Oxford fresh grad starting pay
 

Hello,

Ill be graduating from oxford this year. May I know what compensation packages I should be expecting given that Ill be applying to GIC, foreign banks, and local banks?


Cheers!

Since you're a fresh grad, you'll have to take whatever they offer, your degree notwithstanding. If you have to put down a figure, you can try 5-6k.

The job market isn't particularly good these days. GIC has its pool of scholars, direct and indirect from government agencies, to tap on.

Any particular reason why you aren't trying London first? It's always good exposure for overseas grads (I assume you're Singaporean). Is London's jobs situation very bad?

about USD 35k per month

should nt be a problem.

friend this is not a command economy. you get paid based on where you work....

Dear Unregisted,

Ill most probably be trying the london firms as well, just wondering how competitive the pay packages are in singapore. Do you have any idea how much these GIC scholars get paid then?

you're graduating in a month and only applying now? that ship has long sailed mate.

GIC graduate program I was offered $5k p/m only. Pretty low but it goes up to $8k plus after 1st year when you get assigned to a dept.

After that, I dont know cuz I took up a bank job instead. I wasn't a scholar and it was precisely that reason why I didn't take up the job. You don't want to be second class the moment you enter.

$0 if you are jobless.

Highly overpaid. Such obscene pay leads to the obstentatious arrogance we see of overpaid bankers. Can't blame them. It's the result of over-liberalization of the finance sector in US. Affects the whole world.

On what basis do you say that $5k a month is over-paid?

Banking jobs are limited. The demand to land such jobs far exceed the supply. Like everything that is limited, a system of allocation needs to be in-place. Our society has elected to use the system of meritocracy - We allocate limited resources based on merit.

Perhaps, only the brightest 1-2% of our generation land such jobs. The top graduates from our education system.

What is the cut-off point for public housing? $10k pm. ($12k if you consider EC). What is the proportion living in private housing? About 20%.

So 20% of households should be earning >$10/12k per month. Income disparity rises as you go up the scale.

What should the top 1-2% of our society be earnining? How much do top 1-2% of Doctors, Lawyers, Company management earn in our society? About $1-2 million a year according to PAP. So a starting pay of $5k pm ($60k pa) seems to be on the low side to me.

you should include at least 4 months of bonus inclusive AWS (maybe can up to 8 mth, I dunno), so at least 80k pa!!!

5k is very high is you compare to engineer, it take about 6-7 years to hit 5k basic if you are good performer in the private sector in the same company......

If you ask me - it's a total waste for society's brightest to be in banking.

So what should they be doing?

Idiota....

Andrew Sheng, former Hong Kong central banker, has said, “how do financial engineers make five to ten times more salary than physical engineers year after year? Is there magic in the financial institutions ability to create return on equity that is significantly higher than real-sector companies like automobiles or energy? The answer is that they create risks through leverage and interconnectivity which, every ten years or so, become realised losses that are fully underwritten by the public sector through tax bail-outs. The financial sector is being subsidised by all the holders of financial paper through zero interest rate policies. Their liabilities are still guaranteed by central banks. Finance has become the biggest free rider of all time.”

To put it bluntly, the whole finance sector is a big scam, all thanks to the over-liberalization in USA. The high-earning bankers still say they create a whole lot of value, but their voice is always louder cos they make more money.

Excellent article from Kishore Mahbubani that touches on this:
http://www.mahbubani.net/articles%20...rom%20Asia.pdf

If you are the top 5% of the talent pool, you should get paid. That's meritocracy.

The industry that can pay the most will get its allocation of resources. If banking pays the best, it will get the people. Don't blame the bankers. They are just obeying the laws of the free market.

Isn't this the rationale our own PAP has adopted?

The government and regulators should get more blame for helping to distort the talent allocation and for allowing the finance industry to become unnecessarily big.

Just look at Singapore. Nobody wants to study engineering any more. Everyone and his cousin just wants to work in a bank. Probably the same situation in many other countries too.

Let me quote Andrew Sheng again: "Is there magic in the financial institutions ability to create return on equity that is significantly higher than real-sector companies like automobiles or energy?"

As he's a former central banker himself, I'm sure he knows he's part of the problem, except that the problem is too huge for him to fix alone.

"Why should a financial engineer be paid four to a hundred times more than a real engineer? A real engineer builds bridges. A financial engineer builds dreams and, when those dreams turn out to be nightmares, other people pay for it." —Andrew Sheng, in an interview for the 2010 financial industry documentary Inside Job.[6]

Andrew Sheng - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Let's say a civil engineer helps build a house and the developer puts it on the market for sale.

