.

tbh this is a super lame reason to quit your job.

LOL not trying to be insulting here, but you can wait long long to join a management consultancy with just a IT diploma...

diploma hr jobs are usually those clerk/administrator type like hr assistant, staffing co-ordinator, training administrator etc. not much value in climbing corp ladder if you ask me

as for consulting, probably only those super low level ones like recruit express, manpower, addecco etc will accept diploma, but then their jobs are mostly telemarketing

My advice is to study full-time and complete your degree first. Concurrently, you should look for internships in relevant consulting firms, starting from the least popular ones. The more popular ones would be fiercely vied for by local university students and sometimes even they may not get in.

Recruitment consultants are largely a sales job. Anyone can do it, as long as they bring the numbers in. So your career goals here are quite divergent. You might want to take a step back and evaluate what exactly you're looking out for.

Lastly, everyone in this line is good with people, has excellent communication skills, and always willing to give it their all. But the true test comes when you're expected to stay past midnight in office whenever your project deadlines are near and your boss doesn't see eye to eye with what you're proposing and just won't give clearance of your work and you're starting to wonder when was the last time you left office before 8pm. Think twice before moving into consulting.

Not to be insulting, but hello jerkwad! Did you even read what I wrote? Did I say I want to join a management consultancy with an IT diploma?? Even I laughed at that because that will be stupid. And also at you...But I don't mean to be insulting.

You think you're so smart judging people on what a "lame decision" I made to quit my job. Do you even know what job was I working as? It won't contribute anything to what I'm going to do, and honestly I don't think it's "lame". Also, it being an irrelevant is one of the factors, not a deciding one. At 22 years old, I shouldn't be settling with job with absolutely no career prospect and sit on my lazy ass and not do anything about it. With that job, I will get 2.8k in 10 years time if I'm lucky. Also, my UOL-BIZ degree won't be much of a use there when I do graduate. So it'll be a useless piece of paper.


I've heard and read about UOL grads getting decent salary on various HR positions, so I would think it's possible to hold decent HR positions when I do grad. Not that I'm expecting to be business partner or anything, not that naive but just a hr career path where I won't be stuck on a post with no career progression.

I repeat, I have 3 years which I can make use of as I'm studying part-time, to get myself some useful exposure in this industry and maybe in 3 years time hopefully I will have a clearer view of the specifics I want to do in HR and set better career goals then. Or if I'm even cut out to be in the industry.

Hi, thanks for your honest, non-condescending and helpful reply!

I was thinking the same too, internships in relevant consulting firms. A no-name one of course, lest anyone here thinks I'm too ambitious. No worries guys, I'm not going to cold call McKinsey or Bain.

But I have a question, why do you think I should study full-time instead of part-time?

I know what you mean, when I hear people described themselves as that, I roll my eyes too.The only selling points I have currently are my prestigious IT diploma hah, I'm learning to speak Spanish, French and Mandarin fluently(not all at the same time), an active volunteer for non-profit organisations and I'm well-traveled and did I mention I'm gorgeous with great breasts(kidding).

Thanks again for your suggestion, yes internships will be one of the options I shall consider.

So much for the claim of "I'm good with people, strong verbal communication skills".

Just casual observer hor don't flame me please, but if you are going to react so negatively to a slightly harsh online anoynomous posting, maybe you should not join hr.

There will be far more in the face insults you get from candidates & employees in the future as hr. This is very mild already.

I don't think its realistic to hope for an internship in any management consultancy firm, even the smaller ones. There are so many NUS/NTU/SMU undergrads and sometimes even graduates who are willing to intern for free/low pay yet cannot get in.

My take is that anyone who suggest otherwise or imply that you have a chance for an internship in such consultancies with only a IT diploma while studying pt are clueless and sending you on a wild goose chase.

If you will really want to build up your hr credentials, it's better to join a decent MNC as an officer/asst level hr generalist. Then you can gain some exp in the 3 years while waiting to graduate. Then hopefully can convert into hr executive.

