Everytime I pop by this thread I get more amazed. HR must be the most lucrative career and best kept secret in the universe.

At first is people claiming super high salaries that put the IBs to shame. Then consultants say it is usual for fresh grads in HR firm to be having discussions with Board Director/ CEO/ CXO… Now better still, even undergrad HR interns and temp administrators are claiming their jobs are like SVP/VP.

Simply bizarre.

The earlier response are not bad, got some pros explain different career path in HR & pay difference between specialist and generalist, I am graduating next year and open to joining HR so is very useful to me.

It is only recently that the thread got derailed by jokers who are more interested in boasting about what a big shot they are then providing information, just ignore the last 5 pages of this thread.

Actually HR managers pay very high cos they can kill the company by hiring a ton of idiots. Which will trigger the "bozo-explosion" lololololololololololololololol.

Of cos if u do paper work nia then not consider HR liao

When I started my first job about 8 years, I had discussions with Directors and my CEO quite often.

Usually we discuss what coffee/tea they want me to buy for them and where to buy that's nice to drink but still reasonably priced. They are nice people, they won't ask their PA to tell me indirectly but will ask me into their meetings rooms for this serious discussion.

And yes, I was in the HR Dept. Human Retriever. :)

Need Advice...(No exp HR manager vs CPIB IO)
 

Ok i need serious advice here.. some will think negatively for both offers, but listen me out...

I am currently in an engineering firm doing project management and sales. All in all I have 2.5 years of project management in civil engineering industry which also includes sales experience. Both in govt and in pte firm.

I am thinking of switching to HR field...or either that to an exciting investigation job with CPIB which was being offered to me last year..."about 4,3k for CPIB"

for the HR field, it is a friend business dealing with logistics, courier services.
He is the boss and his business is into the 2nd year which has big clients of KPMG, AWS and is doing well, currently expanding. But this company is new and my friend feel I can make the cut as HR manager even without experiences...he jus wanted someone who he can trust in his business..(but many advice friends should nv be colleagues)"I am not investing anything"

down side is courier service is competitive, he himself is a malay, and the company is malay dominated (not racist) but because delivery job mainly are malays taking the offer. This new setup need HR and new a HR setup and being in corporate and MNC, i understand simple HR matters, not strategically but generalist job is simple to understand. From payroll, leaves, simple employment act, outsource insurance etc. I have also understood simple taxes as I worked in IRAS before. I have also studied basic HR in university locally... just 1 module.

He is willing to offer about 4.2k to hire me...(but this does not justify market trend as I hv no experience), and market will will recognise my credentials as a HR manager based on my resume, he hire me probably because I have good portfolio in the army days, I am trustworthy and align with his goals and my working exp as project engineer. (Logical, sensitive and people oriented)

My this friend has HR exp at hotel line, and failed a business before. well spoken and do all financial himself. He started the company with ACRA and external aduit firm will aduit his company. So he also needs IT dept, financial dept to start. Of course, its up to me and him to recruit more delivery men for the job as this means more jobs and more sales. For me to recruit more executives, commercial and sales personnel for the company is also my job and his...

Environment to me is important, and doing HR is also an interest to me, helping my fren expand his business is risky but to integrate a racial dominated by Malay is not easy for me as I dun really like such a culture dominated by a certain race...(its not racist but more of own preferences).

Yes HR is not just above as mentioned. But there are many companies startup with new beginning and need new setup for every dept... problem is whether should I go for it? The road is not easy...izzit risky jus to try enter his company and work and try out?

Yes indeed we cant compete with company like DHL, Fedex and other logistics coy...but this is the challenge

My friend excel well in the army days as regulars and has wide network with major COL and high ranks officer where they recommend many clients to him.

Othe wise... I wanna quit my engineering job to enter CPIB IO as investigation is always a thing for me... the working hrs are long I noe..but I believe passion will overcome most of the downsides...of course I hope it will not be like this when I have a family and kids...

the pay is considerably stable but I heard there are dangerous moments for this job...