Do you need a house? Yes. But before you can get the house, what do you really need? Ans: YOU NEED A LOAN. No loan no house.

Let's say a mechanical engineer aids in building a car and the manufacturer puts it on sale.
Do you need a car? No, but you surely would like to have one. What do you need?
Ans: AUTO Loan.

How about both the developer and the manufacturer? What they need? They need working capital. They can issue shares or take a loan.. from who? Ans: Banker

So bankers manufacture alot of Products that society NEEDs.

We manufacture Dreams. Rather, we manufactur the product you need to obtain all your Wordly Dreams. So why shouldn't we get paid more than the Engineer?

well, if bankers stuck with doing house loans, auto loans etc, instead of developing fancy financial products, then they definitely wouldn't have such a bad rep right now.
yes, bankers manufacture dreams. the money exists only in the dreamworld. it doesn't exist in real life.

yeah, and maybe the PAP is wrong too?

Human beings. We need food & shelter. After that, it really are just wants. Some want fancier houses. Some want cars. Some want exquisite wines, watches, holidays etc.. Our wants are unlimited. Our wants always exceed our needs. Why? Consumerism. Greed.

So bankers manufacture another product as demanded by society- CDOs. Speculators hoping to make a quick buck out of a spiralling property market. Mortgage houses giving them cheap loans. Investment banks helping to collaterise the loans. Ultimately the greedy investors themselves who demand such "high-yield" products. What's the cause? It is not the banks. It is Greed.

Bankers are just manufacturing products that society demands. The better you are at it, the better you get paid.

I would say that $5k is overpaid considering returning scholars start at $3.5k... but more importantly, graduates from Chinghua & 北大, (arguably as competitive as Oxbridge) draw an average of RMB 6,000 upon graduation.

Also these Chinese & their IIT counterparts from India seem sufficiently happy to come and work 18hr days at the employment pass floor of $3000; in banks, IT etc.

It is not a god given that a person deserve 60K or 80k pa just because he is from oxford.

To command any salary, you need to be able bring in value to the employer that exceed the salary you are commanding

For a fresh grad who have no experience and no proven track record and probably still learning the rope for the 1st 2 years. Do you think he can bring in more than 80K pa of value

As yourself honestly, if you are employer paying salary using your own money, will you pay 80K to a fresh grad (even an oxford one) with no experience

On this basis I say 80k is overpaid.

That's the theory, Alec. It actually depends on whether she is pretty enough and whether she's able to convince the interviewer or hiring manager that she's worth the 80k or 100k. And there are managers who think with other body parts apart from the brain.

The premium pay for these graduans are often considered locking fees. Granted there is no guarantee they will perform but there is an expectation that these people will be the captains of the industry and as a result paying a premium early on could yield significant dividends later on when developing, especially for blue chip companies.

admissions assistant - only goddamn 30k pa

recalculating, 27k pa.

that's bad. you should job hop more often, especially when the economy is still doing well (and with tightening of foreign labour).

I don't know about GIC, but from what I know LSE and Oxford graduates that joined MAS and MTI aren't getting any more than the local gradautes. Around 3.8k I heard.

Oxford postgrad here, with lots of Oxford grad friends.

From what I observe, oxbridge may give you the label that you could be a "high-flyer", meaning your bosses may be looking out for you more than the rest, but expectations are certainly higher. In terms of real monetary benefits, you get none. If you perform well, good for you, because you have a higher chance of getting noticed. If not, it doesn't matter whether you're from Oxford for cowford, you'd be forgotten.

As for all the debates about $5k/mth being too much for a fresh grad, idk how much work is expected from GIC fresh entrants, so can't comment if they're overpaid. But for your investment banks and global consulting firms (MBB + tier 2), they're being paid more than that or at least the equivalent when joining as fresh grad. Of course, in the IB and consulting industries, you certainly MUST have excellent internship experience (and case study skills for consulting) to get the job. Once you enter, you really work like a dog. Work-life balance? Nah. So for those jobs, you are exchanging your time (and health) for $$. Not sure about GIC.

So what are you working as now?

Haha well if you're in a BB in IBD/S&T your starting pay is >10k. Though I heard local banks IBD/S&T is 5kish. How much does an MBB pay anyway?

MBB in Singapore pays around 6-7k (with high bonuses), but less hours than investment banking.

Roughly how many months bonus?

Testing with S&T