As for recruitment agents, they belong to sales and not hr. Such exp will not help much in moving to a corp hr role in the future.

What is the timeline difference between studying part-time and full-time? Could you complete the degree faster if you are taking full-time? Being gorgeous with great breasts might help a little I guess.

I'm posting this here because I know alot of HR experts will probably browse this topic.

As a rule of thumb, are we (job seekers) expected to negotiate salary after the first offer?

I've change jobs about 3-4 times now. Currently an AVP at a wholesale bank. I've always accepted the first offer.

Usually, my interviews are always with business but it is the HR that presents the offer letter to me. HR always tell me that salary is not negotiable when I ask them if the pay offer is fixed.

Of course I know you will say that. Typical. But hearing insults IN THE FACE from my EMPLOYERS are part and parcel of the worklife, instead of an insult from an ONLINE ANONYMOUS person who thinks he's better than others without some sort of credentials to prove is dumb. Why will anyone subject themselves to insults from that??

Yeah you may or may not be educated but that wouldn't matter because you're typical, condescending, egoistic ape but don't blame me, I'm just being a casual observer.

I communicated strongly and I AM amazing with people, but you're not one.

Thanks, will look into that too. an entry level HR generalist.

No difference between part time and full time. Still 3 years.

Regional C&B manager (APJ) in a leading IT MNC. Drawing 12k - 13k /mth. Graduated in 2003.

Advice to C&B wannabe:
1) Get GRP certification from worldatwork. Costs around 10k for full certification (8 modules)
2) Be excel savvy.
3) Lots of luck as most MNC do not hire fresh graduates for C&B role. Therefore, your best chance for C&B role is to hope for internal transfer.

I'm just being candid about what I observe, why get so defensive & emotional about it?

Getting some occasional critical comments is also part & parcel of online participation. If you are going to get so combative over something trivial like this, I doubt you are going to take real life insults in stride like what you claim.

Anyway I have said my piece, if you insist on claiming you are real amazing with people during work, then there's nothing more I can say. It's your career & time after all.

Cheers.

Hi, how relevant is C&B consulting work experience when it comes to moving into a in-house C&B role in a leading MNC in the future? My consulting experience generally encompasses total rewards strategy with a strong focus on total compensation. Projects I've handled include salary structure reviews, executive bench-marking, total compensation reviews, etc. Of course we also primarily use excel spreadsheets to do all our analysis.

Generally speaking, if you come from the usual consulting companies like Mercer, Hewitt or WW, you will be perceived to be credible. However, please note that in-house role is very different from consulting. You may be able to land the job easily. However, to perform and excel is another story. I have seen examples of folks who cannot perform in a in-house role despite having more than 10 years of experience in consulting.

What would you say are the key skill set differences that would help in performing in in-house as compared to consulting?

I guess it really depends on which consultancy firm you are talking about. Generally the better ones like Mercer, Towers it should be relatively easy to make a switch to a junior role in C&B in-house as long as you clock up some 2-3 yrs of experience since most leading MNCs use them & they are quite comfortable with your experience.

Some of the less prestigious ones like Hay, Hewitt, HRBS you might need to moderate your salary expectations a little as most of the skillset portability is not too good with inhouse roles & they might have reservations.

As for the smaller boutiques like Alexander, Carrots etc. it would be hard pressed to get a decent role in leading MNCs unless you start from scratch at entry level as their focus is too narrow.

As someone who started in consulting for some 5 years followed by another 7+ years corporate since then, I would say the biggest difference between consulting & in-house roles is the need to get your hands dirty, implement & deal with the various ops issues.

Highly valued traits like excel, presentation skills in consulting become muted, i.e. as long as you have some basic decent competency, it will be good enough. Instead the focus shifts to customer service, corporate politics, HRIS and the ability to find the optimal mix between coaxing, persuading & coercing the line to get them to help you.

