NUS Bachelor of Arts Fresh Grad Starting Pay?
 

Hi everyone. I would like some advice and feedback, please. Kindly enlighten me. Please be as honest as you can/would like.

I graduated from NUS last July (year 2011) with a Bachelor of Arts (Pass with Merit) and am drawing a starting pay of SG$2300 gross monthly before CPF cuts. I am working for a non-government, non-profit organisation, environment industry, official working hours 0900 - 1730 hrs, 5-day work week as an Executive. I don't have prior permanent work experience, only did vacation and contract jobs prior to securing this current job, which is my first 'real' permanent job.

Is this a reasonable salary looking at my qualifications/experiences or am I being underpaid? Anyone else with similar qualifications? Care to share how much you're earning and in which industry? I have another job offer with a statutory board, but waiting for them to get back to me with the confirmed offer. They did not stipulate the pay yet although I am guessing somewhere quite similar, though longer working hours (0830 - 1800 hrs) and on some Saturdays too :-/

Thank you very much in advance for all your advice/feedback, and I greatly look to reading what you can share or have to say. Please kindly advice me. I really need some advice.

Are you a male which have done NS??

If yes, I think the statboard is going to offer you at least 2.8-3k, if not max 3.1k.

I do have a friend also grad in 2011 in NTU with just a 'pass' in engineering....working in ST engineering @ 3k starting with NS.

Also from other thread, someone who grad in 2008 local university with a 'pass' degree working in mindef @ 3.3k starting.

your 'pass with merit' degree is 1-tier better than the above 2 guy i had mention with just a basic 'pass' degree.

You should plan a career path and then do jobs that work towards that career. Not fussing over half an hour more working hours or an extra $200 a month. How old are you? 60 yrs old? No wonder employers prefer FTs even when they can't speak or write decent English.

looking at your qualifications, yes you are underpaid.

looking at your industry, no you are not. non-profits are not known for paying well.

@ Unregistered, 11:19 PM: No, I'm a female. Yes, I think working with stat board/government might provide me somewhat higher pay because I compared myself with my friends, colleagues and market rate, seemed like I'm quite lowly-paid for my qualifications, although I do not deny that the industry, experience and job scope play a role in determining one's salary. Thank you for your clarification.

@ Unregistered, 12:05 AM: What makes you think I'm not doing jobs that work towards that career? The current job I have and the one offered by the stat board are of similar business and industries and both will bring me to where I want to eventually end up along the career ladder. Only difference is one is NGO and the other, a stat board with possibly higher pay doing somewhat similar jobs. I'm now fussing over the pay as my tuition fee loan bills finally came in just last night and I am doing budgeting. Every hundred dollars count when you're earning this much and living in such an expensive city with large thousands of student loans in debt. " No wonder employers prefer FTs even when they can't speak or write decent English. " - The current job I'm holding requires me to meet all sorts of people, draft letters and make presentations to big companies and Ministries on a daily basis, so if that FT cannot speak or write decent English, (s)he'll struggle.

@ Unregistered, 6:05 AM: Thank you. That simple explanation was clear and concise.

Basically, I can't help wondering why pay so much for university studies only to end up being paid at a low rate afterwards such that I'm even struggling to pay off my tuition debt.

Run for your life ( While you still can )
 

Well, it will be worst if you don't have a degree.. Well the only consolation is that your basic starting salary is at least higher than diploma holders earning 1.8k without a degree...
the low salary you are getting now is bacause your are working in a industry that doesn't pay well..
If you are really after money.. You might want to consider a career switch into banking & finance dealing with sales or investments ..
But it might mean that you have to take on another student loan to do a finance-related qualification this time.... Since you're still young, you still have the time to make a career switch... If you don't, you just have to accept what your industry can offer you...
I agree that some University programs are just scams to milk the unknowing freshmen of their school fees.. I'm sure the Arts faculty did not warn the students during enrolment of the poorer remuneration and prospect after graduation when compared with other professions.. The Arts faculty staffs themselves are also trying to survive by making sure the rate of enrolment into the Arts programs is maintained so that they can keep their jobs.... It's a scam to deceive those who are uninformed... They themselves could be victims.. so they are just doing their part to share the bad karma...

I wouldn't say it's a scam but people with various qualifications are always needed in any society. Note that the degrees in local unis are always catered towards some sort of labour market gap/demand. You don't see any degrees in archaelogy or anthropology in sg unis do you? SG needs arts grads to be journalists, administrators, teachers, writers, hr managers etc. The only reason why people are clamouring for business degrees now (even to the extent of going after degrees offered by questionable and dodgy institutes) is the whole sexy image of the banking and finance lifstyle. These are the people who will be in for the real shock of their lives. (1 thing that B&F is not what they expected it to be, and 2 more imptly their qualifications might not guarrantee them that coveted job.) not the local uni grad. after all the civil service tends to soak up local uni grads like a sponge.

are you serious ? gross 2.4k ? Basic 2.4k is already considered low for a fresh local grad, or maybe it's that low for arts students..sucks to be you though..

MFA, Mindef and SAF/police jobs are all paid 1 tier higher, so your friend with the $3.3k is most likely to be paid around 3k outside.

Given the fact that TS is a female and because of the non-ns thing, her rightful starting salary should actually be around 2.6 - 2.7k. MFA is quite hard to get into without at least 2:1. She might want to consider applying to Mindef since they're always ever so willing to take in females anyway. Not that its a shoo-in case (there are also highly qualified female applicants around) but she'll stand a higher chance there.

Anyway just curious, how would a NUS B.A holder be able to 1st break into the financial sector? I'm talking about back-end/BO ops of course.

Marketing, corp comms?