I am in a hesitation mode...how...?

:(

My opinion is to either ask for at least 20% shareholding of your friend co. as a business partner or join the CPIB straight away.

Think about it, you totally no exp with HR and your friend's setup is just a 2 year old small pte company, thousands of failed SMEs have MNC as clients, it means absolutely nothing. You call yourself HR Manager is already straight away a joke, it's like the blind leading the blind. Most likely like all SME you will be doing saigang & not really doing HR.

Either join as a partner as entrepreneur or join CS for job security. If you just join friend SME w/o any shareholding, if succeed after few years upside you get nothing at all except a fake title, but if later kapok, you are stuck with a silly HR Manager title with totally no relevant HR experience, no job, and probably engineering not going to take you back also.

not trying to be funny... but getting shareholdings but not investing any amount? who will want that? it will complicate things when something happen to the company being shareholder? equivalent to director...and owner of the company..
liabilities will be shared... I wouldnt want that either?

In fact demanding shareholding as part of compensation is a common practice among starting companies. Put it this way how else are small firms going to attract good caliber people otherwise? Their salaries are low, benefits marginal, training is a joke compare to MNC & usually looks very bad on anyone’s CV, why will good people want to join them? There are not enough dummies to con just by giving fancy title & even if there are, this is not the kind of people you want right?

Think about it, if there is no shareholding, what value does this adventure give you? You just end up choosing a high risk job with meager pay, no value add to CV, learn nothing about HR & get totally no rewards on the upside for the risk you take. To me is a no brainer to choose CPIB if there is no form of share compensation to compensate you abandoning your current job just to join a startup.

Minority shareholder does not automatic grant you directorship, this is something for you all to work out. Don’t kid yourself you’ll be doing anything HR in such startups, they don’t have the luxury to hire one manager just to do HR, it will be 20% HR 80% other stuff.

My 2 cents, think wisely.

The job from ur friend’s co sound like HR process co-ordinator. How many people under you? Usually you should have 1 assistant for every 50 people in the co., otherwise can tell you is super siong.
It is safer to join established BPO company like Boardroom/GMP/Manpower etc if you want to learn transactional processes than take the risk in a startup IMO. Benefits & bonus are also much better & more important is a better brand name for future careers.

My assessment
 

Yes I agrees with most of the things you mentioned. It's obvious a risk to take, and fancy me asking for shareholding is quite bluntly and greedy to ask for. To pay someone with no HR experience a HR manager pay compared to the market is really a laughing stock already and it is also his risk when I am leaving.
What worried me is a startup is not easy but by stating proper HR business process align to company objectives should b the challenging thing. One step at a time..

2nd is the Malay domineering part. I have to task myself to recruit necessary and required personnel based on company required portfolio and sales. Not many delivery job will be taken by Chinese.. All in all the company should have a mixture of race, well calibre personnel fit for an Organisation that deliver the best courier service. I would need finance and slowly IT personnel etc.. I believe HR assistant I can find easily in the market with considerably low pay.

Perhaps I shouldn't be offered a HR manager role but an assistant manager first and state in my résumé HR manager only after a year? In terms of credential and credibility, my friend has exp of HR asst manager at hotel line and decided to start this coy in 2010...

If shareholding is really a must, I would rather take bonus or profits sharing at end of the year.. Because I aren't the core person clinching sales for the company, there are sales manager or more sales mgr coming in depend on capacity availability. Right now, friend needs someone to integrate all the here general stuffs for HR to have a system within.. From payroll, leaves and to personal employee C&B, recruitment.

An employee handbook would be good...

Joining CPIB is safe choice but not necessary good route for starting a family and gain ultimate satisfaction? It's a join and hard to leave thingy.. 2.5 years bonded inclusive of training..