Most consultants find the first few years of transition to corporate roles tough as they become implementers of the plans they used to design (design will usually be project managed by HQ & there is little involvement for a junior-mid level C&B person).. This means chasing / begging your BPs to adhere to deadlines, sitting down going through line by line with some ah pek ops manager, answering queries from many lower level folks on the calculations, liasing with HRIS, payroll & shared service to correct process errors etc.

My observations is that the earlier someone from consulting moves to in-house C&B, the higher the chances of success. If not persevere until you chalk up >10 years of consulting experience, many MNCs will then be willing to hire such seasoned pros at an advisory or COE role. Worst IMO are those 5-8yrs exp, too late to start from scratch & not senior enough to get a middle manager role.

Thanks for sharing that much information.

Seems to me like a junior-level switch from consulting to in-house would give the incumbent a lot more administrative/operational responsibilities as opposed to C&B responsibilities. Understandable, seeing that there has to be people doing all the implementation work and you can't exactly entrust such role to HR people who have no prior exposure to C&B.

Considering that you have been in both in-house and consulting, is the work-life balance better in in-house as compared to consulting? Which do you see have more prospects and transferable experience? My guess would be in-house, seeing that if you have consulting experience, you really can only switch from consulting house to consulting house, but prior C&B experience in an MNC would mean that your experience would be valued across most MNCs.

Unfortunately you won’t get much of a chance to do strategic & design work, it is actually very apparent once you look at the organizational structure. I will go technical here since you have consulting experience. In a typical global large-sized MNC, design work is usually project managed by a Group Head of Reward with/without consultants, this is usually some ~PC65-66 level senior manager.

During the design process with stakeholders in RC, leadership team, senior HRBP, there will also be some form of engagement with the global C&B community. Usually the C&B sub functional specialists and regional C&B managers get involved in giving their feedback, policy planning, helping their boss put together data & paper for formal approval. These are usually ~ PC59-62 mid-level managers.

If you have a few years of experience in consulting, you will likely join on a junior analyst level position ~PC49-51. So you can see how far away you are from the policy design value chain. The only involvement one will get in terms of design at this level will usually be data submission if you ask me. Nevertheless that doesn’t stop many companies from exaggerating in their JDs how “strategic” such roles will be, read them with a pinch of salt.

Work-life balance in corporate roles are more varied depending on the company culture and your boss, this is better than consulting where OT everyday is a given. In certain roles there might also be off-peak periods where you can do the 9-6 routine.

If you are talking about transferable experience, naturally corporate allows for far more flexibility & opportunities. The variety or roles and organizations you can join will of course be wider than C&B consulting industry which is actually very small in Singapore. In consulting roles, once you reach junior lead level, you must hit your sales targets, otherwise it’s more or less game over hantataki for you.

Thanks once again for the elaborate response.

I guess right now the best thing to do for me is to hang around in consulting for a few more years before making a move into a junior role in corporate C&B, since chasing sales numbers isn't exactly my cup of tea. I am curious though, if you could share, what are some of the exact job responsibilities you can expect to handle between PC49-59? It's quite a big gap and I am interested to know just how much non-strategic and administrative work they can give to an incumbent but yet still justify the job position as a PC5x.

Additionally, I presume so far your experience relates to leading MNCs. What about the smaller MNCs in terms of revenue/assets? Assuming that they are smaller but yet still feel justifiable enough to have a C&B arm, how much does the chain of command differ there from a larger MNC?

It is hard to categorize exactly what job scope is for each PC as it differs from company and many a times it is more seniority and expectations than anything else. But I will list down a few dimensions of a C&B non-managerial role (i.e. 49-59) that determine this wide variance:

1. Geography - Country level, SEA, Asia, APAC, APAC-EMEA etc.
2. Scope - Pensions, general benefits, STI, LTI, benchmarking, JE, Banding etc.
3. Seniority - Analyst where main focus is playing spreadsheets to a more advanced level where emphasis is more on stakeholder engagement
4. Initiative - From task execution to expected to drive complex projects across multiple regions

In terms of smaller MNCs, usually those below USD10 billion turnover & <5,000 FTE worldwide my personal recommendation is to try & avoid those roles. Theoretically there is nothing wrong with starting from a smaller company, but such companies face many constraints:

1. The C&B team is too small. Usually they have like 2-3 C&B person in HQ & maybe 1 guy in each region & little or no C&B knowledge at all in the country level. I've heard stories of peers from such companies running around headlessly receiving no direction from HQ, getting cornered by the line & local BPs while having to deal with all sorts nitty gritty nonsense without support at all because it's a 1-man show.

