MINDEF DXO (All FAQ on it)

Originally Posted by Unregistered

but i thought that mindef is one of the biggest hirers of psychology grads in sg and they have many departments under defence psychology? hoping to join as defence psychologist...hearing this is sad.

i guess u have been out of touch with the job market or a fresh grad

Originally Posted by Unregistered

They are, they probably are the biggest hirers for psychology grads. Second would probably be MOE. But thing is, the supply of psychology grads is just simply too overwhelming. Too many psych grads with too little positions available. If you think about it, there are psych grads coming out of NTU, NUS and SMU. On top of that, almost every single private institute you can think of offers psychology degrees as well. SIM, MDIS, Kaplan, PSB literally all of them.

Hmm i think SMU's degree is a general bachelor of social science rather than a psychology major like NUS or NTU.

Also I guess we can rule out most private university grads except the top performers when it comes to government jobs (no offense, just seems to be the way it is).

So let's say NUS/NTU or recognized overseas US/UK/AUS university degree with second upper honors...still such a dire situation to fight for those psychology jobs?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Hmm i think SMU's degree is a general bachelor of social science rather than a psychology major like NUS or NTU.

Also I guess we can rule out most private university grads except the top performers when it comes to government jobs (no offense, just seems to be the way it is).

So let's say NUS/NTU or recognized overseas US/UK/AUS university degree with second upper honors...still such a dire situation to fight for those psychology jobs?

Yes, it is still a dire fight. Firstly, any bachelor of arts or bachelor of social science degree is considered a general degree. The only specialised degrees are engineering/science or medicine. Meaning B.eng, BBM, BS. The curriculum in all three of the big universities are almost all the same. So none of them are 'ahead' of any other in terms of psych. The only difference would be in NTU where you are directly put into psych whereas in NUS and SMU you take a sem or two to decide your major. But in the end, the number of pysch modules taken are almost similar (except for some NUS grads who do not take the honours year). SMU psych grads have a slight edge if they decide to go into the finance and business jobs but that's not what we're talking about here, we are talking about psych-related jobs.

Private university grads do push the competition. Even if they dont get govt jobs, they still get pte sector jobs, hence pushing out local grads. These local grads then try and move into govt jobs hence creating a competition there. As for overseas university grads, I'd say that they create a lot of competition when they come back as well. It even worse now. Most of the eurozone and Australia are capping their foreign workforce due to a larger right-wing push. So you will see more and more of your peers who went overseas to study coming back for a job. Last time, it wasnt so bad, overseas grads could at least get their first jobs overseas and would only come back(if they chose to do so) when they've racked up some experience. No such luck now.

As an anecdotal evidence. I have two such friends who graduated from NUS FASS without honours this year. That would be in May-June. Both in psych. None have gotten any jobs yet. Not trying to be a fear-monger or anything. But dont just bet on your degree. Ensure that you have certain extra skills to entice your employer into hiring you.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Yes, it is still a dire fight. Firstly, any bachelor of arts or bachelor of social science degree is considered a general degree. The only specialised degrees are engineering/science or medicine. Meaning B.eng, BBM, BS. The curriculum in all three of the big universities are almost all the same. So none of them are 'ahead' of any other in terms of psych. The only difference would be in NTU where you are directly put into psych whereas in NUS and SMU you take a sem or two to decide your major. But in the end, the number of pysch modules taken are almost similar (except for some NUS grads who do not take the honours year). SMU psych grads have a slight edge if they decide to go into the finance and business jobs but that's not what we're talking about here, we are talking about psych-related jobs.

Private university grads do push the competition. Even if they dont get govt jobs, they still get pte sector jobs, hence pushing out local grads. These local grads then try and move into govt jobs hence creating a competition there. As for overseas university grads, I'd say that they create a lot of competition when they come back as well. It even worse now. Most of the eurozone and Australia are capping their foreign workforce due to a larger right-wing push. So you will see more and more of your peers who went overseas to study coming back for a job. Last time, it wasnt so bad, overseas grads could at least get their first jobs overseas and would only come back(if they chose to do so) when they've racked up some experience. No such luck now.

As an anecdotal evidence. I have two such friends who graduated from NUS FASS without honours this year. That would be in May-June. Both in psych. None have gotten any jobs yet. Not trying to be a fear-monger or anything. But dont just bet on your degree. Ensure that you have certain extra skills to entice your employer into hiring you.

ur frens whom have not found jobs, did they only purely look for psych-related jobs or did they also try for semi-related non psych jobs ? (business analyst, admin, etc)

n im sure everyone knows even a degree is not a safe bet anymore after what PM Lee said during his rally speech

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Yes, it is still a dire fight. Firstly, any bachelor of arts or bachelor of social science degree is considered a general degree. The only specialised degrees are engineering/science or medicine. Meaning B.eng, BBM, BS. The curriculum in all three of the big universities are almost all the same. So none of them are 'ahead' of any other in terms of psych. The only difference would be in NTU where you are directly put into psych whereas in NUS and SMU you take a sem or two to decide your major. But in the end, the number of pysch modules taken are almost similar (except for some NUS grads who do not take the honours year). SMU psych grads have a slight edge if they decide to go into the finance and business jobs but that's not what we're talking about here, we are talking about psych-related jobs.

