suffice to fulfill the project.
- You need to identify your stakeholders and allocate the most suitable person for the role depending on the products/services your project is fulfilling. You cannot get an engineer experienced with electrical engineering to design a mechanical product he/she is unfamiliar with. A degree won’t help if you don’t have the relevant experience. You cannot get designers experienced only with ANSI standards when your customers demand DINS standards.
- You need to work with other stakeholders to exchange personnel if your existing allocated staff is not suitable for your project taking note that this might offend your engineers thus diplomacy is paramount in the communication.
- You need to know when is your critical path going to change or potentially change so you can link up and provide the resources based on the gaps or potential gaps that may arise from the progress of events.
- Keep up the communication between functions so that information pertaining to the responsibilities/operations/product & process characteristics are shared and remain updated. This can help to preempt your different project members of upcoming events and prevent minor element related project stall.
- Know when to change suppliers/vendors.
- Justify the need to extend deadlines
- Take the shot when it is time to talk to management and client if you need an extension of deadline because of justifiable reasons.
- Mitigate the financial losses you can incur and lawsuits you might have to handle when a milestone deadline is breached.
- Explain why the initial capex is insufficient, why additional resources are needed and you need to do it on time to avoid deadline breaches.
- Remain likeable because your teammates usually don’t report to you directly, they also have other PJMGR to deal with and project mates might prioritize work based on how likeable the PJMGR is.
- Possess integrity, good track record and leadership with exemplary communication skills.
- Train up new Project engineers and inspire them to become next generation PJM and expand your organization’s skilled and experienced human resource pool.
Etc…

You basically need to know your products/services, your clients, your suppliers, your departments & your colleagues. I doubt you get these as a degree holding fresh graduate. Therefore I doubt anyone sensible will hire a fresh graduate as a project/program/portfolio manager. So to answer the question that sparked off the discussion, I seriously don’t think ST will be that unwise to place a fresh grad as project managers.

How long do you need to take a PMP
“Yes, 1.5 days is also possible if you want to chiong.”
“You joking bro? 2 weeks? I just need 2 days.”
“With a good degree I think I can get my pmp certificate in 1 day. “

I had a good laugh at these. PMP certificate cannot be completed without a minimum of 3 years
An accelerated course will take 5 full days to complete. Followed by a local test which you must score more 80%. Then you must prepare a written testimony from your employer which proves that you have been in project management as a project engineer role for 3 years for degree holders and 5 years for diploma holders. The reason for more years for diploma holder is because at the same age as a degree holder, diploma holders have more years on the job and statistically more matured in terms of leadership. So more years are expected on the job.

After that, register for a PMP examination from PMI and again score another >80% to pass. The certificate will only be granted if you pass with evidence of your project management responsibilities that fulfills the role. If you fake your credentials, you will be stripped of your certification validity and barred from future PMP exams. Integrity is one of the key requirements of a PJMGR and you can be sure PMI will enforce that. Also, take note of the certificate expiry and remember to go for a re-certification before it expires. The curriculum will change by then so advised to go through the updated course to stay updated and prepared for the exam.

Paper qualifications vs Experience
“A degree is a degree. No amount of experience and knowledge can replace.”
Unfortunately, my friend, you need to understand the truth is just the opposite. No amount of classroom lessons can surpass the effects of learning through personal experience. You get a degree so as to prepare yourself to start somewhere but it is what you accumulate along the way that develop your skills. Your real skills start to develop only when you start working. Companies who limit potentials by promoting base on paper is like telling the public only white men can fly. They certainly haven’t heard about the Tuskegee Airmen. The paper qualification helps you to absorb your lessons faster while your experience accumulates. It does not become something that entitles you to be above reality.

Forsake the entitled mentality that you can only be promoted because you have a degree. Build up the mentality that you can only be promoted when you provide value above your peers to your role and your organization and your process providing that value has been impeccable.

My division previously employed new M1 from other industries as PM. Know nothing about the nature of business, keep insisting on his old ways of doing things. Always insist on doing useless stuff and never follow up on things that customer asked for. Then it became everyone's problem except his.

Also he has no people skills, always got this condescending smirk on his face. He won't discuss, he gave orders. He literally made the whole product team unhappy and given his working style, his requests usually ended up lowest priority or simply forgotten. Then it became everyone's problem but his.

lol dumbass

He is not a dumbass lah. He is just stating a blunt truth thats all.
As a first class honour degree holder fresh grad, no need pmp or experience, don;t say project manager, you can even be a program manager. Able to do the job or not is not important as long as have paper. If you work in those mnc, your experience is more important. Just like the other post said no knowledge on the business, no people skill, so if you don't have what it takes but have paper then go to ST loh...

Good response bro, we know all of these.

Those posts you quoted are quite obviously from someone trolling this thread. Probably an unhappy ex staff being sarcastic.

Talk so much i still beat you with a degree in ST. Continue to dream lah.

Learn to respect others before others will respect you lah...bodoh

What he said is quite true. You can have a diploma holder with 10 years experience losing engineer position to a freshie with degree. Both are capable and doing the same things.

In ST, paper qualification determines how far one can go from the start. There's even differentiation between degree classes. It kind of mirrors the civil service in a way.

Then go get a degree. Period. Point blank.
What's so difficult? All degree holder went thru it

So why diploma feel so entitled that they don't have to go thru the graduation process.
Experience? Everyone can gain experience.

So. Go get the degree and compete.
We are living in a global workforce now. You're not just competing with local degree.
You're competing with China, India, Malaysia, Philippines, USA, Russia, Taiwan...

As the world get smaller due to digital revolution and globalisation.
Its very short sighted for you to claim "experience" is all it takes.

The younger generation already have to compete on so many level.
1) degree in a prestigious uni
2) high starting pay or you're nothing
3) social media presence or you're nothing
4) video editing and if you want passive income or you're nothing
5) tik too presence or you're nothing
6) speak only English? Americans are already branching out and capturing the market of making income from speaking Chinese, Korean, Taiwan, Malaysia. Hell we even have a Japanese on promoting Singapore with more viewers than a Singaporean.
7) investment or you're nothing

So don't come and preach with your victim sad story of "I don't have degree but I have experience"....
Set your goal higher.

In a way this caused shortage of manpower for us. Management wanted degree holders but unwilling to pay. We then suggest getting experienced diploma holders. They refused. We just need engineers, not rocket scientists. Now the team running extremely thin on manpower for so many projects.