2. Smaller MNCs usually have very weak knowledge from the line & HRBPs. This means lots of endless phone calls to even educate them on the basics like how to do a pricing, calculate bonus, what does a job grade mean, different types of insurance etc.

3. They usually aren't going to spend too much on vendors, your personal development or software tools. My analyst used to work in a smaller Fortune500 company, he tells me that they actually ration survey participations to every alternate year and once every 3years for countries that have <100 people. He was unable to attend any forum, seminar or networking sessions unless they were free.

4. Try managing expats without Cartus, ECA, Mercer etc. No kidding, it is much easier to manage 10 expats with these vendors then to do it yourself for 1 single expat in a smaller MNC.

Woo.. Sounds like a true HRBP!

Not like me.. Working for almost 5 years in manufacturing company.


I started off with HR admin work that focus on NTS (foreign workers) and only drawing $1600 (dip- consider fresh in HR line)

Now the role "evolved" into so call HRBP.. But seems like generalist more.. Purely on recruitment, contact point for the business units..

Still alot of admin work like wp renewal, projects like OJT program etc..

Position as HR officer.. Drawing only $2400 per month..

And now, new boss is hiring new HR executive with no HR experience that draws more than me...

Probably after graduating my Deg in HRM.. Can jump ship...

Seems like you are just doing an admin job with a fake title of HRBP.

If you really want to move forward in your career, you need to already have a focus on which area you are going to specialize in. Can be BP, Talent, L&D, OD, C&B, HRIS whatever, but just getting a deg & jumping into yet another generalist ops job will not get you anywhere.

The HR field is full of old aunties & uncles who are near retirement holding a 5k "HR Manager/Director" admin job, it's a sad state of affairs.

moral of the story, do not join as hr admin generalist, its a career death sentence like an accountant who start off in a SME instead of big 4

once wrong very hard to recover career wise

Hi, need quick help here.

I am a HR Associate with >3 years experience in a European insurance firm as an assistant to a HRBP.

Due to reorg, company offered a transfer within HR as Resource Planning Associate together with an increment to a basic of 6k. Not very sure about job detail, but base on briefing it is a role that specializes in manpower planning in terms of headcount, budgeting and analyzing of various HR metrics.

I am worried that this role becomes too specialized as base on what I hear from others, there is no similar role in other companies, don’t want to get into a position few years down the road without relevant experience and have to join some generalist position. Anyone have similar experience with similar job scope can share?

do you have other options? 6k is very good for someone who has only 3 years of indirect experience. go for it first and consider other options as they come.

The alternative is to stay in current job, but boss told me prospects are not bright since I am unable to relocate to take up other roles due to personal issues.

My 3+ years experience is not indirect, I am already doing all these things in my current role, just that it now it is less intense & more diversified.

6k is pretty much the standard in my company for all my peers who join the same time as me, so I dont regard the pay as very attractive. I am more concerned about the portability of skills next time if I move into HR in another company.

You can take up the offer unless your interest is in other areas.

If after 1 – 2 years don’t like the job, at least got enough experience to apply for a junior BP opening – nothing to lose. Btw is this your first job after school or you have experience in other industry?

Thanks for the comments.

Yes it's my first job since graduation. I was a graduate trainee, signed up for Marketing, but somehow got allocated to HR instead.

Hi, I'm an NUS male Business grad with 3 years + experience as a recruiter currently working in an agency. I would like to switch to the corporate side to do resourcing. (Recruitment, budgeting for manpower, planning) etc and saw an opening at a government education institution to do so. I am aiming for a junior HRBP role in about 3 years time. Is this a good step? Would anyone be able to advise on the salary range I could be getting compared to a foreign MNC?