I work in mnc & sme hr. To me the really put off part about SME is not they have no brand name but the fact they have no money to invest in IT programs and no budget to outsource low level admin work. Everything is like super manual & stuck in 1990.

Payroll using excel, leave, ot, timesheets all on paper or punch clock, no budget for ad or agencies, endless trip to MOM, ICA, IRAS, CPF over documentation, calculation, looking for paperwork. End up just working long hours on low productive paper work because everything is done manual.

Yessssssss
 

Totally agreeeeeeee

This kind of sme problem is not restricted to only hr department, others like finance, marketing, sales, logistics all suffer the same fate as well.

I work in a jap regional logistics department & sometimes interview people from sme. Most of the time is a waste of time because although they are call themself manager, director, specialist, they dont know how to use SAP or other common platform like Descartes because these sme all cannot afford enterprise solutions. Most who are from sme seem to use excel to do everything under the sun and sometimes combine with some never heard before local software.

At first I try to tell myself not to be bias against people from sme background, but now I really don't bother, just wasting both parties' time only. The knowledge gap is too big between big companies and local sme experience.

CPIB Investigation Officer

Pay - 4.3k
Job Security - High
Bonus - 3 to 4 mths
Benefits - Good for you & family
Work Life Balance - Decent to very good
Annual Leave - 18 to 24 days yearly
Promotion - Standard as long as no cock up
Development Opportunity - Good to very good

Friend Company HR Manager

Pay - 4.2k
Job Security - Low
Bonus - Uncertain
Benefits - Poor
Work Life Balance - Poor
Annual Leave - Maybe 14 days? Likely no chance to take
Promotion - No prospect
Development Opportunity - None


Where is the dilemma???

Beg to differ on work life balance... investigation IO... not so work life balance... must track and spy ppl, on standby...dangerous during mission, questioning can be till very late

got bond of 2.5 years...
if after 5 years want to leave for example... where can i head to? any thing above I mentioned are only my basic worries if i wanna start a family

Although IO work life balance not so good, but working for the small startup will not be better. Also unlikely you will do field work at CPIB forever, a lot of job rotation within home team.

Besides realistically even if you join the startup doing basic administrative work dealing with blue collar malay workers, after few years want to leave I don't see how your prospect will be any better also. Joining a friend sme startup not ideal for starting family also......

hmm CPIB is independent body report to PMO, dont think can job rotation with MHA...

well isnt there just a case of success story with SME if you are not the boss? guess not even one positive here..i will relook rethink again bah...

success story if your father is the boss loh

no free lunch in this world, if something is too good to be true then it is.

no company will hire a HR Manager with 0% relevant experience and only work 2 years in some unrelated engineering. do not make sense. more likely they think you are a desperate carrot head and they can throw the sh1t on you once you join.

Hey dude
 

Hey I hope u really did read my story carefully... Already said friend to bring me in, someone who can trust and don't mind paying to market rate.. Lets be realistic about his promise first...hiring me is a fact and not a myth...

If everything turn out to be not true, salary wise and scope, I will not be a fool not able to detect in first 2 months right? The problem u mentioned is not the underlying problem .. It's other factors that generate a discussion like exp, value for cause and long term planning...

my advise is this - never join a local small company unless you have no choice and unemployed too long. it destroys the career straight away, mncs and local blue chips are bias against hiring people from small size company and recruiters thrash your cv straight to the bin.

of course if is your family company or you start on your own then is different...

Is anyone here working as a HRIS/HRMS specialist/manager?

How's the demand and advancement for such a role?

HRIS are in high demand currently due to lack of supply in SG. Specialist level with >3 yrs exp is ard 8 - 11k and managers are mostly >10k for country level and >16k for regional level.

But you must know architecture & query implementation for common platform like PS/SAP/WD, administrator or user level considered generalist pay very low.

Wow this kind of pay almost same as HR business partner, but does one need any computing or programing degree to specialise in HRIS?

Just got the offer from one of the 3 local bank as a AVP for HR.