Private university grads do push the competition. Even if they dont get govt jobs, they still get pte sector jobs, hence pushing out local grads. These local grads then try and move into govt jobs hence creating a competition there. As for overseas university grads, I'd say that they create a lot of competition when they come back as well. It even worse now. Most of the eurozone and Australia are capping their foreign workforce due to a larger right-wing push. So you will see more and more of your peers who went overseas to study coming back for a job. Last time, it wasnt so bad, overseas grads could at least get their first jobs overseas and would only come back(if they chose to do so) when they've racked up some experience. No such luck now.

As an anecdotal evidence. I have two such friends who graduated from NUS FASS without honours this year. That would be in May-June. Both in psych. None have gotten any jobs yet. Not trying to be a fear-monger or anything. But dont just bet on your degree. Ensure that you have certain extra skills to entice your employer into hiring you.

Well looking ONLY at psychologist jobs in the civil service like MINDEF and MOE etc. a good honours degree specifically in psychology tends to be the minimum requirement. An engin or biz grad isn't going to get any interviews if he applies to be a defence psychologist.

Then there will be some psychology grads will decide not to pursue psychology related careers upon graduation too.

Psychology is probably one of the more useful FASS majors, behind econs. Definitely better prospects than philosophy or literature. There's virtually no job ad that specifies applicants must have specifically a philosophy or literature or history major.

Regarding your without honours friends...well I think that'd be a problem regardless of major.

I'm not a psychology major but been job hunting for civil service jobs and those are my observations from scouring the job ads for months now.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Well looking ONLY at psychologist jobs in the civil service like MINDEF and MOE etc. a good honours degree specifically in psychology tends to be the minimum requirement. An engin or biz grad isn't going to get any interviews if he applies to be a defence psychologist.

Then there will be some psychology grads will decide not to pursue psychology related careers upon graduation too.

Psychology is probably one of the more useful FASS majors, behind econs. Definitely better prospects than philosophy or literature. There's virtually no job ad that specifies applicants must have specifically a philosophy or literature or history major.

Regarding your without honours friends...well I think that'd be a problem regardless of major.

I'm not a psychology major but been job hunting for civil service jobs and those are my observations from scouring the job ads for months now.

You see, the problem is EVERYONE knows that. It doesnt take a monkey to know that psych is one of the more useful arts/humanities majors behind econs. But BECAUSE everyone knows that, everyone heads for psych degrees. Why? Simple. In terms of degrees, you could say that there are three tiers of difficulties. At the top would be engin and sciences. 2nd would be biz/acct. 3rd would be the arts/humans/social sciences. Im ignoring medicine/law for now. Anyone would want to do something easy BUT also profitable. Hence they choose the most 'useful' social science degree, thus the large numbers of students taking psychology. Look at the numbers that NTU takes in for psych, its more than English or sociology or History. Same goes to NUS FASS. Most FASS students want to major in econs or psych. Lastly, look at the private institutes. They DONT even offer things like philosophy or literature or Histoy or Linguistics because students want to do psych instead. Yes, there are MORE jobs for psych grads then there are for literature or philosophy grads. Definitely. However, the proportion of psych grads graduating severely outnumbers the number of positions that are available here. Heck, even Chinese Literature has a higher employment rate than psychology :

://.moe.gov.sg/education/post-secondary/files/ges-ntu.pdf

Its smart of FASS not to publish the employment rates of their different majors though.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

You see, the problem is EVERYONE knows that. It doesnt take a monkey to know that psych is one of the more useful arts/humanities majors behind econs. But BECAUSE everyone knows that, everyone heads for psych degrees. Why? Simple. In terms of degrees, you could say that there are three tiers of difficulties. At the top would be engin and sciences. 2nd would be biz/acct. 3rd would be the arts/humans/social sciences. Im ignoring medicine/law for now. Anyone would want to do something easy BUT also profitable. Hence they choose the most 'useful' social science degree, thus the large numbers of students taking psychology. Look at the numbers that NTU takes in for psych, its more than English or sociology or History. Same goes to NUS FASS. Most FASS students want to major in econs or psych. Lastly, look at the private institutes. They DONT even offer things like philosophy or literature or Histoy or Linguistics because students want to do psych instead. Yes, there are MORE jobs for psych grads then there are for literature or philosophy grads. Definitely. However, the proportion of psych grads graduating severely outnumbers the number of positions that are available here. Heck, even Chinese Literature has a higher employment rate than psychology :

://.moe.gov.sg/education/post-secondary/files/ges-ntu.pdf

Its smart of FASS not to publish the employment rates of their different majors though.

Yes, it's definitely a tough situation, but my point is that it's no tougher than any other major when it comes to general degrees. Having access to more specialised niches can only ever help, never hinder.

At the end of the day the fact that there is too much supply just means one has to make sure he has good honours at the very least....a fact that holds true in any field nowadays.

I emailed the HR person about my psychometric test taken couple of months ago because I hadn't heard from them, and she said 'most probably still processing', and said I can let her know if I want to apply for other posts.

Is this legit or just being politically correct and a nice way to say I didn't make it?

my friend in mindef social media department, seems like a good job. can order nsfs to do things, only have to work longer hours when near important events date, the rest of the time quite relaxed. earn quite a lot also.

Anyone able to get in touch with that Yvonne lady from MINDEF HR or anyone else in the same department to respond about job application status?

I think everyone there must've disappeared for year end holidays...