Thanks!

Government organizations do not have real HRBP irregardless what title they call the job. The ops are process by the book kind and HR just follows whatever policy guidelines set at the top, very little discretion given. If your ambition is to become BP, then the public sector is the wrong place to go into as their HR are mostly ops / admin position. The real government BP are in PSD which most of the time they only accept scholars or at least 1st class honors from NUS/SMU/NTU

As for going MNC it depends on what sort of recruitment your experience is. If you are a mid-level recruiter at big firms like Hudsons, Robert Walters, Talent2 etc. with a credible billing track of >300k annual, you can apply for a talent specialist position at 8-9k.

If your experience is junior staffing like RE, Kelly, Adecco, GMP etc, then you can only go for generalist like Recruitment / Staffing Sr Exec at ard 3-4k.

Mine is more of junior staffing with a billing track of about $200k. I am currently drawing 4-5k and have applied for many Staffing Exec positions with not much results despite the fact that I am willing to take a pay cut for better prospects in future. Guess I'll wait till the begining of next year for more opportunities.

Thank you so much for your advise and have a great weekend!

Ur welcome.

In this case your only hope is to broaden your options and go for a generalist HR Sr Exec job instead. There are many jnr positions available in the market now, if you just package your experience properly should be able to get like a 3-3.5k job.

Better than just hanging around for a staffing opening that IMO is not much of a career progression anyway.

Tero...

I am an engineer for 2 years and I want to switch to specialize HR where I can learn the ropes of basic HR and comps&ben in future...
Is your company hiring because Dom marketing u were allocated to Hr instead,
For me as engineer dealing with proj mgt, I wanna out of this industry because I am really interested in HR where It gives me a strong talking point in conversations, people and business.. One day I feel like gg into business partnering with all experiences accumulated..

Guys from here in Hr field...
I have my CV ready and wanting to step into a HR industry

- corporate HR, comps n ben, BP
Hope to deal with workman compensation, claims, leaves etc

I have tried many applications but in vain.. I missed the 1 year timeline boat of career switch.. I guess

u are applying the wrong jobs, BP, com&ben dont do workman com, claims, leaves etc

u should be going for hr exec or payroll exec if u wana do those. no wonder ur applications are rejected.

You are a very confused person and it is best you take a step back and re-assess what you want before jumping around. I'm not surprised you got nothing so far if this is how you position yourself.

For strong talking points about businesses, corporate planning, sales or finance is where you should be, not HR (except for specialist roles that you have 0% chance of getting)

If you want to talk to people, customer service, sales or marcoms has much more opportunities for talking.

I also don't see how your interest in workman compensation, expense claims and leave administration has got anything to do with your professed career goals.

My gut sense from all your posts is that you got disillusioned with Engineering and in your drive to get out, started harbouring inaccurate and romanticised notions of HR. This is not healthy.

Hmm
 

I think he meant he wanted to specialize in a Hr skills set be it CNB, recruitment,HRiS etc but basic Hr knowledge he wants to know too..
True he can't have everything but he wants a specialized scope with general Hr knowledge of workman compensation, leaves, payroll.

Alot engineering company provide such exposure from general role, pay leave and when much exposure understand how the various business units run goes into understand strategic how the company wan to diversify their speciality n assets sometimes

I think that's what he meant

unfortunately it dosn't work like that.

ops generalist and specialist are 2 complete different world, no such thing as getting "general knowledge" masak masak first then pick what to specialize.

chalking up years of exp in ops transactions like claims, workman comp or leave will be of zero value in specializing in any areas of hr, they are not even hr activities strictly speaking

many co. are outsourcing or consolidate these activities to a central admin centre to cut cost

To be fair I know cases of ops HR becoming BP in the end, but they it takes very long. The few I know are already late 40s who work from the ground up for decades slowly before getting into BP.

So the engineer guy need to ask himself what career he really want.