Anyone knows if the culture and work life balance there is good? Also what is the average pay for AVP in HR department for local banks?

10k. Local banks - culture of long hours, in-fighting among locals and foreigners hire their own kind. Sad but true.

It depends on which local bank and what specialization. I know DBS support function AVP is about 8-12k depending on experience. From what I hear in terms of stress level DBS is worst, follow by OCBC then UOB is best. How much are they offer you?

Don't mind can share your career path? Have you been banks and doing HR your entire career?

I started off in Keppel & stayed there for 2 years, then went to a MNC in the consumer industry for 3 years and then my current job in a foreign financial institution for also close to 3 years. In terms of experience I have rotated among almost all the key HR functions except HRIS & labour relations so I would consider myself relative well-rounded.

Thanks for the info. I cannot reveal the bank, but it is AVP for business partnering cum OD. They are offering me 10.9k although I indicated 12k in expected pay, but I am willing to take up if the work life balance is better than foreign banks and the culture not too political.

can intro me HR business partner job?

10.9k for AVP should still have some room for negotiation, have you tried talking to the hirer to see if they can offer a bit closer to your expectations?

I have thought of it before, but was countered with the fact that they will only review again after probation. Tried to negotiate something like that into writing, but the HR head was quite firm and insist there will be no exceptions to any employment contract template. Haha seems like the local bank is much stricter and more compliant then where I came from.

Yea that's the norm for banks, they are very strict on legal and compliance matters.

How much can i earn with an RMIT cert in oil & gas sector with a HR role?
Caught in between HR and finance in this sector.gona grad next year making preparation now

Please read through the topic from the beginning. HR has many jobs, some are very high paying some are very low. It depends on what job, not what industry.

Realistically with just a RMIT cert and no relevant exp it is unlikely you will be able to get into hr, too competitive.

If you really interested, maybe can take up administration jobs first (usually called operations hr or hr generalist) and work your way slowly to real hr jobs internally.

Thank you all so much for the replies. I learnt so much from reading the past 43 pages of this topic. Prior to this, my understanding of HR was a merged picture of HR generalist and specialist, didn't realise there was a clear distinction between the two.

I would, like many others, like to work in a HR specialist role. What are the character traits typical or required for a HR specialist? Eg for BP and recruitment, you need to be competitive, aggressive and outgoing?

Also, how feasible is it to apply to PSD (from the JD they seems like HR spec) and get fundamental HR spec experience for a few years and moving on to the private sector. Would this HR spec experience be viewed as relevant?

Thanks for your responses!

Yeah I saw the PSD ad too. Looks interesting. Not sure whether they're considering fresh grads though because they didn't specifically state it.

Here’s my 2c.

First off, I don't think character traits are all that important, it really depends on the situation. Sometimes being aggressive and smooth talker works, sometimes it doesn’t. Just be yourself, no need to act out a character that you think the employer is looking for.

For a freshie to start off in HR, the first important thing is actually academics. Ideally your chances will be higher if you get at least a FC honors from the 3 local uni or even better oversees institutions. The reason is because if you want to jump into HR straight away, the 2 most common ways are very competitive – 1) Join a reputable HR management consultancy or 2) Join a global MNC management associate program for a HR opening. Base on my observation anyone with less than first class in the 3 local uni is at disadvantage.

The other slower way to do it is to first join operational or general administrative jobs first and slow gain experience and move your career towards HR. These jobs are much more common in job ads & portals like “HR Executive” “HR Generalist” “Operations HR” etc. But the danger from this way is like people who join banking back office hoping to leap to investment banking, it seldom happens and there is a high chance you end up trapped in some crappy job.

As for the HR PSD job, I suggest you not waste your time if you do not have a FC honors + Deans list in a local university. Such PSD jobs are future training grounds in the public sector to select candidates for mid-career AO (i.e. scholar elite) program. If your academics is average or above average, totally no chance of taking a shot. This is open secret within civil service.